Hacker News Reader

Comment by kovrik | Hacker News Reader

'Encrypted, but _they_ have the keys' means 'not encrypted'

Does the fact that my landlord has a copy of my front door key mean that my locked door is "not locked"?

> Does the fact that my landlord has a copy of my front door key mean that my locked door is "not locked"?

Yes, you can never be sure that your landlord has not let other people into your house. Your landlord could let the police into your house

What is your definition of "locked", then?

> What is your definition of "locked", then?

"Did you lock the house?"

"Yes"

"Good because I left secrets on the kitchen table"

"Oh, the landlord has a key. But it's locked"

"Um, ok. It's sort of locked. It's locked, but other people can get in. All I really care about is my secrets so I guess I'll just go back and get them and find someplace else to leave them that's more 'locked'"

This is ridiculous. A door is either locked or it isn't. The word makes no claim about how secure the lock is. No matter how you try to twist this topic to suit your views.

In the same way a file can be encrypted, yet be insecure because somebody untrustworthy has the key to decrypt it. Doesn't change the fact that on a technical level, it's encrypted.

What's ridiculous is having a semantic argument when you know people's intent. Yes, someone said "locked" and someone said "encrypted", but what they meant was "secure". I think we all get their meaning. They are saying, what good is this if it is not secure? I mean, what good is it? It'll keep your significant other out, but not Apple employees and not the police? Is that the technical-level benefit?

By that definition, a door can't be said to be locked if absolutely _no one_ has the key, because you can just smash your way in anyway.

It's not a definition, it's pointing out that someone was being pedantic about the meaning of "locked" and "encrypted" when Apple employees can seemingly read your encrypted iCloud date. They wanted to be "technical", but nobody was talking about technicalities. They were talking about security. iCloud data seems to be locked, encrypted and insecure! One of those words is not like the other

Depends how willing the landlord is to open your front door upon request.

And how secure your landlord stores your front door key.

So if your landlord is careless and/or willing to open your door to people requesting them to do so, you can assume that your landlord IS indeed an adversary.

No? It just means they can access it. Encryption turns plaintext into ciphertext; it says nothing about the security thereof. I can ROT13 encrypt a message. Just because you can easily use cryptanalysis and read my message doesn’t make it any less encrypted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com