Mental yoga time: let’s draw a connection between Fred Deutsch’s locker-room bill and our surrender of liberty to ISIS hysteria.
KELO-TV reports that terrorists can hide their communications by using Playstation 4s. DSU info-security expert Ashley Podhradsky (Hey, isn’t that a Czech name? Isn’t the Czech Republic a transit country for terrorists? Shouldn’t the state review its screening processes for hiring individuals of Czech descent for sensitive positions?) says we could mandate that Sony install a “back door” to allow law enforcement to snoop on gaming messages, but such a surveillance porthole would expose gamers to hacking and identity theft.
No biggie, says Playstation player and privacy-rights expert Chris Hintz:
…Hintz… understands there may need to be sacrifices to allow terrorist plots to be uncovered.
“I truly believe if somebody wants your information, they’re going to find it. If you have nothing to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Hintz said [Hailey Higgins, “Hiding Messages in Plain Sight,” KELO-TV, 2015.11.22].
Ah, the old trope that says we should be suspicious of people who want privacy. So if Rep. Fred Deutsch wants students to dress in privacy in locker rooms, he must be allowing them to hide something bad. Forget locker rooms: kids should dress for games on the court, in front of the fans. What do the kids have to hide, Rep. Deutsch?
This sounds like the plot of “Little Brother,” a young adult novel by Cory Doctorow. At the time I read it, I found it mostly to be riveting entertainment. Now it is beginning to seem prophetic to a worrisome degree.
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Brother-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765323117/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
There are very good reasons why applications are encrypted. Adopting a ‘Harrison Bergeron’ model for our technology industry would not be wise. Not only would mandated back doors create vulnerabilities that could put consumers at risk, it would be a futile effort. It would simply devolve into a game of surveillance whack-a-mole where we’d be spending millions trying to keep pace and the only thing we’d accomplis would be driving up costs for developers. When you boil it down, encryption is really just math. Good luck trying to legislate math.
“I truly believe if somebody wants your information, they’re going to find it.” – So the NSA must not truly want the information of potential terrorists? If this were true, then encryption wouldn’t even be a topic. Such an ignorant statement shouldn’t even be regurgitated in a legitimate news story.
“If you have nothing to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about,” – That sounds pretty dang un-American to me. ‘One if be land, two if by sea.’ was an encrypted message. Maybe Mr. Hintz would feel more comfortable living in China or Iran where the government does monitor everything.
I think Dr. Podhradsky will be on SDPB Dakota Midday today to talk more about the Playstation security gap. Perhaps she’ll discuss the whack-a-mole problem and the cost-benefit analysis for expanded surveillance.