this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
168 points (100.0% liked)

technology

23265 readers
126 users here now

On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.

Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020

Rules:

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1779885123363635572.html

Buried in the Section 702 reauthorization bill (RISAA) passed by the House on Friday is the biggest expansion of domestic surveillance since the Patriot Act. Senator Wyden calls this power โ€œterrifying,โ€ and heโ€™s right.

This bill represents one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history. I will do everything in my power to stop it from passing in the Senate.

NEW: House votes 273-147 to extend FISA Section 702 surveillance powers for two years.
After rejecting an amendment to bolster warrant requirement when spying involves US persons.
126 Rs and 147 Ds voted for the bill.
Now to Senate.
Deadline: April 19

If the bill becomes law, any company or individual that provides ANY service whatsoever may be forced to assist in NSA surveillance, as long as they have access to equipment on which communications are transmitted or storedโ€”such as routers, servers, cell towers, etc.
That sweeps in an enormous range of U.S. businesses that provide wifi to their customers and therefore have access to equipment on which communications transit. Barber shops, laundromats, fitness centers, hardware stores, dentistโ€™s officesโ€ฆ the list goes on and on.
It also includes commercial landlords that rent out the office space where tens of millions of Americans go to work every dayโ€”offices of journalists, lawyers, nonprofits, financial advisors, health care providers, and more.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40062271

This is the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7888/text

This is the report introducing the controversial amendment: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/118th-congress/house-report/456

The amendment is the last item in the report, under this heading:

An Amendment To Be Offered by Representative Turner of Ohio or His Designee, Debatable for 10 Minutes

This is the transcript of the session where the amendment was discussed and voted on: https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-170/issue-63/house-section/article/H2328-1

You can find the discussion within the text using this search term:

Amendment No. 6 Offered by Mr. Turner

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] CommunistBear@hexbear.net 126 points 6 months ago (3 children)

126 Rs and 147 Ds voted for the bill.

But you need to vote for democrats because they're the good guys

Harm reduction party

load more comments (2 replies)
[โ€“] Pluto@hexbear.net 101 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Frankly, people forgot about the NSA spying on everyone.

[โ€“] Spongebobsquarejuche@hexbear.net 44 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Everyone forgets about the 4th amendment.

[โ€“] Pluto@hexbear.net 33 points 6 months ago
[โ€“] davel@hexbear.net 32 points 6 months ago

actually The internet did not exist in 1791 maybe-later-honey

[โ€“] BoxedFenders@hexbear.net 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A testament to just how effectively they can control the population that they went from the big scary boogeyman of the 00's to barely spoken about in public discourse now.

[โ€“] Pluto@hexbear.net 27 points 6 months ago

Not the whole population.

Many are waking up.

But the fact that the NSA is out of common discourse is... worrying.

[โ€“] assyrian@hexbear.net 99 points 6 months ago (2 children)

in bad country, the government has control of the internet and uses it to surveil its citizens

[โ€“] LENINSGHOSTFACEKILLA@hexbear.net 77 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I just kind of assumed they already did this

[โ€“] Awoo@hexbear.net 66 points 6 months ago

They do it illegally but can't use evidence obtained illegally in court so they want to do it legally too

[โ€“] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 54 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Not a new observation, but it still blows me away how Enemy of the State was a wild conspiracy movie when it came out in 1998 and is now basically common knowledge.

[โ€“] FlaminGoku@reddthat.com 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Love that movie.

I still often use "a person is smart, people are stupid." So true, it hurts.

[โ€“] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think that quotes from Men in Black

[โ€“] FlaminGoku@reddthat.com 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Haha, shit you're right. Leaving it up because we should embrace our mistakes.

Ok actual quote from the movie i also use...

Why'd you blow up the building?

Because you made a phone call!

[โ€“] Wakmrow@hexbear.net 7 points 6 months ago

The weird paranoid guy went to my alma mater๐Ÿ™‚

[โ€“] crispy_lol@hexbear.net 48 points 6 months ago

Theyโ€™ve been happy to have back doors for a long time, seems now they insist going through the front door.

[โ€“] Hohsia@hexbear.net 60 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Oh neat. I was contemplating a reality where my company would be able to spy on me and it looks like this is that bill hell fucking yeah

[โ€“] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Spoiler alert: If you're talking about your workplace, they already could. Don't do anything on work equipment, network, or systems (including any free/guest wifi they have) that you wouldn't want to have read by your boss or read out to you in a courtroom.

load more comments (2 replies)
[โ€“] MineDayOff@hexbear.net 50 points 6 months ago

In communist China... etc etc

[โ€“] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Good time to grey market a Huawei phone.

[โ€“] assyrian@hexbear.net 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

are they actually usable - like do they work in US/Europe? what's the major issue with them, no Google app store?

[โ€“] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 33 points 6 months ago (5 children)

My understanding is that they'll work if you get the one that has the correct frequency bands for your carrier. That said, "work" depends on exactly what you want it to do any how many hoops you're willing to jump through to get there.

Phone, sms, internet browsing should all work fine. Apps should also mostly work if you download them through the Huawei store or sideload. However, some apps demand account access to Google accounts, or deeper level access to your OS (e.g. banking and payment apps). Those are the ones which get dicey. Huaweis also lack google framework services, which means a lot of the behind the scenes account shit that makes android easier to use (e.g. unified logins) won't work. Android auto and smartwatch connectivity also don't work because they need special access.

If you read that and thought "wow, that's extremely inconvenient" then a Huawei is not for you. However, I know some people just read that and thought "Hell yeah, fuck google, sign me up!"

[โ€“] EpicKebabEater@hexbear.net 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I checked it out out of curiosity and some Huawei models have LineageOS available for them which means you could use gmscore(microG) instead of google framework services on LineageOS. A cursory search also shows videos where people get microG on the official Huawei OSes but I can't say how well that works. That would invalidate the reason to get Huawei though(no Google surveillance). You can remove Google services from any device with enough tinkering, especially if you're willing to install an open-source OS.

[โ€“] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Lineageos is as secure* as stock android. If you're going to be using stock might as well just use your normal phone, the NSA definitely has shit worse than NSO Pegasus for stock android devices

[โ€“] vivamatapacos@hexbear.net 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

the NSA definitely has shit worse than NSO Pegasus for stock android devices

Shouldn't we assume the same for Huawei devices?

[โ€“] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, we shouldn't trust, but the devices that run Harmony OS are significantly rarer than stock Android phones (meaning less interest/pressure to develop malware for them) and are also distinct from stock Android (so malware that could infect stock/LOS/OneUI/other Android "flavours" might not infect Harmony OS). I don't know about hardening on Harmony OS, but I doubt it implements any hardening, so yeah it is technically as secure as stock Android, but considering the time horizon for threat actors to develop malware, it's less likely to be successfully targeted. Not good enough to rely on.

oh also it's developed in China which doesn't have any incentive to "accidentally leave" vulnerabilities

[โ€“] vivamatapacos@hexbear.net 4 points 6 months ago

I understand. My concern with the security of say a Huawei device is, that while domestic surveillance and NSA backdoors into American tech is a significant portion of the state's security apparatus, I imagine the majority of effort spent by our spy agencies is in compromising and penetrating foreign tech. Yes, its easier for the state to coerce our tech industry into cooperating, but that's why most of the offensive cybersecurity funding goes towards breaching non-US tech.

[โ€“] newerAccountWhoDis@hexbear.net 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Where can I read more about that? Because lineage and eos were my go to digital self defense solutions

[โ€“] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Search up "lineageos vs grapheneos" for some reading. Basically the difference is in hardening and the magnitude of the attack surface vector - a truly secure OS would try to minimize the potential for every type of breach even at the expense of usability. While I do use grapheneos on one phone, I personally don't put any faith in it either as A Truly Secureโ„ข solution simply because it's American and vulnerable to many attacks outside of the phone (even if we assume it was built perfectly as of now, which it isn't).

[โ€“] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Look out for voice over LTE support. I bought a Chinese phone a while back (after checking bands etc) and after 3g got pulled from my carrier it can't make calls anymore. Apparently VoLTE is also a thing it needs to support, for the carrier you're on.

I've had little luck finding a community solution either. If someone figures something out they should let me know/make a post because I'd much rather get another one of those then this Samsung.

[โ€“] GaryLeChat@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 6 months ago

I've been wondering if it's actually required in the LTE specification that carriers whitelist phones for VoLTE. I'm in a similar situation to you and I've found nobody seems to talk about being forced into buying a phone on a list.

[โ€“] plinky@hexbear.net 6 points 6 months ago

does huawei has progressive web apps thingy?

[โ€“] assyrian@hexbear.net 6 points 6 months ago

ngl that sounds like my personal hell

[โ€“] Egon@hexbear.net 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The only "smart" appliances I own are my phone and my pc and I am constantly frustrated by how they insist on having interconnectivity. I don't use banking apps on my phone because I am afraid of losing it + lots of lax security stuff, so less places I've got my finances, less places they can get stolen.

Huawei sounds perfect apart from me needing my phone to be a GPS, and that's kinda tough without Google maps

[โ€“] GaryLeChat@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 6 months ago

Organic Maps is a good alternative app I've found that doesnt require google maps.

[โ€“] umbrella@lemmy.ml 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 17 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Which is a massive chunk of the internet considering that the biggest providers are there. Aws, Azure, GCP, Cloudflare, etc... And the other ones are in China which is most likely not much better in that aspect.

[โ€“] umbrella@lemmy.ml 42 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

at least china doesnt have a history of interfering with other countries democracies.

if anything i hope this spurs some competition and more cloud providers outside these two places.

[โ€“] JamesConeZone@hexbear.net 25 points 6 months ago

China is actually much better

[โ€“] Wheaties@hexbear.net 14 points 6 months ago

And the other ones are in China which is most likely not much better in that aspect

Isn't it? I don't live in china. I'm not subject to their laws. A local business is much more of a threat than a foreign one.

[โ€“] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 9 points 6 months ago

No CCP agent ever sent me a piracy notice or put me on a watchlist

Don't worry, I'm already voting for Biden so everything is going to be fine

[โ€“] whatup@hexbear.net 14 points 6 months ago

They havenโ€™t already?

[โ€“] KnilAdlez@hexbear.net 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I feel like this is something where I used to hear about the EFF raise hell about it. What happened to them?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next โ€บ