Discussions

phreaks wrote:

http://seekingalpha.com/

Hint: The go-to site for financial & economic opinion.

Thanks.

Here is an updated openion on what is happening:

Fiscal Crisis 2007 - The dollar slips away -Nov 19 2007

It does not look very good.

ScanIAm wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote:  dahat wrote:  Why is it (with a warrant) wrong/illegal/unethical/undemocratic to search encrypted data when it is not to search a safe, lock box or other locked physical device that hides its contents from plain view? Until you can (and do) answer such a simple question that has been posed by multiple people, multiple times, there is zero point in continuing this. NO one is talking about the legality of the warrant per se, after its has been duely issued , and legaly and reasonably issued. I am talking about the legal process of obtaining a warrant in light of this immoral law. How to obtain a warrant against an encrypted file, when there is an assumption in law that: 1)  A person is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

That isn't how warrants work.  Warrants are obtained prior to a guilty or innocent verdict.  That's the point.

SecretSoftware wrote: 2) A person is not compelled to testify against their persons, by providing incriminating evidence, one of which might be an encryption key.

Of course, but there is no guarantee that they won't be held in contempt for doing so.  They have avoided incriminating themselves, but they have not avoided breaking the law by failing to respond to the warrant.

SecretSoftware wrote: The Onus of proof is on the Prosecutor to say that Alice,  has an incriminating material that she is hiding through encryption, and the reasons are demonstrates to be true.

And that is how a warrant is issued.  The prosecutor presents enough evidence to the judge that the warrant can be issued.  It is not a trial.  It is especially not a jury trial, and there is no need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the warrantee is guilty.  All that is neccessary is for the prosecution to convince the judge that they have enough evidence that a crime has been committed that they need to investigate further by overriding the 4th amenment with a warrant.

Yay, you learned something, I hope.

SecretSoftware wrote: The police can use brute force attacks to find out what Alice is hiding.

No, they can't.  They need a warrant.

SecretSoftware wrote: But Alice , under the view of the law, should not be compelled to give out her keys, because that can lead to self incrimination.

She is welcome to say "No".  She will serve jail time, but she will not incriminate herself.  It is likely that she will either serve the time or give up the information.  Either way, it is legal and just.

SecretSoftware wrote: Asking Alice, under threat of jail time, to give out incriminating evidence in terms of keys, is to compel Alice to reveal information that would self-incriminate her. This is clearly against the law.

Compelling someone is legal.  The fact that you think it is 'clearly' against the law means you have no idea how the legal system works.

I hope, for your sake, that if you are ever the victim of a crime, you recognize that this is for your benefit.  Otherwise, the perpetrator could simply say "I didn't do it, and any evidence of the crime is 'secret', so you can't have it".

SecretSoftware wrote: No one is saying that a warrant after being legally issued , and reasonably issued, that its illegal. I am talking about the process by which a police officer would have to go through to obtain such a warrant, after convincing a judge.

You never brought this process up.  The article you linked to never mentioned this process.  You have no idea if this process was followed, and since it was in the UK, you really don't have any real clue how it works, anyway. 

We're all quite glad you approve of how the law might be used, but I'd like to point out that 9 out of ten C9 posters don't give a flying f*ck what you think.

How did you get that statistic?

Secondly, your arguments are not sound.

Compelling is not legal. Simply not legal.

Infact a legal case can be thrown out of court , if the accused, who is preseumed innocent until proven otherwise, was compelled to testify against their will.

dahat wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote: Common man, you don't have to be that dense.

Hearing such things from a person who supports terrorism, advocates mob rule and cannot even stick to their word pretty much negates any kind of personal critiques from the likes of you.

What is your definition of terrorism?

How do I support it?

feel free to go into techincal details.

Are you a member of the KKK?

dahat wrote:  Why is it (with a warrant) wrong/illegal/unethical/undemocratic to search encrypted data when it is not to search a safe, lock box or other locked physical device that hides its contents from plain view? Until you can (and do) answer such a simple question that has been posed by multiple people, multiple times, there is zero point in continuing this.

NO one is talking about the legality of the warrant per se, after its has been duely issued , and legaly and reasonably issued. I am talking about the legal process of obtaining a warrant in light of this immoral law. How to obtain a warrant against an encrypted file, when there is an assumption in law that:

1)  A person is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

2) A person is not compelled to testify against their persons, by providing incriminating evidence, one of which might be an encryption key.

The Onus of proof is on the Prosecutor to say that Alice,  has an incriminating material that she is hiding through encryption, and the reasons are demonstrates to be true.

The police can use brute force attacks to find out what Alice is hiding.

But Alice , under the view of the law, should not be compelled to give out her keys, because that can lead to self incrimination.

Asking Alice, under threat of jail time, to give out incriminating evidence in terms of keys, is to compel Alice to reveal information that would self-incriminate her. This is clearly against the law.

No one is saying that a warrant after being legally issued , and reasonably issued, that its illegal. I am talking about the process by which a police officer would have to go through to obtain such a warrant, after convincing a judge.

Your talking tomatoes, and I am talking potatoes. [A]

cheong wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote: NO. Its sinking because the Military, namely the Pentagon, spend all of that money on "Star wars" like equipment, that costs trillions of dollars.

Sorry, but doesn't "a government willing to spend money" favours economy?

When the governemt "pours money" to the local citizens, they get more income and then 1) more willing to spend money on other things 2) get more money means more income tax to the government. It was said to be a way to initate a positive monetary influrance to the country.

Although I agree there'd be better effect if money is spent on other things closely related to the public.

Well, if you pour money, and liquidity is high, the value of the dollar will be less, because its abundant.

Its a sword with 2 edges. Tax cuts can be good, but if not employed in a good way it can destroy an economy, and break the system, like what we have seen.

phreaks wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote:  phreaks wrote:  It's sinking for a number of reasons. Federal defecit, low interest rates, credit crisis,  CDO/CDS debt backed securities trend, real-estate bubble, oil prices. Combine all of those issues which each in itself can become a problem if not managed properly and you have a really big problem. Current Outlook:  Stormy. NO. Its sinking because the Military, namely the Pentagon, spend all of that money on "Star wars" like equipment, that costs trillions of dollars. The stuff you sight would not have lead to the collapse of the dollar, rather it is the massive military spending, that  Rumsfield did to transformed the Armed forces of the USA to the 21 century challenges. This massive spending, is equal to all the world's military spending 400 times. They tell you that the credit crisis is to blame but its not. its the military spending that broke the back of the economy. Interestingly enough, that is how the Roman Empire collapsed, if you read history. My $0.02

Ok, whatever you say. You obviously have a Harvard MBA in economics and are savvy enough to make the call that the others simply aren't seeing.

You must be a financial genius.

If I were allowed to hold stocks, I would certainly want you managing my money!

I am just giving people what I see and what I hear. I don't want anyone to loose their financial assets because of the lunacy and bad choices that Bush Admin Made.

Be safe, Be smart, Be adaptable to market changes.

Interestingly , please see  this YT video. It talks about PUT options.

Invest your money in Chinese and Asian Markets, or Europe. Because China will be the financial center of the world, for the years to come.

cheong wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote:  PS: suppose Alice uses the One Time Pad, and Alice encrypts a message. The police says to ALice, give us your key or decrypt the message, Alice goes and use a dummy Key to get the dummy message. Given that for an OTP encrypted message , there are an infinite number of possible decryption, how does the police know if the decrypted message is what was in the encrypted message? You see , there is a fundamental shift of the onus of proof here. Alice has to proof to the police that she is not hiding illegal stuff in the encrypted file. According to the Law, the onus of proof is upon the police and the prosecutors not the accused.

That's interesting idea... Perhaps one day I'll make an encryption program that can mix-encrypt one "open" version of diary and the "true" version of diary, plus multiple random documents, then accept multiple sets of key as password - one of each encrypted documents inside the encrypted file.

Then one day if I have to hand out the key to someone, I can always hide the key for the "true diary".

Yes! Absolutely. In fact TrueCrypt uses something like this. One password decrypts the outer encrypted file, and it has an inner one.
You can give them the pass to the outer file, and they see only Britney spears rampage pics.

You cannot legislate against technology. You cannot enforce laws against the technology because technology is always evolving.

If unjust laws are passed, and freedoms are outlawed, then only outlaws will have freedom.

There will be a techno-Revolution, where the people will reclaim their privacy, even if Gov'ts pour hell over their heads.

ScanIAm wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote:  dahat wrote:  SecretSoftware wrote: but how does the police get a warrant in the first place? They have to suspect something in the first place to get a warrant after convincing the judge. Which is how they get the encrypted data in the first place and know that they need to ask for an encryption key or the decrypted data! You are confused. Unlike a locked box, the encrypted file does not tell anything about its content. So how can the police think or suspect that it contains anything illegal? How can they go to the judge and say, well judge, the encryted file has sometihng we think will help us in prosecuting a case, please give us a warrant. The judge asks well, what makes you think that this is going to help you? What will they answer? Is it simply because of the fact that its an encrypted file that they are "curious" to searching? Did they see a bit of something that made them went to reveal the rest? An encrypted file is a closed System. Thus legally, you cannot use probable cause to ask for a warrant. In the case of the car, if the police sees a dead cadavar in the back seat, then they can, and have every right to get a search warrant and search the car. But if they see absolutely nothing, then they cant suspect anything or use the probable cause argument either. In fact the police would be charged with violating the person's 10 ammendment rights, or Fundamental human rights laws. That is why the police would ask you " if your okay with letting them search it, and if you dont agree, they will just give you a ticket, unless they see something that gives them probable cause to search".

They don't give you a ticket, they throw you in jail.  You have a real weak understanding of how laws work.

They have her computer.  They found a file that was encrypted.  Their warrant allows them to see what is in the file.

There really isn't any grey area here.

SecretSoftware wrote: dahat wrote:  SecretSoftware wrote: Well, many can argue that Patriot act is illegal if one challenges it against the 10 amendment rights. Just stop with your anti-Americanism and paranoia. We know you hate this country, we get the point, shut it. More so... the UK doesn't have the '10 amendment rights' or even the Bill of Rights... so once again you are arguing in the wrong jurisdiction! Again, you have a warped view of people who think differently than you do. You hold the view that they are anti-American, even though they are not. You see, We , as the citizens of this country, have the right to remain valiant and alert, as per President Eisenhower's speech on the military industrial complex, to what the government does. We the people have the right to audit every thing the government does and to be critical of it, for that is how we maintain our democratic way of life, and our civil liberties.

You do not have the right to ignore a warrant. 

You just don't.  Trust me.

SecretSoftware wrote: Its easy to charge and say people who look different and think different are hateful of the country we live in. But without descent , the very existence of this republic as a democratic republic is threatened. Hence I am critical of everything this government does. and that is as it should be.

No, you are crazy as a loon.  You don't come up with coherent thought, and you are wrong.

Constantly.

SecretSoftware wrote: dahat wrote:  SecretSoftware wrote: The only reason its active, is for reasons of national security, which the government claims. That is why it has to be renewed, because its fundamentally antithetical to democratic value systems,and is outright illegal when measured against the 10-Amendment laws. Again, this is a UK law, not a US one and I guarantee you that even without the Patriot Act that a person who refuses to give up keys (like a reporter who has been ordered to give up their sources) will be jailed until they comply and it would all be perfectly legal. However, what if the reporter decrypted a dummy message, that says "Dahat is a lunatic", when the real message says "Attack D-Day at 10"? I mean will that satisfy the people? Just to see a decryption of the message despite if its a true decryption or not? When does it stop? What if the police thinks that this is the dummy message and not the real one? When does it stop? My $0.02

Your rights are not allowed to infringe upon mine.  Your right to avoid search and seizure does not allow you to simply lock the bodies up in a safe any more than it allows you to encrypt communications that are evidence of a crime.

A warrant, depending on its scope, can include a body cavity search.  You may not like it, but it is, in fact, legal, just, and well within the constitution.

I just wish you'd read it instead of ranting.

I am not talking about after the warrant is issued. I am talking about before it is issued. How to issue it against an encrypted file.

Secondly, you don't understand the laws or their spirits.

We don't live in the jungles of the Amazon. We live in a civilized society, where the rule of law triumphs.

phreaks wrote:



It's sinking for a number of reasons.

Federal defecit, low interest rates, credit crisis,  CDO/CDS debt backed securities trend, real-estate bubble, oil prices.

Combine all of those issues which each in itself can become a problem if not managed properly and you have a really big problem.

Current Outlook:  Stormy.

NO. Its sinking because the Military, namely the Pentagon, spend all of that money on "Star wars" like equipment, that costs trillions of dollars.

The stuff you sight would not have lead to the collapse of the dollar, rather it is the massive military spending, that  Rumsfield did to transformed the Armed forces of the USA to the 21 century challenges.

This massive spending, is equal to all the world's military spending 400 times.

They tell you that the credit crisis is to blame but its not. its the military spending that broke the back of the economy.

Interestingly enough, that is how the Roman Empire collapsed, if you read history.

My $0.02

dahat wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote: but how does the police get a warrant in the first place? They have to suspect something in the first place to get a warrant after convincing the judge.

Which is how they get the encrypted data in the first place and know that they need to ask for an encryption key or the decrypted data!

You are confused. Unlike a locked box, the encrypted file does not tell anything about its content. So how can the police think or suspect that it contains anything illegal? How can they go to the judge and say, well judge, the encryted file has sometihng we think will help us in prosecuting a case, please give us a warrant.

The judge asks well, what makes you think that this is going to help you?

What will they answer? Is it simply because of the fact that its an encrypted file that they are "curious" to searching?

Did they see a bit of something that made them went to reveal the rest?

An encrypted file is a closed System. Thus legally, you cannot use probable cause to ask for a warrant.

In the case of the car, if the police sees a dead cadavar in the back seat, then they can, and have every right to get a search warrant and search the car.

But if they see absolutely nothing, then they cant suspect anything or use the probable cause argument either.

In fact the police would be charged with violating the person's 10 ammendment rights, or Fundamental human rights laws.

That is why the police would ask you " if your okay with letting them search it, and if you dont agree, they will just give you a ticket, unless they see something that gives them probable cause to search".

dahat wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote: Well, many can argue that Patriot act is illegal if one challenges it against the 10 amendment rights.

Just stop with your anti-Americanism and paranoia. We know you hate this country, we get the point, shut it.

More so... the UK doesn't have the '10 amendment rights' or even the Bill of Rights... so once again you are arguing in the wrong jurisdiction!

Again, you have a warped view of people who think differently than you do. You hold the view that they are anti-American, even though they are not.

You see, We , as the citizens of this country, have the right to remain valiant and alert, as per President Eisenhower's speech on the military industrial complex, to what the government does. We the people have the right to audit every thing the government does and to be critical of it, for that is how we maintain our democratic way of life, and our civil liberties.

Its easy to charge and say people who look different and think different are hateful of the country we live in. But without descent , the very existence of this republic as a democratic republic is threatened.

Hence I am critical of everything this government does. and that is as it should be.

dahat wrote:



SecretSoftware wrote: The only reason its active, is for reasons of national security, which the government claims. That is why it has to be renewed, because its fundamentally antithetical to democratic value systems,and is outright illegal when measured against the 10-Amendment laws.

Again, this is a UK law, not a US one and I guarantee you that even without the Patriot Act that a person who refuses to give up keys (like a reporter who has been ordered to give up their sources) will be jailed until they comply and it would all be perfectly legal.

However, what if the reporter decrypted a dummy message, that says "Dahat is a lunatic", when the real message says "Attack D-Day at 10"?

I mean will that satisfy the people? Just to see a decryption of the message despite if its a true decryption or not?

When does it stop? What if the police thinks that this is the dummy message and not the real one? When does it stop?

My $0.02

PS: suppose Alice uses the One Time Pad, and Alice encrypts a message. The police says to ALice, give us your key or decrypt the message, Alice goes and use a dummy Key to get the dummy message. Given that for an OTP encrypted message , there are an infinite number of possible decryption, how does the police know if the decrypted message is what was in the encrypted message?

You see , there is a fundamental shift of the onus of proof here. Alice has to proof to the police that she is not hiding illegal stuff in the encrypted file. According to the Law, the onus of proof is upon the police and the prosecutors not the accused.

Hence the law is illegal if measured against higher laws (10 amendment , or Fundamental Human rights acts), which takes precedent over any other lower applicable laws.