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Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
171–180 of 312 posts
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
> someone tech savvy can get around that Or someone who has a strong incentive to keep their communication hidden - like a terrorist or a drug enforcer. This leads to a situation where law abiding citizens are punished when their right to privacy is denied, while criminals aren't hindered. "When you outlaw X, X will only be used by outlaws"
My claim is that "criminals aren't hindered" is false. Sure, there are people that will get around it, but as I mentioned, there are plenty of criminals that don't use encryption and have been caught with incriminating emails, so that makes me think that if encryption was made more difficult, some criminals who use encryption now would stop. Criminals aren't perfect.
You are right, there would be many petty criminals who would be caught because they'd talk about their crimes in plaintext. There would be a reduction in petty crime, while leaving major crime pretty much untouched. That sounds like a good thing... except it might not be in society's interest to eliminate petty crime, as Snowden explains here [1].
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#173"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…
I don't fully understand this line of thinking. To me, it's like saying "The belief that seat belts save lives might come as a surprise to these people who died in automobile accidents while wearing seat belts." It may indeed be that this kind of signals intelligence isn't actually helpful, but I don't think this is a very good argument either way. If there was a massive disruption of planned terrorist attacks, it is…
Exactly. Same reason you have locks on your doors even though they are easy to defeat. Tech types want to believe that the government is always overreaching and everything is a slippery slope to some other loss of freedom. Mixed in with a bit of overcooked paranoia thinking the government has enough time and energy to track down everyone and whatever laws they are breaking by reading their emails.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds uncomfortably close to victim blaming.
I am not blaming the victims at all. For example: You could call many people living in the hood 'bad people' because of the crimes they commit but are they really 'bad people' or do they eventually commit these crimes because of the situation they grow up in and the disadvantages they have had in life? By stating this, am I blaming the victims of armed robberies, of theft of murder? Of course I am not. I just think w…
That's fair, I think I see where you are coming from now. I do think, however, that we have to be careful not to remove personal responsibility from the equation. Circumstances can certainly motivate behaviour but we are still responsible for our actions. Suggesting otherwise seems compassionate on the surface, but it can also be incredibly disempowering and corrosive.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I don't think so, as far as I know encrypted data doesn't really have a signature that can be easily spotted
It does, it looks random (hight entropy).
Yes, measured data and unmarked compressed data have this same property, as do actual random data. But is does not look like 9 nines of false positive rate are a concern to those people.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I don't think so, as far as I know encrypted data doesn't really have a signature that can be easily spotted
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Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#177This link implies that the NYT is backtracking about a piece apparently "blaming encryption." The NYT article referenced did not at all focus on encryption, and it didn't go so far as to definitively blame encryption.
The only paragraph discussing encryption is buried in the middle of the article. """ The attackers are believed to have communicated using encryption technology, according to European officials """
The lede did not mention encryption at all: "The attackers in Friday’s terrorist assault in Paris communicated at some point beforehand with known members of the Islamic State in Syria, officials on both sides of the Atlantic say."
https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes...
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#178Earlier 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…
> It's even more absurd than that... 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 calls and unencrypted email. I think you're straw-manning their position here. The opponents of encryption aren't claiming terrorists will start using unencrypted communication, they're advocating for legally-mandated…
It's not a straw-men. It's not of the problems with the rationale.
Terrorisms won't use legally-mandated software for they illegal operations.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#179"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…
It would indeed come as a massive surprise to the 2008 Mumbai terrorists, who were well versed in in using encrypted channels to communicate -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/world/asia/09mumbai.html?_...
It was sarcasm. Encryption was used in all the listed attacks.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it doesn't make them not-bad. I disagree. I've never found a coherent absolute ethical framework. Not even "Don't kill people." When anyone is arguing that something is bad, that person has to appeal an authority or belief. Often the reasoning leads to utilitarianism: "If we want society to continue, we should ban murder." But that's still an if/then statement. Beneath the if/then is an appeal that society is g…
> I'll change it to "randomness"; i.e. in a society of nondeterministic people, some will try to kill the others. I think "randomness" is even worse, because it makes it sound like these actions could be expected from anyone at anytime. Statistically, a small portion of the population is responsible for most of the violence, through repeat offenses. Also, in many situations there are clear warning signs (e.g. mentall…
> it makes it sound like these actions could be expected from anyone at anytime
They can. A neurotypical person's brain could spontaneously generate a violent psychotic episode due to a stroke or adrenergic tumor or somesuch. Just like any area of the sky could spontaneously throw a lightning strike at you at any time. It's low probability, certainly, but murder is a low-probability event to begin with.
The important point is that a model with "non-deterministic" people in it has more predictive power, epidemiologically, than a model where it's impossible to become a murderer without "warning signs." It's not at all "writing human behavior off"; the fact that the model includes randomness can actually help you prevent murders more effectively, by leading you toward strategies to cope with unpredictable murders—e.g. building education toward methods of "de-escalation" for psychotic episodes, crimes of passion, etc. into your society—rather than simply trying to reinforce policing and social work.