This is EXACTLY the FIRST thing that came to my mind upon reading the OP. Then, after learning that the OP’s hubby also reads/views pornography…this isn’t about terrorism, etc.; this is about a man in need of serious mental health services. I think I’d want to learn more about his “small conference get-together in Portugal.” Don’t they have looser porn laws there?
Semonole Girl:
The government received the letter, and because of what he wrote, they referred it to the Postal Inspectors because it is illegal to send such obscene language through the mail. He told me what he wrote, and I was appalled. I don’t think I have ever heard those type of wrods before
Well, I did check the internet for references to the conference, and there was a website that they created with the details and locations, and the hotel where it would be. He had also been talking about it for weeks, and was very excited to go to Europe. He passed background checks twice for his high level of security clearance at his company.
I really suggest finging an attorney to protect yourself and your kids!
Many programs do this. In fact, a new method of sending encrypted and deniable messages was recently invented.
Which they have no right to, and if it’s a quality cryptosystem, he wouldn’t be able to give them that anyway.
Which is how those unreasonable restrictions are always circumvented. Make no mistake: terrorists and bad people can get this encryption outside of the United States easily.
That was dumb.
Can’t say I blame him, given the government’s utter destruction of our privacy lately.
These are the actions of an unreasonable government, and they’re not your husband’s fault.
And that’s remarkably intelligent of him, actually.
And it can be used by normal, law-abiding citizens to to avoid illegal surveillance by the government as well. I don’t want the president reading my email and potentially blackmailing me with it; do you?
The president today signed into law a bill that suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, a right of a person to sue the government when he or she is illegally imprisoned. This right has been the foundation of all Western liberty since the Magna Carta in 1215, and it was suspended, in violation of the Constitution.
From what I’ve read thus far (and I haven’t yet completed the whole thread) you should support your husband and get a lawyer.
No, he’s not. Imprudent, perhaps, given that he has a wife and children to consider, but he is not being unreasonable in the least.
And closed doors and thick walls allow terrorits to meet without worry of eavesdroppers. Perhaps you should be the first to have your doors and walls confiscated by the government in the name of “Security.”
The government has far more in numbers and power than terrorists will ever have.
Yes, it is the sad state of American democracy today.
Do you honestly believe that? So when the government comes to your door to claim its “right” to put video cameras in your house to make sure you’re not hosting terrorist meetings, you’re just going to let it? When the government wants to open your mail and read it in order to make sure you’re not a terrorist, that’s perfectly fine with you?
Those who would sacrifice a little liberty to attain a little security deserve neither liberty nor security.
Is that a threat? Because if you’ve been paying attention to things lately, the government can do whatever it wants to people as long as it doesn’t call it “torture.”
The government just suspended habeas corpus and allowed torture (as long is it’s not called torture), and you think it’s concerned with human rights? The government has done things to civilian “enemy combatants” that people have been tried and convicted in international courts for doing to US military personnel.
Yes. It’s strange because programs aren’t like munitions. Programs can cross international borders as easily as a CD or a floppy disk can. Bad people will get their programs no matter what restrictions the government puts on export.
You mean “Windtalkers.”
A “code” like the Navajo language
I’m pretty darn sure that’s a movie embellishment; I’ve read the story multiple times and in multiple sources and have never heard of this.
They already can, VociMike. They already do. The same argument against encryption can be made against closed doors and thick walls.
SHA-1-based stream ciphers, as far as I know, are still secure, even in the face of the recent weakness discovered in the hash function itself.
Winzip “security” can be easily cracked. Zipfiles have not had adequate in-file security since the floppy disk days.
Which anyone with a disassembler can do easily.
Again, you have the program, you have the routine. The government would not have any problem with this at all.
No, they’re probably more afraid of things like this.
Your government that doesn’t care much for its citizens and curtails your freedom of speech and expression likely started down that path exactly how the US is going down it now.
Curtailing your privacy and liberty is not “working for your interests.” Suspending habeas corpus and legalizing torture is not “working for your interests.” The government, like any large group of people with power, is seeking to fulfill its own interests.
Then you’ll be fine with mandatory video cameras in your home, and with the government reading all your mail?
If we suspend liberties because of 9/11, the terrorists have already gotten exactly what they wanted. They’ve gotten terror, and they’ve gotten panic. This is what they thrive on.
What happens when you write that you aren’t happy with the job your congressman is doing, and you suddenly find yourself disenfranchised? Or you mention in a letter to your wife that you aren’t particularly fond of your boss, and the governement comes to you and threatens to reveal this letter to your boss unless you do some work for them, pro bono? Would that cause you to worry?
You’re more in danger from your own government now than you were five years ago. Five years ago, the government could never legally lock you up and throw away the key. Today, it can. Five years ago, the government could never legally waterboard you and torture you, and then use your coerced confession as evidence in a military tribunal; now it can.
History has shown that governments with unchecked power pose far more danger to their citizens than any group of private individuals, no matter how angry they are.
That’s an entirely different question, and I’m making no judgment about the prudence of his actions. But I simply can’t abide the people here who simply aren’t paying attention and who live as if the government is an idyllic “freedom protector” when it’s doing exactly the opposite. Or the people here who say they’d happily trade freedom for security. Consider this: God Himself gave us freedom (e.g., to sin), despite its risks to our security (e.g., eternal salvation).
Because I can still be blackmailed even if I’m not doing anything illegal or immoral.
Releasing software that does encryption is not “going out of their way to assist somebody in harming this country.” Such software can and is used by law-abiding citizens all the time. I personally use encrypted connections every day to work with computers in California while I’m here in Ohio. I would not be able to do my work, and I would not have my job, if such encryption did not exist or could not be used by law-abiding citizens.
Then you should stand up for their privacy and their liberty now so they still have some by the time they grow up.
I’ll agree with you on that one
And even that’s impossible now, for anyone labelled and held by the military as an “enemy combatant.”
You’re confusing two different types of encryption here; the high bit count (2048) is asymmetric encryption, which uses higher-bit keys because it’s weaker than quality symmetric encryption. To quote Bruce Schneier from his book Applied Cryptography, it’s a provable fact of information that 256-bit symmetric ciphers are safe until computers are made from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.
The reason is because (a) too much information is public, (b) the current security systems (not the encryption components of the systems, but the systems themselves) are too weak, and (c) people are generally dumb.
Absolutely.