> But law enforcement says encryption thwarts their access to communications they claim they need to prosecute criminals.
I think I have more to fear from the government than I do from the types of criminals that encryption backdoors would thwart.
I think I have more to fear from the government than I do from the types of criminals that encryption backdoors would thwart.
There's already freaking 1% of the population in jail; how many more do these assholes want to imprison?
The Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is setting a fine example we all need to take note of.
I think that the only way agencies were able to keep postponing the end of the Patriot act and related laws ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act ) is presenting massive evidence to the congress of the tragedies they were able to avoid with the power granted by those laws.
Somebody that was publicly martyred by a country of great power makes more noise than a war that was avoided.
Weakening strong cryptography is not the solution but I think we sometimes grossly underestimate the other face of the coin.
I'd like to see more of that made public.
Sure, because we're never told. And you know what? Maybe there's good reasons. But "we can't tell you why, but trust us, it's super effective!" isn't enough of an argument.
Aren't the ones we hear of are the ones where the FBI set the whole scenario up?
I mildly prefer the "neither confirm nor deny" responses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response
I am not an expert but I think the general feeling most of people have is we are hearing a lot of constructed lies. Is there a list of stories told to the public that were proven to be lies? Did they even come out and say "Yes, we lied and this is why..." ?
The fact that we don't suggests either that (1) backdoors aren't that essential to thwart them or (2) there are no such regular massive attacks.
Further, as people like the US Attorney General helps to publicize those backdoors, more criminals will choose alternative messaging systems (fewer of which are backdoored), making the US less safe.
Law enforcement seems overeager to label anything and everything terrorism if they possibly can. For instance, someone at my previous workplace vandalized prod in a fit of rage when he left and they called it terrorism because the system had utility companies as customers. Why would law enforcement be so interested in juicing their terrorism numbers if the real thing was plentiful?
My hypothesis: real terrorism isn't plentiful, but the budget to go after it became plentiful after 9/11, and the people who benefit from the budget do what they can to keep it that way. Erosion of freedoms and judicial overreach are side-effects.
It is easy to see that the risk is that if plaintext data is available, the data can be mined for a lot of other purposes including illegal or not ethical ones. It is also possible that eventually that data could leak to the wrong entities.
And yes, in any big organization, the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing and, while one is concern in matters of public safety, the other may be primary concerned with the hegemony of its own power.
So it is complex.
But just assuming that you do not need them and they are just evil is a massive over generalization.
Fine, but assuming that they'll abuse any amount of power given is completely reasonable, in light of plentiful examples in the past.
Renewal: The best case is it foils a terrorist attack. The worst case (Snowden) has already occurred.
Nonrenewal: The best case is no terrorist attacks. The worst case is a terrorist attack that may have been prevented with Patriot Act level wiretapping.
No one wants to be blamed for a terrorist attack at the next election so the Patriot Act is renewed.
Most of the recent attacks in America were carried out by lone-wolf far-right extremists. Some of the ones who were caught were actual government employees.
Furthermore, there's more to fear than someone spraying bullets into a crowd; ICE is performing 3am Gestapo raids and imprisoning citizens.
So you bet your ass I'm more afraid of the government than a guy driving a semi-truck. The government can hurt more people in a day than a terror group can in a year.
Of course. But we need to remind myself this: what it is the probability that they are going to willingly hurt innocent people on a massive scale at the moment?
Aligned with your comment:
I have to admit that one of my paranoid fears is that this will change in the future and who is supposed to protect us is actually going to be our enemy. This was also one of the founding fathers.I guess, we are in a good company.
History is full of examples of good kings that die and their successors are very wicked men.
At the moment I think that "being able to find out what they need to" is net positive for the world ( see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20509347 ) but what really bother me is that if in a future (hopefully remote) this change, there is no way to undo the past.
From my prospective the security that they are able to provide because of being able to tap in any conversation and the risk of citizen data being used against innocent people is clearly a huge compromise.
How can a man even hold both of those viewpoints?
Well, given that they're doing it now, I'd say somewhere near 100%.
The reality is that we should be just as concerned by a guy blowing up a truck at the Apple Store as we should about ICE raids at 3 in the morning. With both right wing terrorists and the government, scope creep has a way of ensnaring us all eventually.
Same is true of any terrorist, and any government.
So look, the question is not: Whether or not compromising my personal privacy will bring me more or less security? But rather the question is: Whether or not compromising my personal privacy is consistent with American Ideals?
I say no. So in my personal opinion we, as a nation, have no business mandating that people compromise their personal privacy.
I can't be the only person completely unconcerned by events like this taking place. And I'm not someone without copious anxiety in their life.
/s?
I disagree.
> With both right wing terrorists and the government, scope creep has a way of ensnaring us all eventually.
What's an example of a terrorist group's scope creep?
> So look, the question is not: Whether or not compromising my personal privacy will bring me more or less security? But rather the question is: Whether or not compromising my personal privacy is consistent with American Ideals?
Disagree.
> So in my personal opinion we, as a nation, have no business mandating that people compromise their personal privacy.
Agree.
Good talk.
So the argument goes, you should focus on the much more direct and practical impact that laws & politics can have on your life.
Just because they opted to go with low-hanging fruit doesn't mean the fruit needs to be low-hanging for them to make use of it.
Untested hypothesis: what we consider to be trivial, politicians consider to be advanced magic.
Alternative hypothesis: politicians understand the skill level required perfectly, but they also have good reason to believe the terrorists are complete morons who wouldn’t be able to find, generate, or use a one-time pad if their life depended on it (and in this case their life literally would depend on it).
> “You will deal with a person who doesn’t have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you’ll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You’ll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you’ll become something like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours.”
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsbe...
"We need pervasive surveillance to protect you from the cannibals we imported to lower your salaries, peasants."
It might be less of a red flag if regulation was likely to be able to prevent terrorists from using encrypted communication technology, but that's absurd as long as we have general-purpose computers and access to the open internet.
Personally, I fear all advancements it cryptology will be classified in the future.
Well, it's hacker news, so let me pull a word we like to bandy about: "scale".