October 2020 Archives
Democrat Senator Ron Wyden is right.
"Secret encryption back doors are a threat to national security and the safety of our families - it's only a matter of time before foreign hackers or criminals exploit them in ways that undermine American national security," Wyden told Reuters. "The government shouldn't have any role in planting secret back doors in encryption technology used by Americans."The agency declined to say how it had updated its policies on obtaining special access to commercial products. NSA officials said the agency has been rebuilding trust with the private sector through such measures as offering warnings about software flaws.
Americans are a free people, and our government must protect our natural right to "keep and bear" strong encryption.
Democrat Senator Ron Wyden is right.
"Secret encryption back doors are a threat to national security and the safety of our families - it's only a matter of time before foreign hackers or criminals exploit them in ways that undermine American national security," Wyden told Reuters. "The government shouldn't have any role in planting secret back doors in encryption technology used by Americans."The agency declined to say how it had updated its policies on obtaining special access to commercial products. NSA officials said the agency has been rebuilding trust with the private sector through such measures as offering warnings about software flaws.
Americans are a free people, and our government must protect our natural right to "keep and bear" strong encryption.
The Conservative Treehouse writes that Trump supporters are organically routing around social controls and posts several insane videos of Trump parades around the country. I say "Trump parades", but Trump isn't at any of these events, and his campaign didn't organize them. Check this one out from yesterday in Beverly Hills, California. The crowd goes on and on and on. This is nuts.
This is BEVERLY HILLS this weekend. Yes Beverly Hills, CALIFORNIA. Meanwhile Joe Biden can't get 40 cars to come hear him speak even with celebrity speakers. Something is happening that isn't reflected in polls... Look at how diverse the crowd is. This is @theDemocrats nightmare! pic.twitter.com/6Jq5wmtB9d
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 25, 2020
There are dozens, even hundreds of videos like this. It's unbelievable. I know the polls show Trump losing handily to Biden, but these events make it hard to believe those numbers.
There's nothing equivalent for Biden. I wrote last week that everything points to a Trump victory except the polls, and that's more true now than ever. Crowds like this don't lose elections.
Even if Biden legitimately wins the election, the movement that Trump mid-wifed isn't going away.
Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Asymmetric warfare. Facebook and Twitter are The Man now, but they can't stop the signal. The Man can't censor you if he can't even follow your links.
Social Media Hider is a way to publish links to external web content to censorious social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook that they won't censor because their censorbots and employees won't see the actual link but just a cover image.SMH looks like a classic URL shortener, and indeed it is a URL shortener, but it has an extra feature that decides whether to redirect to the target URL depending on what the IP address making the request is. If the source IP is in a subnet that the SMH operator doesn't trust then instead of returning the actual target URL it returns a decoy image or link.
So when The Man (or his AI crony) clicks your link he gets sent somewhere innocuous, but when your friend clicks your link he gets sent to your intended destination. Brilliant.
Social Media Hider is a bit technical to use right now, but just wait a week and there will be browser plug-in that handles everything automatically.
Last month I wrote that pollsters must have learned something from their humiliating failure in 2016. At this moment, it seems like the only indication of a win for Biden is media polling -- which shows a landslide in his favor. Can an incumbent president really lose when 56% of people say they're better off than four years ago?
It is an odd election season. Pretty much everyone thinks the Democrats are on their way to a crushing victory, yet it is hard to see why. A whopping 56% of Americans say they are better off now than they were four years ago, and President Trump draws large, enthusiastic crowds wherever he goes. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is a pale shell of his formerly buffoonish self. When Joe is able to get out of bed, his campaign schedules intimate invitation-only events. Supposedly this is because of COVID, but everyone knows it is really because he doesn't want to be embarrassed by his inability to draw a crowd. Probably no one outside of Biden's immediate family particularly wants him to be president.So what is going on?
Kevin McCullough writes that the polls are wrong because Trump voters are reluctant to admit who they're voting for.
Now the "smart people" will tell you [that a Trump win is] not possible and that he lags Joe Biden in the polls by margins too big to overcome. If you only look at the selective polls listed in the Real Clear Politics average one might come to that conclusion (Just like they did in 2016).One thing they won't tell you though is that the hesitancy to tell pollsters what they think is a real phenomenon. A little more than a month ago Bloomberg published a survey that demonstrated Republicans and Independents are more than twice as likely as Democrats to not reveal to pollsters their true thoughts.
Maybe. I think it's more likely that any significant errors stem from inaccurate demographic mixes -- that they're underweighting Trump's support among Blacks, Hispanics, gays, and others.
Mollie Hemingway points out that Trump is polling better now than he did in 2016.
So you see that Biden is averaging a 7-point lead in Pennsylvania, but Clinton was averaging a nearly identical lead there four years ago -- before Trump won it narrowly on election day. Likewise, Biden's Florida lead is very similar to Clinton's lead four years ago. Trump won Florida.Biden is not performing as well in Wisconsin as Clinton was four years ago. Trump won that state. Biden is doing less well in Michigan, according to the polls, than Clinton did four years ago. Trump won Michigan. Biden's doing a bit better in North Carolina than Clinton did but Trump won that state by a 4-point margin.
There are a lot of people who don't put much confidence in polling, but this table shows that even according to the polls themselves, Trump's performance at this point in the election process is on track with where he was in 2016.
I'm not good at predicting elections, but I will: Trump will win re-election.
Politicians of all stripes agree: We The People shouldn't be allowed to have strong encryption. I'm generally pleased with Bill Barr as Attorney General, but his (and Trump's) demand for "backdoors" into encryption is morally wrong and politically foolish.
The US Department of Justice, in conjunction with the "Five Eyes" nations, has issued a statement asking Apple and other tech companies to effectively create backdoors that will weaken encryption strength overall to provide law enforcement access to data.In a statement released on Sunday by the US Department of Justice, the "International Statement: End-to-End Encryption and Public Safety" is a continuation of the long-running encryption debate. In the latest salvo in the ongoing war, representatives of governments from multiple countries are demanding access to encrypted data for the sake of sexually exploited children.
The lengthy statement demands tech companies "embed the safety of the public in system designs" relating to encryption, to enable companies to "act against illegal content and activity effectively with no reduction to safety," while enabling law enforcement to do its job. This includes enabling law enforcement officials "access to content in a readable and usable format where an authorization is lawfully issued, is necessary and proportionate, and is subject to strong safeguards and oversight."
This demand is built on two falsehoods.
First, there's no such thing as a "safe" backdoor. Once encryption is weakened, it's weakened for all attackers, not just "good guys". Backdoors can be found. Additionally, the government has been generally terrible and protecting sensitive data, and it would only take one breach, leak, or whistle-blower to release all the backdoor keys.
Second, everyone hates the sexual exploitation of children and wants it prosecuted, but the government already has plenty of tools available. By the time law enforcement has caught a perpetrator and are in possession of his phone, they're sure to have plenty of evidence for a conviction even without decrypting the phone.
Finally, it doesn't seem to me that the government has demonstrated that it is worthy of our trust. We The People should keep our guns and our encryption.
I don't have much to say about Trump's illness and recovery, but this video cracked me up.
— markmaycott (@markmaycot) October 5, 2020
