About Kafka
Kafka was an starry eyed optimist.
FOIA documents show the Kafkaesque state of US mass surveillance
A mystery technology biz tried to fight off demands from the US government that it hand over people's communications flowing through its systems. The unnamed company refused to obey the surveillance order, and was also denied the ability to even review the outcomes of any previous challenges to help form its case. That's …
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Saturday 17th June 2017 06:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Even if we could guess which company
It would be illegal for them to confirm that they were the one who unsuccessfully challenged it. That alone shows the need for this law to not be renewed!
I'll bet congressional leaders of both parties cooperate on some sleazy procedural dodge to pass this on voice vote (so the traitors' names aren't on the record) in the dead of the night when people are distracted by the latest news of Trump's legal woes. Unfortunately there aren't enough true patriots like Wyden and Paul to stop them.
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Saturday 17th June 2017 17:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Even if we could guess which company
The speaker of the house and majority leader of the senate have to call them to session. A single member can't just show up at 4am and pass whatever he likes on his single vote.
If that was the case, all you'd need is a single member of the house, member of the senate, and president to agree on something, and they could make a law. Trump would already have funding for his wall if he just needed to find two yes-men to go along with him.
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Sunday 18th June 2017 02:35 GMT Charles 9
Re: Even if we could guess which company
He's saying the Speaker and President Pro Tem (the actual head of senate) can "call" a session and others conveniently don't hear it.
That said, Article I notes that if a quorum is called and there isn't a majority of the body present, that chamber can't operate.
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Saturday 17th June 2017 08:14 GMT Christian Berger
Of course there's a comparatively easy fix
Truly Free Software, which does not rely on a company or organisation to work on it. You cannot hand a court order to a loosely connected bunch of software developers, or in fact to a product that's long been finished.
We could start by taking GPG and simplifying it to a point where security critical bugs are improbable, then we'd have some unchanged piece of software which couldn't be backdoored.
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Saturday 17th June 2017 11:41 GMT Charles 9
Re: Of course there's a comparatively easy fix
It's extremely difficult for software to truly be free. It can be usurped, for example (see systemd). Plus back doors can still be added "by the backdoor"--subtly, through a series of otherwise-genuine fixes that can then be lashed together just so. As for GPG, its kind of encryption implies necessary complexity, so again someone could insert a backdoor carefully disguised as a fix.
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Saturday 17th June 2017 15:44 GMT c1ue
Re: Of course there's a comparatively easy fix
GPG doesn't prevent either sender or recipient compromise.
Nor does it train non techie types to use it. Having only a small fraction of the population able to use his level encryption just focuses security efforts on the minority.
For that matter, how secure can you be if your OS, hardware firmware, networking provider, etc are individually or collectively forced to cooperate in attacking your privacy? Or even just paid to?
This isn't a technology problem, it is a societal one and has to be addresses that way.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
