Live data from Hacker News

Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

insidesources.com

191–200 of 312 posts

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#191
post #188
post #177

This 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…

you're saying its only possible the NYT "blamed encryption" if encryption was the article's main topic or the article's lede?

Since there was so much other content there, the pulling of the article could have had nothing to do with that one sentence.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#192
post #177

This 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…

NYT changes the there story headlines alot these days ...

After Paris Attacks, C.I.A. Director Rekindles Debate Over Surveillance

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/us/after-paris-attacks-cia...

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#193
post #188
post #177

This 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…

you're saying its only possible the NYT "blamed encryption" if encryption was the article's main topic or the article's lede?

No, actually they're not saying that at all. They're saying that the article only barely mentions encryption and doesn't try to push an opinion on the matter.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#194

I blame prime numbers, even co-primes should be banned. Please contact your representative and help us free the world from evil math.

Not a joke -- there are cases where the government can get a warrant to compromise an RSA key and gag-order it so you can't say so.

The implication is that it can be illegal in some cases to say "The government knows the factors of X" or even "The factors of X are Y and Z."

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#195
post #145
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?

Then the terrorists would just use non-encrypted communications and blend in with the massive flow of everyday data...

...Unless you're intercepting and sniffing everything that's unencrypted. Then we're back to square one.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#196
post #192
post #177

This 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…

NYT changes the there story headlines alot these days ... After Paris Attacks, C.I.A. Director Rekindles Debate Over Surveillance http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/us/after-paris-attacks-cia...

That's part of the strategy. The most eyeballs see it right after it's released, and the intended effect is created. They've been doing this for quite some time. The first experiments were with using different headlines for the same story in the online and print edition. Generally the print edition headlines are the most restrained.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#197
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 importan…

> 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.

I think if we eliminated all murders except these, we would be in excellent shape. My point is these are not the ones worth focusing on, because we don't have good tools to deal with "random, history free, psychotic break."

> 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."

Well, if your probabilistic model has no "warning signs", then how does it provide any information at all? If you don't have a method of using information to differentiate the probabilities when given a person/group of people/location etc. then you have no predictive power at all, except for the average murder per capita.

> building education toward methods of "de-escalation" for psychotic episodes, crimes of passion, etc.

De-escalation of psychotic episodes is an impossibly hard thing to teach without protracted work with a mental health professional. In addition, I seriously doubt that there would be any effectiveness when taught to people who have not experienced psychosis. Teaching this to everybody would be inhibited not only by cost, but by the fact that there is not likely enough people in a society that would be good enough therapists to do this on a large scale.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#198
post #50
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be overlooking the obvious argument that if a small group of people use encryption, then you greatly reduce the number of messages that you need to flag. Furthermore, if someone on a Watch List starts using encryption then perhaps you have an imminent problem. I'm not on the side of reading messages but you missed the real argument being made. Typical HN. How about someone answering the argument that will…

> You can downvote me but you don't get a downvote in governments around the world when they outlaw real encryption. I'm pretty sure you can downvote them by voting for representatives that do not support such laws. At least if you're in some kind of democracy.

You can vote for either a) the representative on the one side who supports such laws or b) the representative on the other side who supports such laws or c) throw your vote away and let the majority of people who don't understand/care about this issue decide between (a) and (b).

Voting is not a solution to a problem like this and is generally very ineffective in the US.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#199
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with you both, but I think we can argue that people can have mitigating circumstances, and that you can (and should) try to understand why it is they do what they do, rather than "Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people." Life isn't a comic book.

Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack

#200
Honestly, I don't doubt at all that intelligence officials would love to exploit FUD about this situation to further their agendas, but this article's claim that the NYT article was "blaming encryption" is kind of a stretch. Read the article linked on archive.org and decide for yourself:

https://web.archive.org/web/20151115191248/http:/www.nytimes...

Post reply on HN