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DOJ Finally Uses FOSTA, Over Two Years Later... To Shut Down A Site Used By Sex WorkersLegal Issuesfrom the worth-it? deptWed, Jun 24th 2020 10:50am Mike MasnickFor years leading up to the passage of FOSTA, we were told that Congress had to pass the law as quickly as possible because so many women were "at risk" due to trafficking. And when asked for evidence of this, people would point to Backpage, even though the site had shut down its "adult" section under pressure from Congress a year earlier. Of course, the actual stats that were provided turned out to be fake and Backpage was seized before the law was even passed. The charges against the founders did not include sex trafficking charges. Also, as the details have come out about Backpage, it's become evident that rather than facilitating sex trafficking, the company was actively working with law enforcement to find and arrest sex traffickers. However, where they started to push back on law enforcement was when law enforcement wanted to go after non-trafficked sex workers.However, with all of the moral panic around the need to pass FOSTA, we highlighted earlier this year that two years had gone by and the DOJ had not used the law a single time to go after any "sex trafficking" site. Instead, as we predicted, the law was being used in nuisance lawsuits, such as mailing list provider MailChimp and CRM provider Salesforce because Backpage had used those services.Finally, last week, however, the DOJ made use of FOSTA in shutting down a website and arresting its operator. A site called CityXGuide.com (and some other sites that it ran -- including one with a name similar to Backpage) were seized, and the guy who ran it, Wilhan Martono, was arrested in California. From the details provided, it does look like Martono saw an opportunity to jump into the market vacated by Backpage, and the charges claim that he brought in $21 million doing so.The original indictment was done in early June, but it was only just unsealed with Martono's arrest and the seizure of the various websites. It does seem clear that Martono sought to be the source for advertising sex work, but the DOJ conveniently mashes together sex work and sex trafficking, because that's the kind of thing law enforcement likes to do.Indeed, the immediate reaction to this appears to be that plenty of non-trafficked sex workers, who previously had relied on Backpage to remain safe and now relied on Martono's sites, are again put in danger. The Hacking/Hustling collective -- a group of sex workers who came together to advocate around issues such as FOSTA -- put out a press release calling out what a stupid, counterproductive move this is:“When we are re-envisioning public safety, this is a perfect example of why we can’t exempt human trafficking. Instead of resources going to real investigations or victim support, you have six agencies spending time and resources reading ads and looking for the word ‘blow job’” said Lorelei Lee, a collective member of Hacking//Hustling.I was going to link to another website that has a blog advocating for sex workers' rights that explained in great detail how this puts sex workers at danger, but honestly, under a broad interpretation of FOSTA, linking to that website might violate the law. That's because after reading the blog post, I saw that there was a link to a "find escorts" site associated with the blog, and while I think I should be able to link to such a blog post, with its cogent explanation for why this DOJ action puts women at risk... merely linking to it would put me at risk under a broad reading of FOSTA (a stupid, unconstitutional reading, but, alas, these are some of the chilling effects created by the law).Either way, it's difficult to see how this does anything to stop actual sex trafficking. Indeed, again, it's likely to put victims at even greater risk -- while also putting sex workers at greater risk. Studies have shown that when these sites go down, more women are put at risk. Even worse, as noted, Backpage actually helped law enforcement track down and arrest traffickers. But by making everything else such sites do illegal, it appears that (obviously) Martono avoided helping law enforcement at all (the indictment suggests he ignored various subpoenas).Again, this is exactly as tons of people predicted. When these ads were appearing on places like Craigslist and Backpage, those companies worked closely with law enforcement to go after actual traffickers, and get them arrested. But now, with things like FOSTA, rather than do that, law enforcement can just... take down the best source to find and track down traffickers, pushing them to sites that are less and less likely to help law enforcement? How does that make sense. Indeed, we've covered a number of law enforcement officials saying that the shutdown of Backpage has made it more difficult to find actual traffickers.And, if you want any more evidence of that: note that nowhere with this announcement is there anything about arresting any actual traffickers. I have a request in to the DOJ asking if they or any law enforcement have arrested any actual traffickers who used these sites -- but at the time of publishing they have not responded. The indictment claims -- somewhat salaciously -- that the sites seized were used to identify "numerous victims of child sex trafficking," including a "13-year-old Jane Doe." Obviously, it's horrific to find out about that Jane Doe or any victim of sex trafficking, but it does seem odd that there is no mention of any arrests of the traffickers.Because... wouldn't arresting actual traffickers be the goal here?Either way, this story is getting buzz on Twitter from two communities: sex workers who are pissed off and angry that they're now losing business and the ability to operate safely... and... believers in the ridiculous Q anon nonsense conspiracy theory, who believe that everything going on in the world is a plot to cover up child sex trafficking. To them, this is evidence that the big promised crackdown on sex trafficking rings has begun. Of course, the lack of any actual arrests for actual sex trafficking kinda suggests that's not the goal here.Still, this whole thing allowed FOSTA co-author Senator Rob Portman to take a victory lap. Someone should ask him why he's celebrating putting women at risk -- or at least ask him where the arrests are for actual sex trafficking.Filed Under: doj, fosta, section 230, sex trafficking, sex workers, wilhan martonoCompanies: backpage, cityxguideDaily Deal: The All-In-One Mastering Organization BundleDealsfrom the good-deals-on-cool-stuff deptWed, Jun 24th 2020 10:45am Daily DealThe All-In-One Mastering Organization Bundle has 5 courses to help you become more organized and efficient. You'll learn how to organize all your digital files into a single inbox-based system, how to organize your ideas into a hierarchy, how to categorize each object in your home/apartment/office/vehicle into one of the categories from the "One System Framework," and more. It's on sale for $30.Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.Filed Under: daily dealSenators Launch Full On Nuclear War Against Encryption: Bill Will Require Broken Encryption, Putting Everyone At RiskLegal Issuesfrom the stop-pushing-this-bullshit deptWed, Jun 24th 2020 9:23am Mike MasnickAnother day, another bad bill. Just as we're coming to terms with the EARN IT Act moving forward in Congress, three Senators -- Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and Marsha Blackburn -- have announced a direct attack on encryption. The full bill is here. It's 51 pages of insanity that would effectively destroy privacy and security on the internet. This is five-alarm fire bad.For what it's worth, Graham is also a co-sponsor of the EARN IT Act, which makes me wonder if he's going to agree to an amendment of EARN IT that keeps encryption out of it while pushing this bill instead. That's now the rumor making the rounds, and I even received a press release from an anti-porn activist group supporting this bill because they think it will help clarify that EARN IT won't end encryption (none of that makes sense to me either, but...)The announcement of the bill includes all the usual "think of the children" nonsense, claiming that we can't have encryption because some bad people might use it for bad stuff. The press release summarizes what they claim the bill will do:Highlights of the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act: Enables law enforcement to obtain lawful access to encrypted data. Once a warrant is obtained, the bill would require device manufacturers and service providers to assist law enforcement with accessing encrypted data if assistance would aid in the execution of the warrant. In addition, it allows the Attorney General to issue directives to service providers and device manufacturers to report on their ability to comply with court orders, including timelines for implementation. The Attorney General is prohibited from issuing a directive with specific technical steps for implementing the required capabilities. Anyone issued a directive may appeal in federal court to change or set aside the directive. The Government would be responsible for compensating the recipient of a directive for reasonable costs incurred in complying with the directive. Incentivizes technical innovation. Directs the Attorney General to create a prize competition to award participants who create a lawful access solution in an encrypted environment, while maximizing privacy and security. Promotes technical and lawful access training and provides real-time assistance. Funds a grant program within the Justice Department’s National Domestic Communications Assistance Center (NDCAC) to increase digital evidence training for law enforcement and creates a call center for advice and assistance during investigations.In short, this basically says "break encryption, but we won't tell you how." We're right back to "nerd harder" except that this time it's "nerd harder, or you're breaking the law."Attorney General Barr statement: I am confident that our world-class technology companies can engineer secure products that protect user information and allow for lawful access. Sean Lyngaas (@snlyngaas) June 23, 2020The problems with this should be evident from all the times we've discussed this before, so I'm really not interested in going over it all again. But the quick summary: installing a "backdoor" or "lawful access" to encrypted communications is not a simple technical problem. As cryptography expert Matt Blaze once said, it's like saying "well, if you can land a man on the moon, why can't you land a man on the sun." A backdoor to encryption literally breaks the encryption and opens up a huge host of other problems, none of which are readily solvable. Instead, you just find more and more problems, each of which makes everyone less secure.The actual text of the bill is even worse than the summary. It's crazy long so I won't do a full breakdown here, but will call out a few scary, scary bits. The key part is that this basically requires the end of encryption. While there is some language early on about it not applying if "technically impossible," there is other language that more or less cancels that out. Specifically, it requires Apple and other large device sellers to backdoor encryption. It is not an option, but a requirement:DEVICE MANUFACTURERS.—A device manufacturer that sold more than 1,000,000 consumerelectronic devices in the United States in 2016 or any calendar year thereafter, or that has received an assistance capability directive under section 3513, shall ensure that the manufacturer has the ability to provide the assistance described in subsection (b)(2) for any consumer electronic device that the manufacturer—‘‘(A) designs, manufactures, fabricates, or assembles; and‘‘(B) intends for sale or distribution in the United States.So, if you sell more than a million consumer electronic devices in the US, you are required to make sure they have backdoors. That's... going to be a LOT of backdoors. Every Alexa device. Every smart TV. And, of course, every phone. That's devices. How about apps and services? More of the same:PROVIDERS OF REMOTE COMPUTING SERVICE; OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDERS.—A provider of remote computing service or operating system provider that provided service to more than 1,000,000 subscribers or users in the United States in 2016 or any calendar year thereafter, or that has received an assistance capability directive under section 3513, shall ensure that the provider has the ability to provide the assistance described in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of subsection (b)(2) for any remotely stored data that the provider processes or stores.That's... a lot of websites that will be barred from using real end-to-end encryption. The "shall ensure" part is what should scare everyone.That's still talking about data stored on those servers though. As for "data in motion" again, services will have to provide backdoors under this bill. The reference to "technically impossible" only seems to apply to "independent actions of an unaffiliated entity that make it technically impossible to do". So, the only way to avoid having to break encryption on your own services is to... outsource it to an unaffiliated entity who can make it impossible for you to break the encryption?As for messaging services: again, the bill "shall ensure" assistance:A provider of wire or electronic communication service that had more than 1,000,000 monthly active users in the United States in January 2016 or any month thereafter, or has received an assistance capability directive under section 3513, shall ensure that the provider has the ability to provide the information, facilities, and technical assistance described in section 2518(4).And it gets worse. The bill allows the Attorney General to order someone to break encryption:If a person fails to comply with a directive issued under subsection (b), the Attorney General may file a petition for an order to compel the person to comply with the directive in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which shall have jurisdiction to review the petition.There's also a giant "NERD HARDER" section, which explains Bill Barr's comments above. Basically it creates a contest, run by the Attorney General, to create a type of backdoored encryption where the Attorney General and his hand-picked judges will determine which technology wins. And by "wins" I mean loses, because that technology will be broken in no time at all, putting everyone at risk.This whole thing is so incredibly dangerous, and it's not even clear that encryption is a real problem for law enforcement. The basic cost-benefit analysis here is that this law would put everyone, and all our communications, at risk of attack, for a possible benefit in a tiny number of cases, where there remains no evidence that a backdoor would have helped stop any crime. I can't see how the tradeoff is worth it, and any elected official pushing this nonsense should be asked to explain how they weigh these costs and benefits. And if they answer like Bill Barr by saying "smart techies can figure it out" they should have their views discounted for being idiots.Meanwhile, the press release leads off with quotes from the three sponsors, all of which are head-bangingly wrong, but designed to do the usual tugging at the emotional strings rather than any actual recognition of what they're pushing here:“Terrorists and criminals routinely use technology, whether smartphones, apps, or other means, to coordinate and communicate their daily activities. In recent history, we have experienced numerous terrorism cases and serious criminal activity where vital information could not be accessed, even after a court order was issued. Unfortunately, tech companies have refused to honor these court orders and assist law enforcement in their investigations. My position is clear: After law enforcement obtains the necessary court authorizations, they should be able to retrieve information to assist in their investigations. Our legislation respects and protects the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans. It also puts the terrorists and criminals on notice that they will no longer be able to hide behind technology to cover their tracks,” said Graham.There remains little evidence that terrorists have been able to communicate without law enforcement being able to access the info. Remember, the FBI flat out lied about how many devices it had in its possession that it couldn't get into, and has since refused to give an updated number (despite multiple requests). At the same time, every time the FBI does come out and point to a situation where it can't get into a phone, a few months later, they seem to admit that, well, actually, there was a technology that let them get in.On top of that, we've discussed how law enforcement and the FBI have access to so much other information thanks to social media, and various open source intelligence tools, that the idea that they need to attack encryption is just ridiculous.And that leaves out something else too: if we put backdoors into encryption, guess what will become a huge target for "terrorists and criminals"? That's right: all of our communications.“Tech companies’ increasing reliance on encryption has turned their platforms into a new, lawless playground of criminal activity. Criminals from child predators to terrorists are taking full advantage. This bill will ensure law enforcement can access encrypted material with a warrant based on probable cause and help put an end to the Wild West of crime on the Internet,” said Cotton.This is just a joke. The internet is not "lawless" and there's no indication of increased criminal activity, nor any evidence that law enforcement cannot solve crimes because of encryption or the internet. This bill won't ensure anything other than opening up a new avenue for terrorists and criminals to terrorize.“User privacy and public safety can and should work in tandem. What we have learned is that in the absence of a lawful warrant application process, terrorists, drug traffickers and child predators will exploit encrypted communications to run their operations,” said Blackburn.Yes, user privacy and public safety do work in tandem. But you know would would ruin that? Breaking encryption and throwing both of those things into the gutter.This bill should be trashed and these three Senators (and the Attorney General) deserve mockery for a technically ignorant, totally clueless and dangerous bill that would harm Americans and destroy both privacy and security, because some law enforcement agencies are too lazy to do their jobs. Frankly, the intelligence community should come out screaming about this bill as well, as they know full well how much more dangerous this will make their own work. This is a ridiculous attack on the internet.Filed Under: backdoors, doj, earn it, encryption, fbi, going dark, laed, lindsey graham, marsha blackburn, tom cotton, william barrThe Coronavirus Laid Bare Our Empty Lip Service To Fixing The Digital Divide Broadbandfrom the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 deptWed, Jun 24th 2020 6:27am Karl BodeFCC boss Ajit Pai likes to repeatedly proclaim that one of his top priorities while chair of the FCC is to "close the digital divide." Pai, who clearly harbors post-FCC political aspirations, can often be found touring the nation's least-connected states proclaiming that he's working tirelessly to shore up broadband connectivity and competition nationwide. More often than not, the junkets involve Pai informing locals that gutting FCC oversight of some of the least competitive, least liked companies in America resulted in near-miraculous outcomes.Reality continues to have something else to say.In the wake of COVID-19 quarantines, more attention than ever has been given to the fact that upwards of 41 million Americans (double official FCC estimates) still can't get any type of broadband despite thirty years of subsidization and lip service toward fixing the nation's "digital divide." Millions more can't afford service because feckless regulators and limited competition work in concert to ensure U.S. broadband prices remain some of the highest in the developed world. This was always a problem. It's just more obvious now that citizens in countless COVID-19 hotspots are forced to actually pay attention to it.While there's a universe of folks paid by the sector to pretend this is all fantasy or hyperbole, at the heart of the problem remains captured regulators who can't be bothered to hold bad actors accountable or adequately map where US broadband is or isn't available. The Reveal has a good piece talking to policy experts who, (once again with feeling) note that the core of the problem is bad FCC leadership and bad data. As in, we literally do not know where broadband is available in the United States or at what speeds and price points it's offered. We pretend we do, but we simply don't:"No one really knows how many people don’t have high-speed internet access. The government puts the figure at 21 million, but most studies show that’s a drastic undercount – Microsoft estimates it could be as many as half of all Americans. But there is something that most people involved agree on.“This has been a colossal failure,” said Christopher Ali, an assistant professor in media studies at the University of Virginia, who has spent the last few years writing a book about broadband deployment in the United States. “We’re spending a lot of money. We’re just not spending it efficiently, and we’re not spending it democratically.”Yet we're still throwing countless billions at broadband providers to fix a problem we don't actually understand. Often we don't understand it by design; lobbyists for the biggest broadband providers have for decades fought against more accurate broadband mapping, knowing full well it will only reveal the sorry state of US broadband availability and competition. And when ISPs are caught time, and time, and time again taking taxpayer subsidies for services only half deployed (if you're lucky), our feckless regulators don't genuinely do much about it:"The last time the FCC handed out money to build internet infrastructure, in 2015, Frontier Communications and CenturyLink, two of the country’s largest internet service providers, collectively won grants worth $3.2 billion over the next four years – more than $800 million a year between them and more than a third of the program’s $9 billion total.In January, CenturyLink wrote to the FCC to say it was failing to meet a deadline for deploying networks in 23 of the 33 states in which it was working. In April, having also failed to meet deadlines and facing mountains of debt, Frontier Communications declared bankruptcy."Instead of ramping up competitive policies and accountability for a broken market, the FCC, sans any legitimate evidence, decided to obliterate FCC authority over telecom at lobbyist behest. And while we have seen some efforts to improve broadband mapping of via the Broadband Data Act (which encourages more verification of data by the FCC and the integration of more crowdsourced and detailed data), any actual improvement remains many years and many more millions away from fruition. While the wireless industry is already hard at work trying to ensure that 5G networks are exempt from many of these improvements.There's an entire cottage industry of telecom-linked experts whose entire mission is to assure you that none of this is actually happening, or if it is happening, it's only because the United States is so gosh darned big. The reality, however, is quite simple: US broadband is patchy, expensive, uncompetitive, and mediocre because the telecom industry lobbies weak-kneed regulators and lawmakers to keep it that way. It's a truth we go to great, comical lengths to deny, because whether it's unaccountable subsidies, monopoly rents, or campaign contributions, it's simply far more profitable to deny it.Filed Under: competition, covid-19, digital divide, fccCopyright Filters And Takedowns Are Broken: Questlove Says YouTube Flagged Him For Playing His Own TracksCopyrightfrom the because-of-course deptWed, Jun 24th 2020 3:26am Mike MasnickAnother day, another story of how broken copyright is in taking down content that shouldn't be taken down. We've been talking about all of the many ways in which notice-and-takedown systems are broken of late, but this one appears to be more of the problem with filters -- such as those now required in the EU, and which lobbyists are pushing for in the US, under the banner of "notice-and-staydown" (which would require a filter to function). Of course, the problem with filters is that they regularly get things wrong. And the very best of the filters is ContentID. YouTube has spent over $100 million on it, and yet... here's Questlove, of the Roots, highlightinghow it's taking down him playing his own music:does this include not red flagging my dj sets? I m not doing BTS numbers but I know djs are saving people from doing something self destructive in the night. the flagging is so bad I got warnings for playing my own music I created. https://t.co/Ctb8qzPz9a

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