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Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

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Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#31

Post by icebraining »

mozumder wrote: post #24
kelnos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you allow people to conspire to commit crimes? Yes, that's exactly what you do. I would much rather we let a few (more) crimes get through here and there. Weakening privacy for everyone isn't worth it.

You'll find the people value security more than privacy. This is why conspiracy to commit crime is already illegal. That's just how society is. Your choice on whether you want to live with the rest of society or not.

Polls show more support for Apple's position than for the FBI's, so I'm not sure your argument regarding the position of society is very convincing: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-poll-idUS...

Just making conspiracy illegal doesn't mean you don't value privacy; it depends on what means are permissible to obtain evidence for the conspiracy.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#32

Post by monk_e_boy »

thomasahle wrote: post #30
monk_e_boy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the weirdest thing is that Apple is standing up to the government. Isn't that just wrong? You, the people choose the government, so in effect Apple is standing up to the people of America and saying 'no'. If you the people didn't want the FBI to be bullish then choose a different government. It feels to me (an outsider) that it's the government that is out of control and is not accountable to the people.

Apple is in many countries, with governments who'd all like this kind of access. If you give FBI the tools, you also have to accept Russia, China and the whole gang having access to your phone.

Well that is up to Apple, they don't have to make one phone. They could make a US version and a rest of the world version.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#33

Post by Freak_NL »

agd wrote: post #12
x5n1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a choice. Duh. Don't have a phone so they can't monitor you while you are not at home.

How easy is it to be part of society without a phone? The way people communicate, organize, meet, is all via these devices. Yes, whether to have these devices is technically a choice, but when the social cost of choosing not to have one is so high, the choice is made for you.

It is fairly easy. I have a fairly dumb feature-phone I almost always leave at home unless I want to be reachable away from home. During work hours I work on a computer connected to the Internet, and can be reached quite reliably via e-mail, or via my employer's office phone.

You do need a mobile phone these days because (in The Netherlands) the government requires SMS authentication for some services, but I don't feel the need to own and carry a smart phone with me all the time.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#34

Post by mobiuscog »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #16
mozumder wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how DO you disrupt criminal plots, then? Do you allow people to conspire to commit crimes? You're going to find, that once you think it through, that you'll end up limiting the rights and freedoms of individuals... there's no getting around that. Life sucks that way. People were never their own little countries. I just feel sorry for the middle-class suckers that thought they had freedom. Poor guys - they never fi…

> So how DO you disrupt criminal plots, then? Do you allow people to conspire to commit crimes? Suppose they meet in person to conspire. Would you suggest having every citizen carry un-blockeable microphones just in case? This is not a "my freedom to swing my fist ends where your nose begins" kinda issue, this is "are we willing to build a police state if it reduced the risk of certain crimes by X%? Even at the cost…

>But actually, an ankle bracelet that reports your location and audio might actually be less invasive of your private conversations in today's world that reporting the contents of your phone.

Not at all. I have the choice to carry / use a phone.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#35

Post by masklinn »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

> No, David. If I were in the job now, I would have simply told the FBI to call Fort Meade, the headquarters of the National Security Agency, and NSA would have solved this problem for them. They're not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent. That's quite the quote, especially given his history of employment. The weirdest thing about this whole cell-phone saga to me is that the…

And IIRC the phone in question is the perp's work phone, they also had personal phones which they destroyed, so the perps themselves knew phones could hold valuable data but saw no value in the the phone the FBI wants unlocked.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#36

Post by thomasahle »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #32
thomasahle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is in many countries, with governments who'd all like this kind of access. If you give FBI the tools, you also have to accept Russia, China and the whole gang having access to your phone.

Well that is up to Apple, they don't have to make one phone. They could make a US version and a rest of the world version.

And if the FBI wanted to open a rest of the world version? Or another government wanted to open a US version?

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#37

Post by mobiuscog »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #21
BBlarat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the winds have changed on that stance, at least in Europe. I've seen a couple of leading politicians say something in the line of: "If china can do it so can we" concerning the Chinese firewall and blocking "unwanted" content on the web, which is scary.

If it happens, it'll become precedent, then all countries will want to do it. The next logical step is to outlaw phones and devices that are incapable of breaking into. Then they'll make it so you need a license to employ cryptography. It sounds crazy, but where we are right now would have sounded just as crazy 15 years ago.

>Then they'll make it so you need a license to employ cryptography.

You already need one to export certain goods / to certain countries.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#38

Post by masklinn »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #21
BBlarat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the winds have changed on that stance, at least in Europe. I've seen a couple of leading politicians say something in the line of: "If china can do it so can we" concerning the Chinese firewall and blocking "unwanted" content on the web, which is scary.

If it happens, it'll become precedent, then all countries will want to do it. The next logical step is to outlaw phones and devices that are incapable of breaking into. Then they'll make it so you need a license to employ cryptography. It sounds crazy, but where we are right now would have sounded just as crazy 15 years ago.

> The next logical step is to outlaw phones and devices that are incapable of breaking into. Then they'll make it so you need a license to employ cryptography.

Welcome to the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... [0]

> It sounds crazy, but where we are right now would have sounded just as crazy 15 years ago.

Hardly. 15 years ago, the US were just barely past their encryption export ban, and we had yet to deal with the (still ongoing) fallout from it.

[0] although back then the US only tried to backdoor or ban strong encryption for the international market, not for the domestic one, for simplicity reasons the domestic versions of exported products often used "export-grade" (shit) encryption

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#39

Post by winter_blue »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #29
jacquesm wrote: post #2

> No, David. If I were in the job now, I would have simply told the FBI to call Fort Meade, the headquarters of the National Security Agency, and NSA would have solved this problem for them. They're not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent. That's quite the quote, especially given his history of employment. The weirdest thing about this whole cell-phone saga to me is that the…

No the weirdest thing is that Apple is standing up to the government. Isn't that just wrong? You, the people choose the government, so in effect Apple is standing up to the people of America and saying 'no'. If you the people didn't want the FBI to be bullish then choose a different government. It feels to me (an outsider) that it's the government that is out of control and is not accountable to the people.

It seems like the country is 50-50 divided on this. But more importantly, individual liberty is more important than majority rule. When the founding fathers created this country, they cared deeply about individual liberty, and worried about a tyranny of the majority. Even if a super-majority wants to deprive an individual or a minority group of its rights, they should not be allowed to.

A free country's first commitment is to personal liberty, and only secondly to democracy.

Re: Encryption, Privacy Are Larger Issues Than Fighting Terrorism

#40

Post by pjc50 »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #29
jacquesm wrote: post #2

> No, David. If I were in the job now, I would have simply told the FBI to call Fort Meade, the headquarters of the National Security Agency, and NSA would have solved this problem for them. They're not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent. That's quite the quote, especially given his history of employment. The weirdest thing about this whole cell-phone saga to me is that the…

No the weirdest thing is that Apple is standing up to the government. Isn't that just wrong? You, the people choose the government, so in effect Apple is standing up to the people of America and saying 'no'. If you the people didn't want the FBI to be bullish then choose a different government. It feels to me (an outsider) that it's the government that is out of control and is not accountable to the people.

"The people" do not have a unified will. There's always a pro-totalitarian faction in any society, and they tend to come to the front at times of percieved instability and threat. Part of the problem is that a significant fraction of voters support violence being used against people with unpopular opinions, minority religions, different skin colours, etc.
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