
Congressman with CS degree: Encryption back-doors are ‘technologically stupid’ - not_that_noob
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/04/30/congressman-with-computer-science-degree-encryption-back-doors-are-technologically-stupid/
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nmrm2
Speaking of politicians with CS degrees, Herman Cain has an MS in CS [1]. Not
sure what my point is.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain)

~~~
nickysielicki
Woah! What!?

That is insane to me. Hermain Cain did his undergraduate in math and his
masters in CS... and from good schools, no less.

I wish I would have known this in 2012, I wonder how it would have made me
feel about him, when watching debates. I don't remember much about my opinion
of him, but I can definitely say it never crossed my mind that he would have
this background.

~~~
chubot
Yeah politics is crazy. It makes smart people seem stupid. When you're a
politician, I think you just have to talk in a way that is imprecise and which
appeals to base instincts, which makes you seem stupid.

But that is what works. Many politicians are brilliant polymaths and they all
seem to have converged on the same behavior.

I guess if you were to design a computer to be a politician, it would end up
in the same spot. Its job would be to appeal to people of different
backgrounds, who are irrational in different ways. (And don't think that
highly educated people in Silicon Valley aren't irrational in their own way.)

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sbov
_Conley at one point argued that companies like Apple are protecting "those
who rape, defraud, assault, or even kill" with their encryption policies._

Isn't this is sort of like saying laws are protecting those who rape, defraud,
assault, or even kill?

~~~
colinhowe
I read this as a missed opportunity to say "gun manufacturers are aiding those
who rape, defraud, assault, or even kill, with their manufacturing policies".

~~~
pjc50
Round about the first crypto wars, in the days of "this T-shirt is a
munition", people talked about trying to get crypto classified under the 2nd
amendment, as it would then enjoy much stronger protection than the 1st
amendment.

~~~
0942v8653
… and the xkcd: [https://www.xkcd.com/504/](https://www.xkcd.com/504/)

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compbio
Interesting framing with the CS degree. I guess sometimes I forget that
congress decides on issues that it has no formal education in. But the bold
preface "with CS degree" makes me question if we would accept an opinion on
this matter from someone who studied, say: philosophy, economy or liberal
arts. In that regard it feels a bit like an appeal to authority, or an
editorial decision: "technologically stupid" is not a Bushism by a computer
illiterate, but a legit criticism.

~~~
waterlesscloud
It's worth noting congressional staffers actually shape a lot of legislation.
They come from diverse backgrounds, but as a rule are _extremely_ intelligent
folks.

Two of the smartest people I've ever met were congressional staffers.

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disc
Does anyone know if there is a PAC aligned around technology-savy candidates?
Seems like something the EFF should be involved in.

~~~
randomname2
Not many of those. Maybe Thomas Massie (R-KY)?

U.S. Representative Thomas Massie entered Congress in November 2012 after
serving as Lewis County Judge Executive. He represents Kentucky’s 4th
Congressional District which stretches across Northern Kentucky and 280 miles
of the Ohio River.

U.S. Representative Massie attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s
Degree in Mechanical Engineering. During school, he invented a technology that
enabled people to interact with computers using their sense of touch, and
leveraged that technology to found SensAble Technologies, Inc., which raised
over $32 million of venture capital, created 70 jobs, and obtained 24 patents.
The hardware and software he developed is now used to design automobiles,
jewelry, shoes, dental prosthetics, and even reconstructive implants for
wounded soldiers.

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dropit_sphere
Near the end Congressman Hurd asks the revealing question: "What exactly is
the FBI asking for?"

This is the classic programmer-and-requirements problem. Ms. Hess and Mr.
Conley have very reasonable-sounding aims, but: they're impossible. That's all
there is to it.

~~~
sukilot
Please, it is CongressGNU Hurd.

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narsil
Rep. Ted Lieu makes some great remarks (including the quoted lines), that are
further along in the embedded video, starting here:
[https://youtu.be/KsAkMZRAQLk?t=1h16m18s](https://youtu.be/KsAkMZRAQLk?t=1h16m18s)

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EricSu
[paraphrase]"What we're saying today is the equivalent of saying 'We'll be
able to get to the moon in ten years and NO ONE ELSE will get there EVER'."

\- Vice Chair Farenthold, in video, on creating back doors that are accessible
to the "good guys" and impenetrable to anyone else

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remarkEon
It's really absurd that Mr. Conley prefaces his statement by saying "I'm
probably the least technically proficient guy here" and then goes on to make
the moon landing analogy. Maybe I have bad selective hearing, but when people
say things like that at the beginning of their statement I usually just stop
listening.

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xnull2guest
If one looks at the backdoor placed in Dual-EC - or in type of backdoor
engineered into this SHA1 variant
([https://malicioussha1.github.io/doc/malsha1_lv.pdf](https://malicioussha1.github.io/doc/malsha1_lv.pdf))
- there are ways to provide a backdoor such that it is cryptographically hard
to attack for anyone but the designer (NSA, etc).

The NSA has a term for these types of backdoors: NOBUS. Nobody But Us.
Schneier calls this idea silly, but the principle is sound if there are
cryptographic garuntees behind the backdoor (like above examples). Backdoors
in code are less likely to be NOBUS.

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robot22
I love the attitude some of speakers in the video show towards people with
technical understanding. I guess when you are incompetent you always need to
test people to see if they are lying.

~~~
thaumasiotes
How would you know?

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velox_io
Although the video is very entertaining. I do find it scary how technically
inept most politicians are.

If politicians had a basic understanding of mutual exclusivity (such a basic
concept in computing) and compound interest. The world would be a much better
state.

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andrewflnr
Is it not the case that the term "golden key" only became a term of mockery
after that linked editorial used it? In any case, since said editorial does
not appear to be using it satirically, it seems an odd thing to link in that
context.

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task_queue
You don't need a backdoor since you can MitM either/both the user and Apple.

[http://blog.quarkslab.com/imessage-
privacy.html](http://blog.quarkslab.com/imessage-privacy.html)

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hayd
> Under such a proposal, no one person or agency would hold all of the pieces,
> an approach some experts speculate could make such a backdoor harder to
> compromise.

And implement.

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rampant
It was entertaining hearing all the analogies used to put these technological
issues in perspective.

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codewithcheese
Made me laugh. This: “It’s impossible to build a back-door for just the good
guys — if somebody at the Genius Bar could figure it out, so could the
nefarious folks in a van down by the river"

Hopefully any encryption back door is not entrusted to somebody at the Genius
Bar. Why is the hacker in a van and at a river... phishing trip?

~~~
huehehue
I think the van bit refers to an old SNL skit
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=MfqIjqCbYUk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=MfqIjqCbYUk)

