Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Surveillance

Re:Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Sur... by hga on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:34PM (#6304379)

"People will propose technical solutions, apparently oblivious to the fact that the government will simply require you not to use them (as they have in the past)."

Are we still required not to use them, like > 40 bit DES in various circumstances? In 1997 I helped a lawyer who'd previously done embedded programming apply for an export license for a piece of my company's software, in which I either degraded the use of DES or confirmed that the code already did that.

But the Cold War/Clinton anti-strong crypo regime is over. For that matter, the Cold War/Vietnam national security and more ecosystem took major, major hits in the mid-to late '70s, e.g. the Church Committee (although for all we know the most critical thing was J. Edgar Hoover dying in 1972).

Why are you not heartened by the Amash Amendment vote? Especially in how it didn't break down according to any conventional lines?

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Re:Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Sur... by DannyBee on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:59PM (#6304485)

"Why are you not heartened by the Amash Amendment vote? Especially in how it didn't break down according to any conventional lines? " This was more about congressmen being pissed off at the NSA, not lobbying efforts by anyone.

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Re:Tech Companies and Government May Soon Go to War Over Sur... by hga on Friday August 30, 2013 @06:09PM (#6304536)

Well, did you call your Congresscritter's office? I did, and was told they were getting a lot of calls.

Everything I can see in my corner of Red State America says enough people believe the government has stepped over a line such that we can very possibly win. Then add discrete lobbying by tech companies ... which will I expect play out a lot slower and limited than normal given the Joseph Nacchio object lesson.

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