Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More encryption means less privacy

queue.acm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 221 posts

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#161

Post by voxic11 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #102
Confusion wrote: post #93

Earlier 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?

Clipper chip is the classic example...

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#162

Post by nullc »

mike_hearn wrote: post #78
icebraining wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is trivial to use cryptography in ways that yield some sort of balance between personal privacy and the needs of the state. But that's the point: we've seen that this balance doesn't exist, because if the service providers have access to the plaintext, the State will not contain itself to issuing case-by-case warrants - see Room 641A, "SSL added and removed here", etc. The current move to encrypt everything is a r…

You're arguing with something different to what I said. I pointed out that it's easy to design cryptosystems to be unbreakably strong against all adversaries except governments, and indeed can be unbreakably strong against mass eavesdropping by governments, yet still provide access on a case by case basis. And in fact this is the outcome of all kinds of natural and widely adopted designs. You're arguing that governme…

> adversaries except governments

Considering that governments are made up of people this would be quite a trick.

Regardless, even if it were so-- the objective would be to be unbreakable strong except to lawful and transparent actions of governments. The lawfulness of an action is undecidable by a cryptosystem. And we know that government frequently behave unlawfully.

Moreover, since cryptographic communications can be hidden very completely unless free access to computers and communication is almost completely suppressed; those who really want (and can afford) communications which are secure against government intrusion (lawful or otherwise) are able to obtain it. So the decision to purposefully weaken cryptosystems has the primary effect of amplifying unlawful intrusions by governments (and paries that steal the governments keys).

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#163

Post by voxic11 »

rocqua wrote: post #32
skybrian wrote: post #17

I'd put it a different way. Encryption and other forms of good security force surveillance out of the shadows. Without it we wouldn't know what Kazakhstan is doing. If the law requires a warrant to access your GMail account, good security is why law enforcement has to get a valid warrant and send it to Google to get access. Done right, it's not a substitute for politics. It enables politics. It allows agreements on c…

We all like end to end encryption though. In fact, most people call it the pinnacle of crypto done right. And yet, it completely circumvents any warrants.

Nope not any just subpoena the person who owns the keys...

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#164

Post by clock_tower »

serge2k wrote: post #144
dpark wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until very recently 99.99% of conversations where completely private and society functioned just fine. In fairness, until very recently it was also extremely difficult for two people to privately plot to murder hundreds. Technology has changed the balances on a lot of scales. To be clear, I'm not advocating for government back doors in encryption here. But I am saying we should not pretend that encryption just puts…

> until very recently it was also extremely difficult for two people to privately plot to murder hundreds. Technology has changed the balances on a lot of scales. Was what McVeigh did highly technical?

It was dependent on having modern technology, like a truck and cheap fertilizer; it's a lot harder to kill 168 people (and wound almost 700) with an oxcart and a crossbow. Even with a carriage and black powder you need a _lot_ of people to be in on the plot. (Black powder was not cheap, not deniable, and not easily transported or concealed.)

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#165

Post by voxic11 »

michael_fine wrote: post #125
hx87 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Good for them.

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#166

Post by marcosdumay »

djsumdog wrote: post #152
kefka wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a rubber hose work when the people are talking via Tox or via .onion sites?

I think OP was talking about torture in order to obtain keys.

And the GP is asking who will be tortured if you can't get the identity of the interlocutors.

You can even hide that a conversation took place.

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#167

Post by cbsmith »

rdtsc wrote: post #99
cbsmith wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what does he suggest? I think we are supposed to read between the lines, but I am not sure what that is yet. I think the larger implication of the essay is to consider addressing privacy from a systemic/game theory perspective. The underlying threat isn't technological, but in the response to technological capabilities. Encryption is just another capability that provokes a response.

That's valid. I think they way it is presented it is easy to mis-read it. I kind of hinted at finding a better way to respond to the problem in the PR domain. However,a technological solution can still help. For example, focusing on plausible deniability, traffic hiding, dead man switches and so on. Technology is just another approach and for some it might be easier to work with for some and easier to disseminate.

I agree that by pointing out how technology can potentially make the problem worse, the essay can easily be interpreted as a call to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Perhaps that was the intended message, but I'd like to think it was deliberately provocative to stimulate the right kind of thinking.

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#168

Post by cbsmith »

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #133
cbsmith wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problems are centered around naming. What's that expression? "All problems in computer science are ultimately about naming."

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. -- Phil Karlton Variant: There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

You can solve cache invalidation by doing naming right. ;-)

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#169

Post by dpark »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #153
dpark wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until very recently 99.99% of conversations where completely private and society functioned just fine. In fairness, until very recently it was also extremely difficult for two people to privately plot to murder hundreds. Technology has changed the balances on a lot of scales. To be clear, I'm not advocating for government back doors in encryption here. But I am saying we should not pretend that encryption just puts…

Mandela spent 20 years in jail for plotting to blow up a hotel, I believe? And that was nearly a century ago.

Your timeline is skewed. Mandela was born nearly a century ago. His involvement in bomb conspiracies was in the 1960s, about a half century ago, when most conversations were not guaranteed private. Wire taps have been around as long as phones.

Re: More encryption means less privacy

#170

Post by throwanem »

phkamp wrote: post #156
Grishnakh wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is almost no political engagement from the technology sector, as compared to others That's because the tech sector is busy actually doing useful stuff and inventing world-changing technologies. Pharma only does some of that (their pace of innovation is quite lackluster, and they spend more on marketing than on R&D, the real medical innovation is being done by other entities), finance is figuring out how to mak…

No, that is not why. The reason why the tech sector does not engage in politics, is that people feel they are above politics and "don't want to get dirty". Further more, they're sure the laws doesn't matter on the Internet anyway, right ?

John Perry Barlow has a hell of a lot to answer for.
Post reply on HN