1A Stomped for 2A Speech

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  • Enkrypter

    Sharpshooter
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    A federal appeals court ruled this week against Defense Distributed, the Texas organization that promotes 3D-printed guns, in a lawsuit that it brought last year against the State Department. In a 2-1 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals was not persuaded that Defense Distributed's right to free speech under the First Amendment outweighs national security concerns.

    Court: With 3D printer gun files, national security interest trumps free speech | Ars Technica


    Philip Zimmermann was receiving similar threats during the first crypto-war and published the source code of PGP in a book (https://www.amazon.com/PGP-Internals-Philip-R-Zimmermann/dp/0262240394/) and more or less dared the feds to ban a book.

    In the United States, AES was announced by the NIST as U.S. FIPS PUB 197 (FIPS 197) on November 26, 2001.[6] This announcement followed a five-year standardization process in which fifteen competing designs were presented and evaluated, before the Rijndael cipher was selected as the most suitable (see Advanced Encryption Standard process for more details).


    AES became effective as a federal government standard on May 26, 2002 after approval by the Secretary of Commerce. AES is included in the ISO/IEC 18033-3 standard. AES is available in many different encryption packages, and is the first (and only) publicly accessible cipher approved by the National Security Agency (NSA) for top secret information

    One can find sourcecode for AES encryption all over the internet. It's initial inception was published from day one. How did this court ever come to this conclusion?

    I'd like to also mention that one of the designs, "The Liberator" is based on a design that we used in WWII that we gave to the French resistance. Ike never did it, but the ideal was to literally drop these by the thousands out of aircraft to supply friendly allied forces with a means to fight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator
     
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    david890

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    How did this court ever come to this conclusion?

    By asserting that there is a compelling public interest that overrides an individual's private interests. IANAL, but it doesn't stray far from a "Yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" argument; not all forms of speech are protected.

    The issue with PGP was that the method of generating a random number - the essence of any robust encryption method - was predictable; PGP couldn't generate a "true" random number, and publication of that book would reveal the method used to generate the RN. The encryption software was public domain (I used it). The AES encryption software is also public domain, as is RSA software. AES encryption uses a 128-bit key, while RSA uses a 1024-bit key, and, to the best of my knowledge, neither uses a software-generated random number. That would defeat the purpose.

    A brief Google search showed recommendations of using RSA to encrypt the AES key, then using AES for the main body of data to be sent. In other words, a double-encryption of the key needed to decrypt the data. The author argued that using RSA for the entire dataset might be too slow in some situations.
     

    Enkrypter

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    The reason cryptography was brought into the conversation was because they cited ITAR as the reason why the plans should be regulated. ITAR considers cryptography a weapon and thus regulates it's export, much like they do firearms and munitions. PGP was referenced because the creator got away with publishing a regulated export without fault under first amendment rights.

    Cryptography will be obsolete in the next couple decades when quantum computing becomes mainstream for countries that can afford to research it. China just launched a Quantum communications Satellite earlier this year, providing them with un-crackable military encryption. (at least until someone can muster the intelligence to unravel some sort of new next-level understanding of physics) Quantum computing is very much an arms race.

    That's neither here nor there. The issue is weather or not publishing something that's currently freely available as common knowledge should be classified as a threat to national security. You can find CNC manufacturing blue prints for just about any modern firearm online. (1911, AR15, M14) Last I checked they don't do background checks for purchasing CNC machines or lathes; just as they don't for 3d printers. This is a BS call by the court by a freedom hating judge.

    Some politico-retard is afraid of a plastic single-shot pistol with a 2" non-rifled barrel and no sights getting through a metal detector. A knife would be far more effective in any given situation where this "weapon" could be employed. The main intent of the original design of this weapon was psychological warfare. It was a highly impractical weapon.

    Our govt. has trouble keeping up with taking down ISIS IED cooking shows on youtube. Extremists @$$h0les are going to continue to spend their money on fertilizer, over a 3D printer, any day of the week. This plastic toy gun issue is so much more benign. Is it really worth trampling all over the foundation of our way of life? I say no.

    All of that aside, the Defense Distributed guys are clearly trolls with a very specific intent.
     

    david890

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    A knife would be far more effective in any given situation where this "weapon" could be employed.

    Airplane window at 35,000'. Would a knife penetrate?

    All of that aside, the Defense Distributed guys are clearly trolls with a very specific intent.

    Agreed. Lots of "proof-of-concept" and "can vs. should" folks out there, including the guy in a Level II biohazard lab who stripped off all the human antibody markers from the H1N1 virus. This means there would be NO immune defense for a person, had the virus escaped. Pretty much 100% lethal.

    80% lowers are pretty cheap, and it doesn't take a lot to make it functional, or to turn an AR lower into full-auto.

    Given this is the 5th Circuit, I wouldn't be surprised to see an appeal to SCOTUS. With the 4-4 split, it the ruling stands. Suck it, McConnell.
     

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