1: It really varies; surprisingly enough it's not a felony in all states, and in at least one state, it's only a felony if there is intent to benefit from the authority granted.

Any time I hear a politician say they are going to reduce a particular crime by passing a law, I wonder why existing laws aren’t enforced that likely already cover the behavior being targeted. I suppose that would mean planning, logistics, and execution - things politicians don’t know how to do.

E.g. there is a law saying you cant serve alcohol to minors. That in and of itself doesnt prevent beyond threat of punishment if caught.

There is also a law saying you have to check ids. Procedures like that do have a preventitive effect.

Those that do not fit the above, having no impulse control, or perhaps mental issues, then laws result in stuffing them away.

It's not perfect. Yet every human society does this, and has done this for millenia. Consider that.

Note I was responding to someone who effectly said laws don't prevent crime, and citing ways they do. Understand the context. My statement was not a 200 page dissertation on "those who might break laws" and a deep dive into societal ethics, etc.

This isn't always correct and is rather myopic.

Quite often laws will issue punishments for some behaviors, but also issue things like funding for programs that work on the roots of why particular crimes occur.

Now, laws that punish post ad hoc are always easier to measure and see, because it's much harder to prove that you prevented something that only had a probability of happening in the first place.

That still requires enforcement. The existence of a law does not imply existence of enforcement, much less wide-spread enforcement (see e.g. wage theft, auto breakins, petty theft, etc).

Like if the system can easily be used to exfiltrate information or perform criminal actions but you can do so anonymously without much effort or more generally doing so remotely in a jurisdiction where you can never be prosecuted, then that system is broken.

Systems that rely on a person not wanting to get caught breaking the rules only work when A the person cares and B the person is capable of being punished. If that invariant doesn't hold up then the system is broken.

well good thing emails can only be sent within the USA

I’m not saying that Verizon’s handling of this was anything other than grossly negligent, but let’s not pretend that the sole solution to, well, any problem involve…what? Asymmetric cryptography?

Something being illegal, even in another jurisdiction, is certainly a deterrent for a lot of people.

OK, and what if it was, say, the Saudi government doing it rather than a crazy stalker in the US?

You think that's surprising? Wait til you hear that in 35 states, a police officer can claim that a detainee, in custody, even handcuffed at the time, can 'consent' to intercourse with the officer. (That's even before you get to the lesser issue of why a police officer is having intercourse at work...)

I mean something as simple as a piece of paper with a password that lets you find an authentication info in the court website. An email. Or even an automated phone or email address that lets you authenticate online

This is why I would rather have profit hungry corporations manage things than governments. Because with government there's always a legion of people rushing to excuse and explain away even the most serious examples of ineptitude and mismanagement.

Would you accept it if Facebook or Google let people login to user accounts via signed letter? So why is a signature enough for a search warrant?

A signature is not an acceptable method of authentication in 2023 for important documents. I don't see how that's not obvious.

There's a large group of the population that has an ideological frenzy to defend government no matter what so they're able to get away with terrible lapses like this

> No it's because in every other area besides government we have standards of security

I guess you never heard of NIST?

I suppose private companies never get hacked and have all their customer's data stolen?

If you mean something else, then you should find a better way to articulate it. People defending against what you are literally calling for is not 'ideological zealotry', it is pushing back against extremism.

But if you agree it's not a system motivated by the public good and want me to join you in pretending it is and helping it grow while it doesn't serve the public good, our values are still too different.

I think the start is fix the system first to make it about the public good. Once we fix it then we can grow it and give it all the unlimited power and influence you want. But we can't do that because a large segment of the population has an ideology that prevents legitimate criticism of the government and will defend any aspect of it

I cannot see how the other poster, observing how corporations work and are treated with kid gloves in the US, could possibly think anything corporations would do here would be better than the system we have in any way.

All that would happen is this...

People in government would be bribed/funded by said groups in private corporations to look past the grift/corruption said private company did. If private company A did too much wrong, then private company B would pop up in its place with all the same actors. Because these are private companies there would be no public records requirements like are on elected officials at this time.

All of the other posters complaints are based around the electorate not being involved in local elections. Why do they suddenly think it's going to get magically better when a company is involved. You're just abstracting the apathy to another degree.

Otherwise, the government uses all sorts of modern authentication mechanisms when dealing with sensitive materials.