Hi

What is your take on this article that the FBI is crying fowl because Apple and Google will give their customers the privacy they crave for by fully encrypting their smartphones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/us...ving.html?_r=2

They want Apple and Google to provide an easy way for the FBI and other law enforcement's to bypass the encryption on the phone in the name of national security and to protect kids from pedophiles and etc.

The FBI will get their way. After all, people would jump off a cliff, give up all their worldly possessions, be banished to a dungeon for a lifetime of torture, all as long as the world is saved from "pedophiles" and "terrorists" by people who use these words in sentences that they speak on national TV.

If you want good encryption you'll be using your own FLOSS tools, and you'll know what you are doing. If you want unbreakable encryption, that's also doable, but with more effort.

"Mr. Comey has based his argument on the need to conduct investigations into child pornographers and kidnappers, not terrorists."

What the USA needs is for some influential people to ask the obvious questions, like:

• Would a mandatory back-door in my child's camera 'phone software make it harder for a pervert to spy on hir?
• Would preventing truly private communication make it harder for kidnappers to track or locate potential victims?

It seems to me, as a thoroughly untrustworthy foreigner*, that such questions need to be asked a lot louder than they are at present.

*I use open source software, have a beard, don't watch TV, and work in the nuclear industry. I'm not sure I'd even be allowed to visit the Land of the Free.

why would they cry they have the key's to it. this is a marketing ploy and it is all bull. you really think there is a encryption out there they have not been able to manage. come on get with it. Your dealing with the largest paid government in the world.

My question is why do children need phones or cameras ? I didn't have that when I was a kid.

Hello
Did you actually mean to ask such a question (and statement) or did you just have one of those Transient Senior Moments ?

And we had to walk to school and it was always snowing and uphill both ways

Actually, I am genuinely wondering why children (15 and younger) actually need cameras and phones. Who do they NEED to call and take pictures of ? I'd say it is a perfect setup for them to take pictures of themselves and send them to complete strangers. Whatever, I guess I'm an old man who doesn't understand the current world.

If I ever have children and they need a phone at age 15 and younger, it will not have a camera and they can only call home or my cell or 911.

That pretty much says it all. If my kids were young in this day and age. I'd want a way for them to scream to me for help walking uphill to school both ways with all the gangs and sickos in cars looking to wreck their lives. I expect my grandkids to have the same life line.

On the encryption thing. If it can be abused as far as govt. monitoring. They will do it.

If there are gangs, I think I'll just pick them up in my car or they should ride the bus.

No such thing as "truly private" on the internet.

Many years ago the FBI got Congress to pass a law that phone companies had to set up their central office exchanges so that the FBI could easily tap people's phones. The saving grace was that the FBI had to get a search warrant and present it to the phone company before the phone company would set up a tap.

Then came the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act allows warrantless phone taps and the Department of Homeland Security has tapped a huge number of phones without a search warrant. I think that that portion of the Patriot Act is unconstitutional.

I am in favor of allowing the FBI to be able to tap cell phones. However I do not thing that they should be allowed to tap ANY phone without a search warrant.

But until the Patriot Act bypass of search warrants is declared unconstitutional or repealed then I favor Apple and Google defying the FBI.

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Steve Stites

Come on now. Do you really believe that huge corporation would defy a gov't agency for you the consumer ? No way. They'll stick that backdoor in without telling anyone. People aren't supposed to know about a backdoor anyway.

I'm in favor of having encryption enabled by default just in case your phone gets lost or stolen.

As a teenager: I got my first phone (Samung Convoy 2, a flip phone (yes, they still make those)) at the end of 8th grade. I can call people and that's it. Yes, it has a camera, but (1) it's horrible quality and (2) I don't use it to take/send pictures every 3 steps of my life. My mom is the only one in our family who can text and she only has that because she needs it for work. I wouldn't ever consider myself a normal teenager, and I'm glad for that. I've always been the kid who prefers to sit at a computer or read. I never really "fit in" with everyone else, and now that I think about it I don't want to be "like everyone else." I see no need to snap a thousand 'selfies' a day and send them to everyone through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or whatever else people use, I can't keep track. They see me in real life, and if they can't rember my face then that's their own fault. And nobody cares what I'm doing every 3.7 seconds. If I see something interesting, I'll sometimes email the link to a few friends, but that's it.

tl,dr: I've never been "normal" and I'm glad for that.

I've never been "normal" either, but I also refuse to believe that what is popular is normal. If you look at the past you'll see that popular things have been so abnormal as to be pure madness.