181–190 of 221 posts
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How many of the NSA's backdoors have ended up in the hands of foreign nations and criminals, again?
All of them.
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Until very recently 99.99% of conversations where completely private and society functioned just fine. Even with crypto everywhere the governments have far more access to what people say and do than they had for thousands of years. People with power pretend if they just had more power everything would be better. But, reality is if everything on a computer where private not much would change.
> 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…
0. Voice over The Air. :-)
I 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 think a very important point was raised though. Before crypto, basically all guarantees where conditional on a judge's say so. With crypto this changes. The issue also comes up, in a clearer way, with crypto currencies. There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin. That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it. Even though no government has given a satisfactory solution, that do…
This is a social problem of bitcoin. The bitcoin people consider this a feature.
However, it can be dealt with at an exchange. "MyBitcoinExchange(tm) only allows transfers to other members of MyBitcoinExchange(tm) and yourself. All transfers will be escrowed for 5 days to ensure that they are not fraudulent."
The problem is: nobody in bitcoin would use that exchange.
People who want non-traceable will stay away. People who are using it to sequester wealth out of countries will stay away. People who want fast liquidity will stay away. etc.
So, who's left? Um, people who are perfectly adequately handled by existing credit cards, thanks.
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What are you talking about? There have been plenty on bombings and shootings for hundreds of years.
200 years ago there were "plenty" of bombings and mass shootings orchestrated by groups of 1 or 2 people that resulted in hundreds of lives lost? Can you provide a few examples of this?
We have also forgotten a lot of this crap. EX: 40 to 81 people killed from a time bomb in 1875. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Keith,_Jr. Note, this was for insurance money not terrorists, but I don't think the dead care.
Some historical examples where donations where probably accidental. The Delft Explosion of 1654 killed 100-200 people. In 1769 ~3000 people where killed when a depo @ Bastion of San Nazaro in Brescia was struck by lighting. A lighting also sparked another detonation in 1856 killing ~4,000.
I 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 think a very important point was raised though. Before crypto, basically all guarantees where conditional on a judge's say so. With crypto this changes. The issue also comes up, in a clearer way, with crypto currencies. There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin. That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it. Even though no government has given a satisfactory solution, that do…
It shouldn't. Listening in on a conversation should be illegal whether or not the conversation is encrypted. But we realized that if we weren't encrypting our conversations that our rights were being illegally infringed upon, so we started taking matters into our own hands.
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> Until very recently 99.99% of conversations where completely private and society functioned just fine. Until very recently, most conversations were plausibly deniable, and off the record. The internet and cryptography changes that. Edit: [Both plausibly deniable in the formal/cryptographic sense, and in the informal "You're misremembering, there's no record in writing of me saying that" sense]
> The internet and cryptography changes that. By Internet, I think you mean phonographs, magnetic tapes and pocket recorders. Cryptography brings some of that back.
They aren't equivalent.
I 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…
Well, two things: 1. I've always maintained that privacy is a political and social problem, not just a technological one. Nothing stops a more powerful actor from breaking encryption with a rubber hose if they really want to. Technological solutions are still needed since there's a variety of actors involved, only some of which will obey the political doctrine. 2. I often wonder if encryption will make us think of pr…
Technology helps a lot. It brings us from a panoptikon to a situation where enforcement has to be done on an individual basis. That's a big win for freedom in my book.
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200 years ago there were "plenty" of bombings and mass shootings orchestrated by groups of 1 or 2 people that resulted in hundreds of lives lost? Can you provide a few examples of this?
That's a rather artificial limitations, few modern plots are from 1 or 2 people with hundreds killed. Historical examples are generally things like fires not bombings / mass shootings. As an example of the risks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Meireki for example was extremely deadly, though estimates of ~100,000 dead where probably exaggerated. We have also forgotten a lot of this crap. EX: 40 to 81 peo…
This is a fringe opinion, but I personally wish the U.S. would make all forms of hacking and digital surveillance totally legal. Yes, legal, with no "I". I think this would drastically change the technology landscape, putting more impetus on vendors to provide (and prove) protections such as encryption, and an impetus on users to select the vendors who are the best at doing so. Hacking laws are a crutch that attempt…
The pressure you are talking about would be too great. Things would collapse if it became legal to actively pursue hacking them.
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Gunpowder plot of 1605 is a rather famous counter example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot
That's really not a counterexample to my point. This was a conspiracy involving over a dozen people. It's a plot that unraveled because someone leaked the details. This is why technology has changed the balance. You don't need dozens of people to gather enough explosive material to pull this off today. And with fewer people involved, traditional detective work is harder, and those involved are less likely to leak det…
Again, if you want to kill lot's of people disease, and fire where the most common historical examples. It's actually much harder for a lone person to kill thousands today than it was 500 years ago due to effective methods of firefighting.