Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban

Re:Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban by DennisP on Saturday July 15, 2017 @12:55PM (#14777604)

There are an awful lot of people in the U.S. who are very committed to protecting gun rights, and are willing to vote on that issue. I don't think we've gotten to that point with crypto; it's a much newer issue, kinda geeky, way less visceral.

So the NRA collects a lot of money, targets unsupportive politicians, and can turn votes against them. The EFF has less money, and it's questionable whether ads attacking politicians for not supporting crypto would work. To the extent gun owners have bought the Republican scaremongering about terrorists, it might even backfire.

The EFF does what it can by focusing its efforts on the judicial system instead.

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Re:Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban by protomyth on Saturday July 15, 2017 @01:16PM (#14777716)

The legislature writes the laws. People need to make it election suicide to oppose encryption.

I won’t go down the road on your terrorist comment since it has nothing to do with the article.

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Re:Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban by DennisP on Saturday July 15, 2017 @02:13PM (#14778057)

My point is that the government claims it needs to break encryption to protect us from terrorists. Republicans tend to push that anti-terrorist angle pretty hard. Given that most activist gun owners are Republicans, they might not be all that supportive of cryptography.

Libertarian gun owners definitely support both gun rights and crypto, but that's a smaller group.

You can only carry out the "election suicide" strategy if you have enough popular support. Until then you're stuck with what the EFF does: education and legal action.

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Re:Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban by protomyth on Saturday July 15, 2017 @03:10PM (#14778351)

I think you'll find a lot of gun owners who are Republican think the party leadership is out to lunch on some issues, and frankly opinions on side issues in the party have changed multiple times. Witness a lot of the MJ debate.

> You can only carry out the "election suicide" strategy if you have enough popular support. Until then you're stuck with what the EFF does: education and legal action.

Well, education and legal action are fine things, but they will not get you to where you want. They need to get over themselves and get a booth at the next NRA convention and maybe a booth at some gun shows. A nice catch phrase linking the protection provided by gun ownership with the protection offered by encryption would be a nice bonus.

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Re:Australian PM Calls for End-To-End Encryption Ban by DennisP on Saturday July 15, 2017 @05:09PM (#14778960)

I agree with all of that, and those sound like great ideas.

If the EFF would rather not link the issues for fear of alienating some supporters, then maybe some new organization could.

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