I suppose I should expect nothing less from modern Slashdot. I remember when this used to be the go to site for experts and technologists who would instantly know what I was talking about.

The fact that you "need a bone" for one of the biggest fights against encryption in modern times is a problem.

Burr and Feinstein were the driving force to mandate backdoors in encryption. They unleashed the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 upon us (in response to Apple) which had significant political support at the time and was defeated only thanks to a monumental effort by the community, industry, and leading cryptographers. The paper "Key under doormats" was created to help explain to lawmakers why backdoors were a bad thing. Finally, The Earn t Act, of which Ms. Feinstein is a cosponsor, is the successor to the Burr/Feinstein bill.

How was the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 not related to encryption? Do you not remember what these two put the community through a few years ago?

Their bill was defeated in part due to a large campaign by the EFF.

People seem to have very short memories.

I think they changed it to "CSAM". Less characters, easier to brute force.

You seem to have way more confidence in our idiot congress critters to "do the right thing" than is currently evident.

This is typically true, but the Signal protocol has been audited by several institutions since its creation.

Additionally, here is a link to a formal security analysis of the protocol.

The fight for "Net Neutrality" is completely moot if CDA 230 protections are wiped out.

Fighting so that packets are given equal prioritization means nothing if the content of said packets are heavily restricted and censored.

I used to read slashdot everyday - now not so much. Even still, I honestly cannot believe that a significant number of individuals on this site want to repeal section 230's protections. Are you guys not software developers anymore? Do you not care about your livelihoods? Also, what the hell is up with the title? Since when was Google and Facebook the internet?

Google's entire business model is to connect you to millions of other websites and businesses, all who rely on section 230's protections to operate. While Facebook might be able to survive, I guarantee the rest of us won't.

And if you hated Facebook before, congrats, it'll be the only site left standing. No need to worry about Net Neutrality, since you won't be able to say anything anyway.

Just wow.

I live in Bergen County, NJ - which still has these idiotic Christian Blue Laws on the books. Property taxes are sky high here (third highest in the nation), in part to the fact that malls and businesses are unable to be open on Sunday.

The first amendment does apply to the publishing of encryption algorithms, as has been ruled by the Ninth Circuit in Bernstein v. United States and upheld in Junger v. Daley by the Sixth Circuit.

If you think these politicians can't destroy cryptography though, think again. They can, and will if you don't fight back and defend your rights. A good read that was published in acmqueue is "More Encryption Is Not the Solution", which outlines some of the practical issues involved, and why winning this political fight is very important.

I'm just going to leave this here.

Honestly, it's really kinda sad to read some of these comments - especially the over the top "reverse discrimination" ones. What's up with all of this anger and aggression over something this insignificant? Jeeze, put things in perspective. Women have to deal with a ton of discriminatory and sexist bullshit all the time - where's the anger and outrage then? I'm not advocating for affirmative action, but the question has to be asked: Why the disproportionate rage? When you answer that, maybe you will also find out why women aren't prevalent in tech.

You're correct that there are other causes of mortality that are worse than gun homicides. Things like heart disease and cancer have a much higher mortality rate. But another way to look at it is we have ~four 9/11's every year from gun homicides.

Here is the study abstract, and how the numbers were collected:

STUDY OBJECTIVE: I test the hypothesis that having a gun in the home is a risk factor for adults to be killed (homicide) or to commit suicide.

METHODS: Two case-control analyses were based on national samples of subjects 18 years of age or older. Homicide and suicide case subjects were drawn from the 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey. Living control subjects were drawn from the 1994 National Health Interview Survey. Ten control subjects matched by sex, race, and age group were sought for each case subject.

RESULTS: The homicide sample consisted of 1,720 case subjects and 8,084 control subjects. Compared with adults in homes with no guns, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) for homicide was 1.41 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.20 to 1.65) for adults with a gun at home and was particularly high among women (adjusted OR 2.72; 95% CI 1.89 to 3.90) compared with men (adjusted OR 1.23; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.49) and among nonwhite subjects (adjusted OR 1.74; 95% CI 1.37 to 2.21) compared with white subjects (adjusted OR 1.27; 95% CI 1.03 to 1.56). Further analyses revealed that a gun in the home was a risk factor for homicide by firearm means (adjusted OR 1.72; 95% CI 1.40 to 2.12) but not by nonfirearm means (OR 0.83; 95% CI 0.62 to 1.11). The suicide sample consisted of 1,959 case subjects and 13,535 control subjects. The adjusted OR for suicide was 3.44 (95% CI 3.06 to 3.86) for persons with a gun at home. However, further analysis revealed that having a firearm in the home was a risk factor for suicide by firearm (adjusted OR 16.89; 95% CI 13.26 to 21.52) but was inversely associated with suicide by other means (adjusted OR 0.68; 95% CI 0.55 to 0.84).

CONCLUSION: Having a gun at home is a risk factor for adults to be shot fatally (gun homicide) or commit suicide with a firearm. Physicians should continue to discuss with patients the implications of keeping guns at home. Additional studies are warranted to address study limitations and to better understand the implications of firearm ownership.

Intentionally Biased Huh? Much like that website you linked to? I'll give you this: Certainly more study and better data is needed. Unfortunately federal funding for unbiased studies seems to have vanished.

Quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing the same old "Guns don't kill people, People kill people" type arguments. I'm tired of the emotional theater. We need to make public policy based on real world data.

Some (Sad) Real World Statistics:

• - In the United States, every year, more than 100,000 people are shot or killed with a gun. (Source bradycampaign.org)
• - An estimated 41% of gun-related homicides and 94% of gun-related suicides would not occur under the same circumstances had no guns been present. (Wiebe, Douglas J. PhD. “Homicide and Suicide Risks Associated With Firearms in the Home: A National Case-Control Study,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 41 (2003): 771-82.)
• - A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a completed or attempted suicide (11x), criminal assault or homicide (7x), or unintentional shooting death or injury (4x) than to be used in a self-defense shooting. (Kellermann, Arthur L. et al., “Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home,” Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection, and Critical Care, 45(2) (1998): 263-267)
• - There are five times as many deaths from gun assaults as from knife assaults, where the rates of assault with knives and with guns are similar. (Zimring, Franklin, and Gordon Hawkins, Crime is not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
• - Every year there are only about 200 legally justified self-defense homicides by private citizens compared with over 30,000 gun deaths (Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States, 2008, Expanded Homicide Data Table 15 and Table 15 & National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (2008 (deaths) and 2009 (injuries). Calculations by Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.).
• -Gun death rates are 7 times higher in the states with the highest compared with the lowest household gun ownership.(Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, 2009)
• -Higher gun ownership puts both men and women at a higher risk for homicide, particularly gun homicide. (Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, 2009)

So, clearly we have some major problems here. I would normally never argue that we should take away citizens' rights, and gun ownership is clearly a right in this country, but we have a major conflict here. The right of gun ownership VS the right of life. When you have an epidemic of gun violence that deprives citizens of their lives, you have to weigh these two rights.... and compromise.

Perfect analogy. Different tools, different use cases....

I can't even begin to comprehend how people can defend Windows 8... unless they are getting paid.