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Comment by stirfrykitty | Hacker News Reader

This is precisely one of the reasons why OpenBSD was developed in Canada (crypto). No such regulations barring import/export of crypto.

In the end, it's impossible to police the use of strong encryption. Things like Waste and many others saw this coming back in the "Clipper chip" and PGP trouble days. What would end up happening is people just start appealing to OTP. Well-designed OTP is very resistant to attack.

This all reminds me of Neal Stephenson's seminal book, Cryptonomicon, one of the best IT fiction books ever written. If you have an interest in encryption, coding, data havens, currency, etc., this is the book for you. It's a veritable tome.

* Editing to say that despite Cryptonomicon being written in 1999, I still think it holds its own even now. Kind of a timeless classic as far as IT goes.

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Remember that stable democracies always have the potential become authoritarian dictatorships. History is littered with examples: France, Germany, Japan, Chile, Turkey and to a lesser extent, the authoritarian strongmen who were elected in the US, India, Brazil, Venezuela and many more.

>France, Germany, Japan, Chile, Turkey

Not a single one of these was ever a stable democracy before becoming a dictatorship. Unless maybe you're referring to Vichy France, but that's more of an occupation.

Turkey wasn't stable prior to Erdogan?

It has a long repetitive history of violent transitions in power, including the last couple hundred years.

Turkish democracy is barely 100 years old. If we are looking at a timeline of ~200 years, even the US won't come across as particularly stable, what with the Civil War and multiple Presidential assassinations since 1819.

None of those assassinations lead to a coup or revolution though, just peaceful transfer to the 2nd person in line. That seems like a vote for stability

There was a coup in 1980. And the list at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat is pretty convincing evidence that calling Turkey a stable democracy would be a stretch.

Also, Rome and Greek city states.

Canada is part of Five Eyes with close cooperation with NSA. They probably won't bother anyone unless their software is blocker they encounter when gathering intelligence or maybe something with lots of press. Whatever happened with the Cryptocat dude, if true, might be an example:

https://www.theverge.com/2013/2/10/3972272/cryptocat-spies-a...

Cryptonomicon -- 100% agreed. Further, it's an awesome story! Highly recommended.

My absolute favorite book of all time, Neal Stephenson is an international treasure.

Ditto on favorite. The man has the knack and the knowledge to put out some fantastic stories. I've often wondered why no one has picked up Crytonomicon for a film. I think with the right directors and actors, the movie would be fantastic. I envision a full 3-hour film (it would almost have to be).

Neal Stephenson says it's because his books are too long.

Although, allegedly, Amazon is making Snow Crash into a miniseries, and again allegedly, Tom Howard is directing a Seveneves movie. Weird, that, because I didn't think Seveneves was "finished." All that just to set the stage for Elves, Dwarves, and Man, but no followup stories of Elves, Dwarves, and Man? Weird.

Snow Crash would be the only other book that I could see as a film, although Reamde might do well, too.

nah ;)

Anathem [1] is another book which could be turned into a script for a movie or series. It has a host of colourful characters, scenery varying from something resembling a medieval abbey to space ships, a fairly linear plot line and enough action to keep a modern audience from reaching for their mobile comfort devices.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem

I think Seveneves could work as a movie, and actually be good. I don't know how they'd handle the story "transition" though.

Please split it in two. There's enough plot to go around in the present, no need to contaminate with the future stuff. A single post-credits scene as a teaser for the second film is acceptable.

So, there have been major strides lately in major, popular, widely-used, mass-market, easy-to-use messaging software greatly improving it's messaging security.

The US government can totally easily reverse that trend.

And it matters a lot.

There is no country on the planet that stands for individual freedom more than the US; we were founded on the idea. The idea that Canada has stronger free speech protection is laughable. There is zero chance this idea goes anywhere. Look at the sources for the article, that should give some indication of its credibility.

> There is no country on the planet that stands for individual freedom more than the US; we were founded on the idea

There's a lot packed into that statement. Without switching into an off-topic discussion, I'd suggest that it's a lot like GPL vs BSD licenses - there's more than one way to define "freedom", and one can focus on results vs options, on groups vs individuals, etc.

>there's more than one way to define "freedom"

Only to people with an agenda. This garbage way of redefining words to suit your predetermined policy goals is ridiculous. My comment is severely DVd but nobody supplied an example of a more free country.

All tech companies are HQd in the US for a reason. Stable private property protection and individual freedom is most prominent in the US.

The collectivists lost the argument that had been ongoing since the 1920s when the USSR fell, and some folks want to have this argument again (even when they already lost).

How many times is Europe going to fine big tech for exercising their natural rights? We need at least one country with minimal rules in the world.

While what you say is true, OpenBSD is merely based in Canada by dint of Theo de Raadt residing there and being the project lead. Being that open source is more or less borderless, even if he were told to beg off developing crypto, the code is out there. Ditto every other open source crypto project. The beauty of open source is that it can be inspected. Pandora's Box and all that...

If people want to communicate using encryption, they will do so. Maybe not with today's algorithms and implementations, but they will continue on. OTPs, new algorithms, hiding stuff in plain sight, etc. I think steganography is too obvious and too easily discovered.

Canada has no power in the world. They are our surrogate. OBSD is in Canada because that's where de Raadt lives.

You people are such pansies. We could take you on all day long. I'm in Denver. Bring it. I will take you on the Colorado River, and if you say anti freedom stuff, I will drown you in the river. Try it out.

Come on, please keep HN free of this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry, man. I was drinking beers. Anti-freedom people make me a bit crazy. It's difficult for me to see so much hate on HN.

"Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!"

There is no country on the planet that pays more blind unthinking lip-service to the concept of freedom I'll give you that but if you think the average US citizen has more freedom by any objective international standard measure than the average Canadian citizen you may want to put down that KoolAid you've been drinking and reconsider because you would find few knowledgeable people who would agree with your assertion.

Only by some absurd idea of freedom you are able to summon. We have the freedom to be assholes yet. Sure, we lost battles against the totalitarians on several fronts, but we are still more free in the sense that one would be free as a sole occupant on a Caribbean island.

People are allowed to freely associate in corporations and pursue their economic goals. Canada is smaller than California, population wise and GDP, and most of your income comes from natural resources like copper, coal, oil, and gold.

Non-Americans can't stop visiting American websites. Hmm.

The negativity on this comment is amazing. These Euro ideas would die so fast. I will pay for your flights to Denver. please come to CO.

uh the us sucks please fly me to Denver

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