Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

Post by mjmaher » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:49 PM UTC

colund wrote: post #145

ewzimm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more absurd than that. The premise is that we can have a public worldwide debate that emphasizes how important encryption is to successfully carrying out terrorist attacks, convince the world to give up their privacy for the sake of safety, and after the majority of the protestors have been defeated by public awareness that encryption and terrorism go hand-in-hand, the terrorists will go back to using phone…

If (almost) everyone who is not a terrorist were to give up encryption, then it would be much easier to track down/narrow down the terrorists if they keep using it, no?

Post by cooper12 » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #10

034509034590 wrote: post #5

A link to the NYT article now redirects readers to a separate, general article on the attacks, which does not contain the word “encrypt.” The original piece can be found on the Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http://www.nytime...

The language seems pretty reasonable... "The attackers are believed to have communicated using encryption technology, according to European officials who had been briefed on the investigation but were not authorized to speak publicly. It was not clear whether the encryption was part of widely used communications tools, like WhatsApp, which the authorities have a hard time monitoring, or something more elaborate. Inte…

Post by enlightenedfool » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 4:53 PM UTC

alextgordon wrote: post #139

eblanshey wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure they are trying to push for encryption with government backdoor access. SSL certificates are issued by centralized authorities that can easily provide access to governments (if they don't do so already). Not that I agree with what they're trying to do.

CAs do not have backdoor access. The most a rogue CA can do is possibly enable a MITM against a website that has taken no protections. Google pins their public key fingerprints right into Chrome, and this feature is open: https://hstspreload.appspot.com/

Post by BeuitTheRipTide » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

rbcgerard wrote: post #112

"One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008 in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Ma…

Post by dhimes » Tue, Nov 17, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

TrevorJ wrote: post #100

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is a very widespread notion in culture and is helped by major religions.

I wonder how true that is. For Christianity at least, most dominant theology takes the view that the things that exist in the world can be used for good or for ill and aren't inherently one or the other in and of themselves.