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Comment by kordless | Hacker News Reader

If you have a neural mesh, the state will likely have intent to claim they have access and rights to the date in the mesh, regardless of whether it is in your body or not.

There's no way in hell I'm ever hooking a computer up to my brain in this reality.

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You are of course assuming the data will be easy to understand. One possibility for a neural mesh is that we emulate parts of the brain in hardware to say add more 'storage.' We don't need an understanding of the 'format' a memory is stored to do this, much in the same way that we can build a hard drive for a computer without understanding the JPEG format.

It could be really difficult to extract useful information from such hardware. Let's say we have a brain implant that maps a 3d scene concept to positions of objects in 3d space. So input scene foo gives me baz(1,1,1), bar(1,2,1), quz(1,3,3), etc.

Such stored data is next to useless if we don't know what the inputs and outputs map to. We don't know if scene foo is a scene of a desk or a scene of a movie and we don't know if baz is a book, a gun, or an open book, but the person's brain using the implant does. Determining what these mappings are could be very difficult. We may have to expose the implant's wearer to millions of different objects to determine how they what the object tags are.

Your interpretation: data is "next to useless". Plaintiff's expensive lawyer interpretation: "clear, decisive and overwhelming". Hope you have a good lawyer too.

I know I'm being cynical when I say this is 2017 and facts don't matter. Yet here we are.

Even in alternate realities, really. There's a Black Mirror episode (a really good one, so no spoilers here) about exactly that scenario.

I think multiple episodes including the season 2 christmas episode comment on brain computer interfaces in one form or another and they all seem realistic and scary to me. Best not use direct brain computer interfaces.

Is that s3e01?

Why not build a well regulated state that only uses such powers in narrow circumstances?

I mean, you are sort of implying that installing a neural mesh would give you greater exposure to injustice than not doing so, so why not just fight the injustice to begin with?

Not believing that such a state is achievable is one thing, but you did say "in this reality".

> Why not build a well regulated state that only uses such powers in narrow circumstances?

Because the definition of "well regulated" is highly subjective and any state that's in power would consider its own uses to be with the confines of any circumstance no matter how narrow.

The only way to win is to not play the game.

No, the only way to win is to continually work to build a more just society.

It may be pragmatic to keep computers out of your brain in the meantime.

I would recommend the book Animal Farm.

The revolution was good in every way. It was peaceful and the animals got back control of their lives. But even from that, the pigs convinced everyone they needed leaders.

Unfortunately, the pragmatic reality is that no matter how much you try to shape a system of control to be balanced, the people who eventually get into power are the ones that crave it and often don't have much respect for the individual.

Yes, you must continually work to build a more just society. There is no sitting back and enjoying it after you have finished it because it will never be finished.

The intractable problem is that what constitutes "more just" is highly subjective, highly debatable, and always will be.

All historic societies believed they were being "more just" in some sense.

First reason that springs to mind is that the deviation from "well regulated state" to "fascist dictatorship" is always one election away.

Even the narrowest of circumstances tend to broaden when it can benefit the state.

"It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." - David Brin

There is no such thing. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all stateful societies will trend toward dystopia.

And all stateless societies will tend towards a state.

By way of ideals, I'm an anarchist. But I recognize it isn't practically achievable.

Anarchy requires a certain degree of viral sacredness most egos today aren't willing to practice.

Could you expand on the idea of viral sacredness?

Well regulated states are unstable equilibria.

Because 1930's German census and current US politics is why,.

Unfortunately you have to assume the worst will happen, and plan accordingly.

I would argue I am also talking about planning for the worst. Surviving while millions of people are exterminated around you is not an amazing, tremendous success.

It seems people think I was arguing that they should be eager to plug computers into their brains. I was not. I was arguing that hiding while injustices are carried out upon those around you is not success.

I'm curious why you called it a neural mesh. I've never heard that term before and some searching doesn't result in anything. Is that something you made up?

They may've been thinking of something like the "neural lace", from the Iain M. Banks Culture books.

Musk used it a while ago talking about the probability we're already in a simulation. From a Buddhist's perspective, that works for me.

Wouldn't something like that be encrypted and have a neural password?

What makes you think the government couldn't demand the maker of the neural connectors exfiltrate the neural password?

The fact that this is already a solved problem for iPhones via the Secure Enclave?

There is a even easier way to get somebody finished off.. drop a noisy true crypt container on there cellphone or notebook - if they get searched- they will be held in contempt indefinably for a white noise treasure trove they can not open.

Easy to defend, they have to prove you created said file consciously if the device was ever in the possession of someone else other than police. If they are likely to break the law to tamper with evidence, you've already lost.

I'm not convinced it is entirely solved though. Didn't the FBI drop their request to Apple because they found a loophole or security vulnerability that allowed them to accomplish what they wanted?

I think at the end of the day, software has bugs. And if you have an extremely well funded and intelligent group (e.g. Equation Group) looking for these holes and keeping them secret for personal use and exploitation rather than fixing them, there are going to be ways for your data to be compromised.

> Didn't the FBI drop their request to Apple because they found a loophole or security vulnerability that allowed them to accomplish what they wanted?

The phone in the San Bernardino case was an iPhone 5C, with the A6 processor. Secure Enclave was introduced in the A7.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/07/fbi-iphone-hack-method-secure...

Ah yes, I forgot this detail. Thanks!

I agree with you, although you were wrong about that specific Apple case. I don't trust "secure enclave" because it would be too easy for a TLA to infiltrate the chip foundry and backdoor the silicon. they can literally print money, circumvent the constitution using secret courts/NSL's, their resources are infinite. what would stop them from doing this ?

Even if you couldn't infiltrate the chip foundry, you could order a bunch of the chips, reverse engineer them, and in a few months, ship a duplicate with a neutered "enclave". Then interdict the shipment to the phone manufacturer (this isn't tinfoil, it's been done) and "supply" them with your version of the "secure enclave". There's no limit to this cat and mouse game.

That's not really an argument against a neural lace, though. You're just as fucked if you don't get one - they drop child porn on your laptop, or just disappear you.

No, the model of the iPhone the FBI wanted to access didn't have the Secure Enclave.

It's a solved problem the way the laws are currently written. It's not a solved problem if the laws are rewritten to require manufacturers to support a backdoor.

How would the maker of the neural connectors get your neural password?

There have been several court cases where the government has compelled people to give up encryption keys in court, I assume this will be no different.

If you have something, a court can order you to give it up. If you know something which might incriminate you (e.g. a password), your testimony is protected by the 5th.

For international laws, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law

Specifically for the US, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_ord... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Fricosu

The Florida Second District Court of Appeals disagrees with you.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

My iPhone is set to passcode unlock instead of fingerprint because of the reasoning you say, but if other courts start agreeing with this one, I'm inclined to change to Touch ID for simplicity :(

There is still the argument that you can be physically coerced to unlock your phone against your will by someone pressing it against your finger, but you can't type in a passcode against your will.

What if you have a self destruct code? (engineered in a way that makes it indistinguishable that it has been activated instead of normal description)

Or better yet, a dead man switch.

Cannot be really held in contempt for having features to prevent coercion.

Call me when a circuit court makes a decision, at the least. SCOTUS will almost certainly decide on "forgetting your password is not a crime".

Important to note that this is a legal theory, that is not yet backed up by precedent or statute! The police have successfully compelled password disclosure many times.

There has been tons of precedent, on both sides: http://www.zdnet.com/article/florida-court-says-password-dis...

This is the only sane interpretation, though, as people have more and more encrypted devices, it's unreasonable to punish someone for not remembering a password.

unless you're that police officer from pennsylvania who they just locked up without due process until he coughs up the password.

  they just locked up

That wording implies that this "just" happened, even perhaps during the current administration. The court order was 18 months ago, and he's been "locked up" for the past 16 months.

I think he meant 'just' in the 'simply' sense.

Source? I'm from PA and haven't heard about this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/2...

apparently the "All Writs Act" of 1789 is the "constitution doesn't apply to you" trump card.

Passwords have only been protected by the 5th amendment when ownership of the electronic account/device is unproven.

The keys are derived from the password which can't be compelled.

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