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Comment by _fat_santa | Hacker News Reader

I get that Ashton is trying to do the right thing here. The problem is the solutions are just so short sighted. I dug through his website and came across a blog post [1] they made blasting Facebook for implementing E2E on Facebook/IG Messenger.

On the one hand yes they are technically correct, but at the same time the argument is so incredibly short sighted. Yes if we ban E2E then it will solve the problem of CSAM, but at the same time it will open the door to a host of other consequences.

Honestly the argument sounds alot like the fictitious argument we make here: "cars kill X number of kids per year, let's ban cars!".

[1]: https://www.thorn.org/blog/encryption-trend-threatens-child-...

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> I get that Ashton is trying to do the right thing here. The problem is the solutions are just so short sighted. I dug through his website and came across a blog post [1] they made blasting Facebook for implementing E2E on Facebook/IG Messenger.

I would argue that he's just trying to make money. Lobbying politicians so that a requirement for a product becomes enshrined in law, while your organization just happens to be providing that product? For a fee, of course. This is just plain old greed in a wrapper of virtue signaling. Yuck.

Sounds about right.

Also technology is no substitute for a society that invests in a trusting, caring culture, where child abuse can be picked upon by teachers or other sectors that deal with children.

> I would argue that he's just trying to make money

I don't think he's doing it for the money. If he just wanted money, staying in Hollywood would be much more lucrative.

He’s probably just an idiot with money working for the idea, and his supporters getting a salary for doing an ethically vague job

>Honestly the argument sounds alot like the fictitious argument we make here: "cars kill X number of kids per year, let's ban cars!".

A) There's no shortage of people make that argument unironically

B) If you just change "ban" to "tax to the point that the common man finds another solution" (which is the same sort of "some animals are more equal" situation that dragnets with selective enforcement create) the number of those people increases by an order of magnitude.

Banning E2E doesn't "solve the problem of CSAM," anyway.

> Honestly the argument sounds alot like the fictitious argument we make here: "cars kill X number of kids per year, let's ban cars!".

Giving the government or some other entity access to all of your media is not analogous to the physical reality of children being at more risk due to being around more moving cars (especially since those cars have increased in height and have reduced visibility).

It is objectively true that children who grow in up a village without cars are safer while playing outside by themselves than a village where large cars are zipping by at 40mph. Whether or not the benefits of cars are worth the loss of free movement for children is a different discussion.

What? You lose nothing but a perception of privacy in the theoretical case of a backdoor to encryption, we have rule of law ffs. Without cars the human race is limited to moving <20 mph and what you can carry on your back.

If we ban cars tomorrow society grinds to a halt, there will be mass starvation. If we ban e2e encryption in consumer products tomorrow nothing changes.

>What? You lose nothing but a perception of privacy in the theoretical case of a backdoor to encryption, we have rule of law ffs.

We lost that perception years ago when Snowden revealed it was all backdoored anyway. I do not know what rule of law you are referring to.

>If we ban cars tomorrow society grinds to a halt, there will be mass starvation. If we ban e2e encryption in consumer products tomorrow nothing changes.

I do not think anyone serious is referring to banning all cars period. The discussion is more like creating more spaces where large vehicles are de prioritized or not allowed and walking and bicycling are prioritized such that there is greatly reduced risk of being run over. Also included are probably returning cars to smaller sizes and to reduce the severity of injuries and increased visibility.

Banning e2e does change something. Maybe not visibly, and not exactly tomorrow, but it certainly enables and progresses the mission of those wanting to limit civil rights.

Show me where completely innocent US citizens have actually been imprisoned as a result of PRISM et. al. To the best of my knowledge the US security apparatus is benevolent towards peaceful civilians, and all the hand ringing about the invasion of privacy is just that. This isn't to say that I support the Patriot Act, only that our rights have already been taken away.

> I do not think anyone serious is referring to banning all cars period.

And in my view E2E encryption doesn't have to be banned outright, it just needs to be treated as the dangerous tool it is. Making it the default for all communication is like making tanks the standard mode of transportation. How about a encryption registry, like a gun registry?

SiValley is currently giving military grade tools too rapists and slavers and then saying that telling them to stop will result in 1984; I just don't buy it. As you pointed out, those in control in the US already have all the tools they need to destroy your life thanks to the Patriot Act and poor judicial enforcement(Stingrays), meanwhile technology has progressed in a way that makes a very marginalized group, poor young women, much more vulnerable. Instead of providing a tech solution for a tech problem, the call from the encryption community is to solve it with the same way we always have. Easy for some rich tech bro to say, but if encryption was really just a shitty tool, I don't think the US security apparatus would have invested so heavily in it.

> SiValley is currently giving military grade tools too rapists and slavers and then saying that telling them to stop will result in 1984. Unfortunately we live in a world where most data that isn't E2EE is up for sale. Without making E2EE the default for all communication will result in anyone with money the power to know everything about your life. If E2EE is not the default 'poor young women' will be much more vulnerable now, because their abusers will have access to more information about them.

Talk about grasping at straws, and if E2E was not only about government but about every kind of snooping.

"Perception of privacy", unless you know about an actual fault with the E2E of various platforms it is actual privacy. Unless of course your phone gets trojaned or something, which is of course an issue, but it is how an actual investigation should be done (judicially authorized)

But if you still believe no one has actual privacy then your protonmail account would be useless right?

I believe that if you are sufficiently high on an international watch list E2E is mostly useless. The way the Russian invasion of Ukraine was so accurately telegraphed by the US was a demonstration to me of how powerful our intelligence apparatus is.

As far as I'm concerned every cellular device is probably backdoored through the baseband, telecoms have long worked hand in hand with the USG, and the pressure that the US has put on allies to boycott Huwei RF hardware only strengthened that claim. If you are, say, a head of ISIS, my guess is that your phone already has keyloggers on it.

This whole conversation is a microcosm of US politics in that both sides are completely unwilling to compromise on their position.

Nothing is saying that you couldn't roll a "right to privacy" into legislation, say that anyone who provides a messaging system isn't allowed to analyze those messages, and any read/write action has to be instigated by or in service to either the user or a warrant. Add massive fines as a percent of revenue or significant prison time for violations. Wouldn't that be a win/win?

You could then treat E2E encryption like other military assets, civilians need to register and pass a background check. If you have a driver's license in the US you sign away your right to not take a drug test, similarly you could sign away your right not to tell law enforcement your password. Corporations could make being licensed for E2E a hiring bar just like military clearance.

All this is dependent on my (some might say naive) view that the US is ultimately a democracy(and has a strong history of it) and as a result is unlikely to go fully off the rails. I really don't worry about the USG snooping on me, (why would I? seriously) but I literally just last week heard about the young daughter of an acquaintance of an acquaintance getting kidnapped.

> if you are sufficiently high on an international watch list E2E is mostly useless.

Yes, pretty much.

> The way the Russian invasion of Ukraine was so accurately telegraphed by the US was a demonstration to me of how powerful our intelligence apparatus is.

Nah, they just had people infiltrate telegram/whatsapp groups and get the info from there. Russian army discipline in that area is very poor. Then Ukraine tapped into their actual calls for later intelligence.

The baseband is actually the most unhelpful place to have any backdoor. But yes, if you're a high level target you're probably getting observed

But that doesn't mean people should actively try to undermine E2E (again, it's not just against the government. I'm happy to keep it secret end to end, including to my ISP, the people on the same VLAN as me, etc)

But I agree in some aspects that the right is not absolute. But I'm actually less worried with something like Pegasus than a blanket general weakening of privacy for everybody

The canadian government was able to suspend the "rule of law" in a matter of days not even 3 months ago. Court orders are nice, but won't help you when your constitutional rights are suspended. So it makes sense that the idea of just relying on the law doesn't exactly convince some people.

Though I agree that even as a huge proponent of e2ee communication that is free of backdoors, in the grand scheme of things it is not that important to the lives of most people. It's mostly a concern for us nerds and has almost no impact in real life. Especially when you consider that communication has been subject to government oversight and surveillance even in democratic, free societies forever.

If anything, whats anormal and new for most "normies" is e2ee for personal communication. My mom actually found it funny/naive that I actually believed that governments just can't read some of my encrypted chats if they wanted to. She also didn't understand why such a thing would be allowed if it was possible.

These sort of issues are susceptible to framing problems.

For instance, "cars kill X number of kids per year, let's ban cars!"'s mirror framing is "how many children's lives is car driving worth?" It's something to be on the lookout for in these types of discussions if not to avoid then to recognize.

I mean, it's Ashton Kutcher. He has a certain name recognition to be sure, but he's an actor. What has he ever done to show that he's some kind of deep thinker on the subject of child exploitation? I'll grant that his emotional motivations are genuine, but not that he actually has any workable solutions to offer.

I suggest a bit more research into his background. This is something he has been working on for the past ten years, at least: https://www.thorn.org/about-our-fight-against-sexual-exploit....

EDIT: Actually established in 2009 per Wikipedia - a good source to see that there's a lot more to him than just being an actor (not that there's anything wrong with that).

> Yes if we ban E2E then it will solve the problem of CSAM

No, because content like CSAM will immediately switch channels and you cannot really ban encryption.

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