Blackwater PMC founder Erik Prince on distributed open-source communication | Hacker News Reader

Blackwater PMC founder Erik Prince on distributed open-source communication

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Software buttons can't be trusted. Smartphone manufacturers need to put hard switches on the power, cellphone transceiver, wifi, bluetooth, camera, mic and speaker. Also, all the major components should be replaceable, especially batteries.

The architectures currently seen on cellphones and most (if not all) modern electronic devices make it so hardware buttons are just as vulnerable as software "buttons"... (the hardware buttons actually trigger software which maps it to functions, so if the software is attacked the hardware button could be vulnerable - just as a software button...)

The case for replaceable batteries can be made from a convenience/durability/sustainability point of view, sure, but how do replaceable batteries improve trust?

If nothing else, technician-free battery replacement simplifies maintaining a personal chain of custody, and thus, longevity of the trustable life of a product.

Not a directly trust related issue, but an often conflated factor. (assuming you dont do something exceptionally silly like make the batteries have a serial interface and protocol that can be its own attack vector. Wait a sec...)

So Erik Prince has an “encrypted phone” company with a proprietary messaging app, VPN, etc. First thought: “How could anyone possibly believe that this isn’t another FBI/Anom situation?” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM But the twitter thread is full of people who seem to believe it.

>A few months ago in the chaos of Sam Altman’s ousting there were rumors that OpenAI was able to break AES-128 and AES-192. Whether or not that’s true is immaterial to the current discussion. Who knows how long it will take them to be able to break AES-256 and other schemes like it. AI is beating humans on pattern recognition tasks all the time, why assume it stops at patterns in encrypted data? If it’s not AI, quantum computers will be able to do so. A small point in Unplugged’s favor— each time a communication is established, new AES-512 keys are generated for the communication which increases the labor required to break a chain of communications compared to something like signal where key pairs are generated far less frequently.

1. lol, AI scary, buy my product

2. AES-512 is a classical encryption algorithm that is vulnerable to quantum computing

3. The people behind Signal invented the Double Ratchet Algorithm, where each message is half of a key exchange so each message is encrypted with new keys

4. Signal was one of the first major chat application to upgrade to a quantum-resistant key exchange algorithm

Yeah, but didn't Signal say they would have to shut down if they didn't get their government subsidy? Doesn't bode well for their independence from three-letter agencies.

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