California Introduces Bill To Ban Strong Encryption In Smartphones

[vaughn2k]

Welcome to the new world order?

 

[Minerelf]

I see people are still trying to get rid of privacy.

 

[dark_lord69]

"fine the sellers of the devices $2,500 per unit if they receive law enforcement requests for decryption and aren’t able to deliver."
Translation: You can have strong encryption but there needs to be a backdoor for law enforcement. Which defeats the point of strong encryption.
....
Dumb.

 

[frelled]

Clickbait title much? How does one shitty rep equal the state of California. Can you please attempt to be accurate and state at least "California Representative Introduces.....".

 

[wiyosaya]

Why are you blaming "liberals" for that? Have you read the definition of the term? Advocating for something that will deprive people of a personal liberty (to encrypt their phones) is NOT liberal at all, regardless of what these politicians call themselves! So don't be hillbillies blaming "damn liberals" in general, blame particular people who clearly are NOT liberal and want a police state, no matter what party they claim to belong to.

I would just like to say, as someone who lived most of their lives in the mountains and is considered a "redneck", a lot of us dont even get upset with liberals.
That aside, I do agree with your view of the parties. Anyone can claim to be a part of one party but carry ideals of the others.

Totally agreed.

I consider myself "liberal" in some aspects, but I would love to live in the mountains (if only I could convince my wife 😉 ) - but that is beside the point.

When "brain-dead" politicians pop up with asinine ideas like this, no matter what side of the aisle they are on, they need to be educated. Perhaps someone should explain to this particular brain-dead politician that his bill may very well open the door to his smart phone's content and may very well lead to an open-door policy that drains his financial accounts thus leading him to financial ruin. IMHO, education on these matters needs to be made personal to the politician since they apparently do not understand the ramifications nor even care what harm it might do to their constituents.

 

[wiyosaya]

If they "need" the information on that device they can get it

With properly done encryption, the only practical way of decrypting the device would be to obtain the encryption password used to protect the AES256 encryption key. If the persons who know the key refuse to reveal it or are unavailable/dead, the information is very likely lost.

Threatening manufacturers with $2500 fines is not going to stop people from unlocking their devices and putting an AOSP/Cyanogen/custom/whatever build with proper encryption put back in or using apps with their own stronger encryption.

Politicians, lobbyists, lawmakers, etc. who believe otherwise are wasting everyone's time and money. If smart criminals want to use proper encrypted communications, there is not much that can be done to stop them without posing a similar or greater threat to normal people's privacy and information security.

I have to agree with this, too. It seems to me that there are politicians out there who do crazy stuff (such as introducing legislation like this bill) just to make it look like they are doing something meaningful when they are otherwise doing nothing at all valuable.

 

[Wes006]

When buying a new cell phone or tablet in California.

WARNING: This device has strong encryption known to the state of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.

 

[BadBoyGreek]

Johnny Law already snoops into our day to day lives too much as it is. Our information is the most crucial component that we need to protect in today's society and making it easier to get to just helps proliferate crimes like identity theft, private photos getting leaked online and so forth.

Backdoors aren't the solution either - if the law has access to it, so will hackers and the tech savvy.

Our private information is private for a reason - keep it that way.

 

[Gam3r01]

Why are you blaming "liberals" for that? Have you read the definition of the term? Advocating for something that will deprive people of a personal liberty (to encrypt their phones) is NOT liberal at all, regardless of what these politicians call themselves! So don't be hillbillies blaming "damn liberals" in general, blame particular people who clearly are NOT liberal and want a police state, no matter what party they claim to belong to.

I would just like to say, as someone who lived most of their lives in the mountains and is considered a "redneck", a lot of us dont even get upset with liberals.
That aside, I do agree with your view of the parties. Anyone can claim to be a part of one party but carry ideals of the others.

Totally agreed.

I consider myself "liberal" in some aspects, but I would love to live in the mountains (if only I could convince my wife 😉 ) - but that is beside the point.

When "brain-dead" politicians pop up with asinine ideas like this, no matter what side of the aisle they are on, they need to be educated. Perhaps someone should explain to this particular brain-dead politician that his bill may very well open the door to his smart phone's content and may very well lead to an open-door policy that drains his financial accounts thus leading him to financial ruin. IMHO, education on these matters needs to be made personal to the politician since they apparently do not understand the ramifications nor even care what harm it might do to their constituents.

Hey just saying were currently selling our property, 50 acres and two houses 😀

 

[targetdrone]

Seriously? Why do people keep thinking this will solve anything?
Have politicians never read 1984? If they "need" the information on that device they can get it, but weakening the security of devices state wide for a few incidents is not the way to handle anything.
Im from, and still live in California and I am dissapointed.
This makes me wonder how long it will take them to attack the UC (University of California) system as well. The 10 UCs use encrypted wifi for the students, wonder if they will take that from us.

The ignorant masses are stupid and politicians are evil.

This whole strong encryption debate didn't become a major issue until after Jihad was waged in Paris. The real tragic thing about it is the Jihadists involved had all of their communications out in the open, unencrypted.

It's all smoke and mirrors.

 

[jehanne]

California out to ban all courses, books, scientific papers, etc., in elementary number theory, lest criminals, terrorists, etc., get their hands on computer algorithms which they can then use to create their own open-source programs. While they are at it, they best be banning all compilers, especially, C compilers, which are often used to create strong open-source programs, such as TrueCrypt. Best be banning all forms of Linux, also, which contains open-source encryption software. But, to be extra safe, all Universities, colleges, etc., need to be closed down entirely, and all forms of knowledge banned and expunged from human consciousness with all research in mathematics and physics halted, but to be extra safe, all scientific research of any kind anywhere must be strictly outlawed, lest someone, anyone, discover a way to sometimes "outfox" the cops.

Knowledge equates to freedom, and only when the People are ignorant will they accept tyranny, and so, let ignorance reign!

 

[gangrel]

I agree that this is an incredibly awful idea.

I would point out...people have noted, being introduced by one lame-brain moron does not equal passage. Beyond that: it doesn't mean it would stand up in court. To be sure: I would be horrified if the courts had to rule, because it got passed (and, of course, *signed* by the governor). But it feels like it shouldn't survive a court challenge.

Another point: if ONLY California adopts this.....EEK. How hard is it to drive over to Nevada or Oregon and buy a handset? To be sure, California's made their emissions controls stick, but this seems a heckuva lot harder.

 

[gangrel]

California out to ban all courses, books, scientific papers, etc., in elementary number theory, lest criminals, terrorists, etc., get their hands on computer algorithms which they can then use to create their own open-source programs.

Back in the early-mid 70s, Scientific American had a Mathematical Games column. In one issue, it discussed public key encryption....RSA. They said, if you want all the gory details, write MIT and ask for paper such-and-so. I did; received the paper a couple weeks later. Fun stuff for a high school math geek.

There was a strong push to get it classified. Uhhh...just a little late, wouldn't you say????

 

[David Dewis]

Who is this fine law suppose to target?
People will just add the encryption again through software. Then this will happen:
"Unlock your phone or you will be given a $2500 fine."
"Well if I let have access, then I'm going to prison, so I'll just take the fine thanks."

Obviously they're doing illegal stuff then if they can't let the government see their phone.

Thats my point. So what insentive do they have to unlock the phone. They'll just pay the fine. This kind of law only targets the innocent general public.

 

[jmoor98904]

why don't we just take the front doors off our homes to....or better yet lay all your money and valuables in your front yard!

 

[leon2006]

Third party encryption APP will do it(has done it) independent of Google and Apple... Its not going to work. Customers will purchase the phone and download the APP after. First amendment lawsuit will challenge these propose laws in CA and NY

 

[CKKwan]

Oh No! The Chinese is spying on the US despite strong encryption!

So the US is using a weaker encryption to prevent the Chinese from syping!!!