Comment by EthanHeilman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EthanHeilman | Hacker News Reader

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>If anything, this is a really good thing, as the utility of publicly available comms are embraced by government entities, it should somewhat guarantee that us consumers will also have access to this.

I largely agree with you but a more cynical take would be that it allows the following argument to be advanced:

"If the 82nd Airborne uses it, then it is a weapon of war. Why should civilians have access to the same communication equipment as a soldier needs in a time of war."

That is, they associate the technology with combat and the military. Then, they use that association as a way to argue the technology is only inherently useful for those planning to engage in combat.

It also allows governments to advance the argument that if it useful for our soldiers then it should be denied to enemy soldiers and thus it should be tightly controlled (see night vision googles[0] or cryptography as a weapon[1]).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-vision_device#Legality

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

You would think that the constitution would have included a passage about peoples right to keep and bare armaments being necessary to ensure the country stayed free...

Nah. Lets redefine "arms" to mean "guns", assume for some reason the constitution needed to give the government freedom from itself, and ignore the whole thing as archaic and outdated.

Cryptography has always been used by militaries, and was legally considered a munition back in the 1990s. Since then, two courts have ruled that cryptographic source code is protected by the First Amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...

The army also uses toilets. Why is it then that nobody argues toilets are weapons of war?

Because nobody achieves power by controlling the existence of toilets? There are people who will argue the sky is green if it fits their narrative — bending reality is what they will do, if we let them.

If they make that argument, it shouldn't be much of a stretch to say that the 2nd amendment should apply to this technology then.

There's certainly a case here. If Barr goes forward with his nutty anti-encryption push, I hope the opposition uses this argument. Google lists definition #1 for "arms" as "weapons", and definition #2 of "weapons" as "a means of gaining an advantage or defending oneself in a conflict or contest."

I doubt any would argue that un-breakable (at least, theoretically) comms would provide no tactical advantage. If anyone would, I'd refer him to the second world war as a prominent example. This argument could help built a bi-partisan pro-cryptography group by pulling in support from the 2A crowd. I support cryptography remaining fully legal (even if classified as a munition or armament) for the same reason I support the 2A, practical security considerations aside.

Well they made that argument about cryptography being a munition and I don't see anyone advancing a 2nd Amendment challenge against those laws.

The funny thing is, the basis for upholding the National Firearms Act restrictions on short barreled shotguns and rifles (challenged in the '30s) was that they weren't weapons of war.

Because they'll also want to encrypt soldiers communications back home, not just between each other. When the soldiers are talking to their friends and family. It isn't E2E if friends and family aren't using the same software.

It's the whole idea behind Tor. Interests sometimes align.

I'm not accusing them of advancing a consistent or defendable position, just that there is always a danger in the military adopting a technology. To add another example, what if signal has a flaw which allows a foreign adversary to read all signal messages and that this ends up harming US natural security. The government now has an incentive to regulate signal as "critical telecommunication infrastructure" necessary for the security of the US.

You could read this another way too.

Now the government has an incentive to contribute to the open source project to ensure that its communications are secure.

You're right that it could "weaken" signal because more people are trying to attack it which means a flaw is more likely to be found. But it can also strengthen Signal because the need for it to be strong and improve faster is higher. More people looking at it (especially with a government interest) means there are more trying to patch those flaws as well.

Additionally, it can add to the popularity of Signal. Which again adds to both edges laid out above.

Honestly I can't see this as anything but good. It is __GOOD__ when the government's interests align with that of the public.

I explained myself poorly. My argument was that:

1. IF the government comes to rely heavily on the security of signal, THEN the government will want to make signal as secure as possible.

2. The approach the government may take to make signal stronger could be to regulate signal. For instance the government might require background checks on everyone authorized to push out signal updates.

3. Such regulation is likely to have the unintended effect of making signal less secure by causing the designers of signal to abandon the project.

Now this is a pessimistic take. An optimistic take could be that the tool the US government uses to strengthen signal is to fund developers and give out grants for security research on signal. As another poster pointed out the US government funds TOR.

> 1. ...

This is a good thing

> 2. ...

This is against the interest of the DoD. It may be in the interest of other agencies, but not the DoD. The DoD's interest is that __all__ communications of their soldiers. Because it matters if a soldier texts their buddy back home "blah blah I'm taking a shit in this shack outside the base. You should see what it's like out here blah blah." That has security issues for them. Soldiers are going to text their buddies, significant others, and family by any means that they can. So your choice is 1) through a secure channel or 2) through an insecure channel. DoD is obviously in favor of option 1. Increased regulation, such as your suggesting, is counter productive and only encourages option 2.

> 3. ...

The code is open source. Moxie is also pretty adamant about keeping it open source. DoD also has an invested interest in keeping it open source.

> As another poster pointed out the US government funds TOR.

This user was me?

Since the conversation is exactly the same as the one we were having the other day on another thread I am literally going to reference that thread[0]. I think the pessimism comes from "anti-government" thinking, but also a lack of understanding how agencies work. You can probably tell from my chat history that I'm not super pro strong gov and pro privacy. But these agencies have differing agendas and this has to be understood. The intelligence community has a split incentive when it comes to Tor/Signal/encryption. The part that handles protecting their spies is pro Tor and wants other users on it because they don't want spies found because only spies connect to Tor nodes (or only spies/pedos/terrorists even). Conversely, those in charge of finding spies (or spies and pedos) don't like Tor (and that's why they'll claim that only spies/pedos/terrorists use Tor/encryption. It is pushing __their__ agenda).

It really comes down to "what agenda makes their life easier?" So it should be no surprise that a defense agency is... in favor of defense. It should also not be a surprise that agencies in charge of attacking (let's avoid debate about who they are attacking) is... anti defenses. Those that are in charge of protecting kings are pro castles because it is easier to defend your king behind a castle. Those in charge of killing kings are anti castle because it is harder to kill a king behind a castle. These people may work for the same king, but they don't really talk to each other that often.

I actually think the government will start taking a more pro encryption stance in the future (we've seen some of it already), especially as tensions rise. Those that worry about foreign interference have an incentive to protect everyone's communications from foreign adversaries. It is harder to manipulate those that you have no information on. Anti encryption sentiment comes from when we are in a stronger position and less worried about being attacked. Now as we're transitioning into a period where we're becoming more concerned about defense we have a much higher incentive (before it was ambivalence) to improve defenses.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22114149

Tor is designed to benefit from an arms race by spy agencies.

If your spy agency controls the vast majority of the Tor nodes, you can see what everybody is doing with Tor, and nobody else can. Whereas if somebody else's spy agency controls the vast majority of the Tor nodes, they get that power.

When you're both working hard to get more Tor nodes, the Tor network is made better for everybody and unless you achieve that vast majority control you get no benefit for your effort, still, never give up.

Suppose the Russians have 100 Tor nodes, the Americans have 100 Tor nodes, the Chinese have 100 Tor nodes and random good Samaritans run 100 more. Nobody can snoop on Tor, it works really well with 400 nodes. The Americans buy 200 more nodes. The Russians don't like that and nor do the Chinese! They each buy 200 more nodes too. Now there are 1000 Tor nodes, it works even better, and nothing changed for user security.

So then people will just use the hundred other published implementations of Moxie's encryption algo used in Signal.

God Bless Open Source.

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