<story><title>Republicans Push Bill Requiring Tech Companies Give Encrypted Data</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/republicans-push-bill-requiring-tech-companies-to-help-access-encrypted-data/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I think politicians must win prizes or something for showing who is the stupidest:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The bill also allows the attorney general to create a competition with a prize for anyone who can come up with a way to access encrypted data while protecting privacy and security. Security experts have long noted that this is an impossible request.&lt;p&gt;Why they&amp;#x27;re at in, why don&amp;#x27;t they push a bill for permanent rainbows.&lt;p&gt;Also, the article states &amp;quot;The proposed legislation stops short of requiring tech companies to create a backdoor&amp;quot;, so if end-to-end encryption is still available, this legislation does nothing. And if lawmakers try to &lt;i&gt;ban&lt;/i&gt; end-to-end encryption, well then &amp;quot;banning math&amp;quot; should be the name of this legislation (yes, I realize politicians have tried to do that before). Sure, large companies may comply and average joes may get less E2E encryption, but anyone who knows anything about tech will be able to get access to E2E encrypted messengers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chrismorgan</author><text>On “banning math” and that “politicians have tried to do that before”: I suspect you are referring at least in part to what the Australian Prime Minister said in 2017:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This particular statement was widely lampooned in tech circles at the time as obvious nonsense. Yet it’s actually perfectly sound: legislation is &lt;i&gt;all about&lt;/i&gt; restricting you from doing things that are &lt;i&gt;possible&lt;/i&gt;. (Now some of the other stuff Mr. Turnbull said at that time &lt;i&gt;was&lt;/i&gt; drivel; he seemed to be under the impression that it was possible to allow law enforcement to access end-to-end encrypted content without it comprising a backdoor, which the industry as a whole considers axiomatically false.)&lt;p&gt;It’s the government’s prerogative to ban mathematics. And indeed they already have in various areas due to copyright and possibly patent laws (&lt;i&gt;c.f.&lt;/i&gt; illegal numbers). Now I personally think they would be unwise to ban any form of encryption, but realise that they’re quite at liberty to not just &lt;i&gt;try&lt;/i&gt; to ban it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Republicans Push Bill Requiring Tech Companies Give Encrypted Data</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/republicans-push-bill-requiring-tech-companies-to-help-access-encrypted-data/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>I think politicians must win prizes or something for showing who is the stupidest:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The bill also allows the attorney general to create a competition with a prize for anyone who can come up with a way to access encrypted data while protecting privacy and security. Security experts have long noted that this is an impossible request.&lt;p&gt;Why they&amp;#x27;re at in, why don&amp;#x27;t they push a bill for permanent rainbows.&lt;p&gt;Also, the article states &amp;quot;The proposed legislation stops short of requiring tech companies to create a backdoor&amp;quot;, so if end-to-end encryption is still available, this legislation does nothing. And if lawmakers try to &lt;i&gt;ban&lt;/i&gt; end-to-end encryption, well then &amp;quot;banning math&amp;quot; should be the name of this legislation (yes, I realize politicians have tried to do that before). Sure, large companies may comply and average joes may get less E2E encryption, but anyone who knows anything about tech will be able to get access to E2E encrypted messengers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>srmatto</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;quot;a prize for anyone who can come up with a way to access encrypted data while protecting privacy and security.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;A prize for a cake that can be eaten but will never be consumed.</text></comment>