I assume the author also believes that war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.
And I assume that you failed to read the article.
More encryption means less privacy
121–130 of 221 posts
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#122I think the author is completely wrong on the premise that more encryption has meant less privacy. People are using more encryption because we already had no or little privacy. It hasn't gotten worse, it was already this bad.
He is right on one count though, this isn't a technical problem and it cannot be solved through a purely technical solution.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The law does actually have ways of extracting cash from people even when it can't locate the cash in question. It's harder, and less effective, but overall it works more than it doesn't.
Yes, but that works the same for Bitcoin.
It could work the same for Bitcoin. It actually works better with Bitcoin as there actually is a complete transaction log.
However, the law has frequently decided it can't treat Bitcoin like it treats cash, which has created problems...
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do IT for a think tank in DC. I've seen people across the political spectrum fail to enact their particular agenda for their entire multi-decade careers. Changing policy is slow and, quite often, impossible.
If one can enjoy a multi-decade career without making any changes, why worry about making changes?
Because most political jobs pay abysmally, have little job security, and require painful working hours. As such, there aren't many reasons to go into politics beyond wanting to make a change.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except, the safe in your house can be cracked on a judge's order. Your encrypted machine, on the other hand, does not listen to judges. Ergo, the FBI-unlocking-dead-guy's-iPhone thing, and the key-disclosure thing.
> Your encrypted machine, on the other hand, does not listen to judges. My machine doesn't, but I do, unless I am willing to face the consequences of being in contempt of court.
Which many members of conspiracies would be more than willing to do, hindering the investigation of organized crime, and (genuine) terrorist cells.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Client-to-server encryption with central message routing [..] will be abused by the NSA and anyone else that can get their hands on access. And no amount of politicking is going to change that, as it hasn't changed anything about their blatant disregard of the law thus far. BTW, 'anyone else that can get their hands on access' will include foreign nations and criminals. [..] can easily be given a backdoor [..] that m…
How many of the NSA's backdoors have ended up in the hands of foreign nations and criminals, again?
To be fair, the NSA did have a very high profile incided where they were considering legally mandating a physical backdoor, called the Clipper Chip, until it was proven that the chip had a gaping vulnerability.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#127I think this point of view isn't just wrong it's actively harmful . It completely ignores what happened - which is that various government agencies skirted around constitutional law, subverted public discussion of the matter [0] and have still not been brought into adequate compliance (Since it's incredibly hard to demonstrate standing and not have the case squashed [1]). And after all this the author is saying the p…
I agree that this point of view is actively harmful. Users not being part of the political process, realistically, is part of the political process design. The average user doesn't have the time or money to lobby like a corporation with clear financial incentives to inhibit Progress in Congress.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're in fact advocating no private life. I strongly disagree that this position would be good for society. No, I'm not advocating for anything per se, I'm just bringing up opposite points of view. I don't have an easy answer either. Second, no privacy is what has been the standard since governments started. There has been no technology that has been able to make some aspect of reality 100% private, other than the…
"No privacy" has certainly NOT been the standard. Before the information age, people were more likely to communicate extremely private information in person. Until the invention of microphones, this communication was most certainly private if you could avoid eavesdroppers! Now, with everything from TVs to phones to lampposts listening in, this type of communication carries less of a privacy guarantee, but it's still…
> "No privacy" has certainly NOT been the standard. Before the information age, people were more likely to communicate extremely private information in person.
The first problem with this is that influence and power in society is proportional to how many people a person has access to and is around in some way. So yeah you could be private before but you couldn't do nearly the same damage or have the same influence without having people around. Technology empowers people across the world while at the same time potentially leaving no trace. The second problem is that communications is one thing, but evidence and 'data at rest' is another. Things like sexual abuse pictures, financial logs like cryptocurrencies, gps coordinates of where you've been, app logs in your phone and whatever else that may serve as evidence. In the old world, you had no choice but to burn or bury that evidence, but that also eliminates their usefulness to the criminal so there's a choice to be made by them before they destroy it.
Basically in the old world you had physical items in a physical world, observed by the people around you, and your only friend was physical isolation, physical obfuscation (burying, using a safe, both of which aren't 100% private), or the decay/destruction of the physical items. Today you have pristine copies at global scale with 100% privacy and this is far more effective.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#129I'm probably echoing others by saying this, but: I don't agree that there is even correlation between more encryption and less privacy. Even if we were not attempting to subvert injustices done to us by our own governments by providing technical solutions, I believe wholeheartedly that many governments would still be attempting to decrease our privacy in every possible way. They're using increased encryption use as a…
Typically (in the US) it's been the executive branch that has tried to subvert privacy (see COINTELPRO), and the judicial which has (sometimes) upheld it. However, because crypto would actively impede the ability of the judicial branch to use warrants, I imagine it would alienate our typical ally.
Re: More encryption means less privacy
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
And we wouldn't have kicked privacy into high-gear if government agencies had proven themselves trustworthy. But they abused their powers, and here we are. I hate saying "they started it", but... they did. > There are real harms to strong encryption, whether one would like to admit it or not, so the point is to weigh the costs and benefits and go from there. Right now encryption seems more like a religion, a last bas…
This is becoming a super long thread now but I want to say I understand your points, that's why this is difficult to discuss. What I see is that if evidence collection becomes seriously hampered because of strong encryption, then hacking, backdoors and surveillance will have to go up to compensate, and that's not a good situation either. If there comes a point where a large percentage of pedophiles, 'common criminals…
> What I see is that if evidence collection becomes seriously hampered because of strong encryption, then hacking, backdoors and surveillance will have to go up to compensate, and that's not a good situation either.
I don't see why it should. Encryption isn't taking something away that the government has always had, it's about taking something back that they never should have been collecting in the first place, and evidently don't know how to use properly anyway. Just because we've taken away their new toys doesn't mean they get to continue to abuse the system.
> Maybe we just haven't seen the actual consequences yet.
Really? I've been pretty civil with this, despite my inclination that you are just trolling, but I can't even take this part seriously.
> Unless the FBI and the police are lying
Either they are being malicious, or they are being ignorant. I'm not sure which is worse. But we have plenty of evidence that they are and have been lying.
You keep framing this discussion as though it's reasonable they are the good guys looking out for everyone, but there's just too much evidence that this isn't the case.
EDIT: > 650 of 5,000 electronic devices investigators attempted to search over the last 10 months
How many conversations about crimes were had in private that they couldn't record? I'm guessing many more than 5,000. Does that mean we should ban non-transcribed conversations?