Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Encryption is therefore also an enabler of the rights to freedom of expression, information and opinion, and also has an impact on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, association and other human rights

I haven't been following the whole encryption debate in detail recently, but it seems there's one point which hasn't been discussed much: What about encryption which works against users' freedom, things like DRM, "trusted" boot and the whole idea of mandatory forced trust, etc.?

On the one hand, I'm against government surveillance. On the other hand, I'm also against DRM and user-hostile locked-down systems. Government surveillance, breaking DRM, jailbreaking, rooting, etc. all rely on cracks, the "imperfect" nature of security in some form or another. That's why I think this is a particularly perplexing issue, and bluntly saying "encryption is good and we should have more of it" is not seeing the whole perspective.

Relevant story: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

>What about encryption which works against users' freedom, things like DRM, "trusted" boot and the whole idea of mandatory forced trust, etc.?

Isn't this a "freedom from/freedom to" distinction?[0]

People should be free to use encryption. People should be free to use software to break DRM. People should be free to create, use and sell hardware which limits the behavior of software. Using hardware to hide keys from software for instance is a common DRM usecase, but it has applications in security and privacy as well (SGX or Apple's enclave for example). People should be free not to use DRM as well.

The problem, it seems to me, is should technology be used to enhance or degrade a users agency and security? The technology, including hardware which limits software behavior, can be used in both directions.

[0]: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/

Things like DRM can be fixed from the user demand side. If there are enough products on the market, then users can simply choose not to use products with DRM.

On the other hand, with issues like "banned encryption", if the government has its ways, there won't be any choice at all for the users.

Whether or not in the real world there are enough choices with regards to DRM and why or why not is a question for another time.

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