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Comment by goblin89 | Hacker News Reader

While I support the sentiment that privacy is important, comparing encryption to locks in this ghastly context is self-defeating.

Recall that there were more than one instance where critical evidence against a wealthy person, required for the prosecution to make a compelling case in court, was obtained by force with a police raid. At least one such instance happened in the US in 2019 and was well-publicized.

Now imagine a real-life security system that is absolutely, one hundred percent immune to unauthorized entry, even if it is attempted as a part of law enforcement raid.

It is possible to identify with the argument that everyone should have access to such an impenetrable lock. However, it’d be really hard to argue that widespread access to it wouldn’t create a radically new situation.

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> It is possible to identify with the argument that everyone should have access to such an impenetrable lock. However, it’d be really hard to argue that widespread access to it wouldn’t create a radically new situation.

With regards to communication, we already have that impenetrable lock built in. I can say something incriminating to someone else in private, and the only way law enforcement will ever know what is if either party involved in the private conversation agrees to divulge it. Traditionally, the means for law enforcement to address this is to be part of the conversation.

In your example, law enforcement can force itself into the conversation in multiple ways (without compromising your counterpart), including listening devices or a break-in.

Most real-life analogies to encryption are not good enough. A smart layperson can easily spot issues with the “if crime happens in private, you shouldn't ban privacy” type of argument.

There is no encryption that is 100% immune. All encryption can have its key guessed, if the key is expressible in bits. This ensures that classical encryption schemes, even post-quantum ones, have a guessability or hardness in terms of the number of bits that must be correctly guessed at once in order to forge credentials.

This reasoning leads to export-grade cryptography, a bane of our praactice that nonetheless was an acceptable compromise for many years. It seems that that era of compromise is coming to an end, though.

"Export-grade encryption" was always a bad idea. You can block the export of stronger encryption schemes but nothing prevents them from being developed outside the country. The result is that all new and innovative crypto work gets done elsewhere, leaving your own country playing catch-up.

Encryption doesn't prevent police raids.

An invisibility cloak makes a much better analogy for encryption.

You know one way the situation would be way different?

We'd less need for the police.

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