Speaking of politicians with CS degrees, Herman Cain has an MS in CS [1]. Not sure what my point is.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain</a>
<i>Conley at one point argued that companies like Apple are protecting "those who rape, defraud, assault, or even kill" with their encryption policies.</i><p>Isn't this is sort of like saying laws are protecting those who rape, defraud, assault, or even kill?
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.
Near the end Congressman Hurd asks the revealing question: "What exactly is the FBI asking for?"<p>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.
Rep. Ted Lieu makes some great remarks (including the quoted lines), that are further along in the embedded video, starting here: <a href="https://youtu.be/KsAkMZRAQLk?t=1h16m18s" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/KsAkMZRAQLk?t=1h16m18s</a>
[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'."<p>- Vice Chair Farenthold, in video, on creating back doors that are accessible to the "good guys" and impenetrable to anyone else
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.
If one looks at the backdoor placed in Dual-EC - or in type of backdoor engineered into this SHA1 variant (<a href="https://malicioussha1.github.io/doc/malsha1_lv.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://malicioussha1.github.io/doc/malsha1_lv.pdf</a>) - there are ways to provide a backdoor such that it is cryptographically hard to attack for anyone but the designer (NSA, etc).<p>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.
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.
Although the video is very entertaining. I do find it scary how technically inept most politicians are.<p>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.
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.
You don't need a backdoor since you can MitM either/both the user and Apple.<p><a href="http://blog.quarkslab.com/imessage-privacy.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.quarkslab.com/imessage-privacy.html</a>
> 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.<p>And implement.
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"<p>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?