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Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

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Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#81

Post by mcbits »

xupybd wrote: post #72
jungletek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally I think you can make it a crime not to produce a key if a warrant has been issued to search what ever you've encrypted. Personally, I find that suggestion repugnant.

How is this different to getting a warrant to search say a safe deposit box at a bank? Is there something about encrypted data that should be beyond the reach of the law?

The main difference is that devices store and transmit tons data that would never be stored in a safe deposit box, and which has always been inaccessible to law enforcement anyway, such as one-off drunken quips between friends.

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#82

Post by vbezhenar »

xupybd wrote: post #21

Just think of the outrage if the government required master keys to everyone's homes? I know there is a difference, but it's not a huge leap to compare the two. We don't want the government to have such easy access to our homes because we can't trust every government employee not to abuse it. I think the same goes here. No mater what safe guards you put in place it's a scary thought that you simply can't keep the gov…

Government already has master key to anyone's home. They'll just break the door, it can be done easily. Proper encryption is a different beast, you just don't have that option to break the door.

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#83

Post by Myrmornis »

rietta wrote: post #24
deepnet wrote: post #19

> ... "protected being being stolen." repetition error.

Deploying an update to remove the duplicate word now. Thank you.

Also,

> The cybersecurity threats that face our nation are very important to my wife and I.

"to my wife and me"

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#84

Post by thanksgiving »

vbezhenar wrote: post #82
xupybd wrote: post #21

Just think of the outrage if the government required master keys to everyone's homes? I know there is a difference, but it's not a huge leap to compare the two. We don't want the government to have such easy access to our homes because we can't trust every government employee not to abuse it. I think the same goes here. No mater what safe guards you put in place it's a scary thought that you simply can't keep the gov…

Government already has master key to anyone's home. They'll just break the door, it can be done easily. Proper encryption is a different beast, you just don't have that option to break the door.

Maybe there needs to be a publicly accessible/downloadable/searchable registry to which all warrants issued by any court in the us gets logged? Who has the mandate to create such a requirement?

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#85

Post by andyjohnson0 »

Myrmornis wrote: post #83
rietta wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deploying an update to remove the duplicate word now. Thank you.

Also, > The cybersecurity threats that face our nation are very important to my wife and I. "to my wife and me"

"my wife and I" is fine.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/i-or-me

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#86

Post by mirimir »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #85
Myrmornis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, > The cybersecurity threats that face our nation are very important to my wife and I. "to my wife and me"

"my wife and I" is fine. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/i-or-me

No, it's not, and your cite teaches that it's not.

I went to the store.

My wife and I went to the store.

They loved me.

They loved my wife and me.

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#87

Post by pjc50 »

Nomentatus wrote: post #2

The irony here is that simple one-time-pad solutions (OTP) will continue to be available to securely encrypt the sort of messaging that's of use to terrorists (relatively short infrequent messages), instead it's the general communications (including for banking) that the rest of us perform online that will be made vulnerable. You don't even have to program or use a computer to create these OTP solutions, for limited…

> the sort of messaging that's of use to terrorists

It seems increasingly apparent that recruitment and radicalisation are done in the open. After all, political speech is free speech.

Then people either self-radicalise (go on a murder spree without coordinating action with a larger group; e.g. many mass shooters), or they meet up in person. Lots of radicalised people go to the Middle East where they can't be surveilled by western security forces.

There's remarkably little evidence that terrorists are making routine use of strong encryption.

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#88

Post by Sacho »

xupybd wrote: post #62
sanderjd wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I agree with you but I always struggle to convince people that this line of reasoning makes sense. The government can already enter anybody's home upon receiving a warrant to do so. If you don't let them in, they can bust through a door or tear down a wall. We trust the government not to do this without court oversight. We trust courts to provide good and honest oversight. It is far from a perfect system,…

Personally I think you can make it a crime not to produce a key if a warrant has been issued to search what ever you've encrypted. That is a lot more out in the open than a "back door". When the government bashes through the door at least it's in plain site and the house owner knows it's happening. But with encryption how would you know if the government has used their access?

How do you plan to prove that a person can unencrypt certain communication and is not simply an intermediary?

What if a hacker plants "secret encrypted documents" on your computer, and then the government demands that you produce a key for them? This situation has allegedly already played out with child porn[0], and planting drugs is not unheard of by unscrupulous police officers[1]. Essentially, you're back at the issue GP describes - we don't trust government employees with this much power over our lives.

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-put...

[1] - https://www.innocenceproject.org/leaked-documents-show-alaba...

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#89

Post by rocqua »

Cyph0n wrote: post #34
slededit wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - and yet most criminals were happy to use that insecure and broken SMS. I'd love to see a study on the proportion of criminals that even know what encryption is. I expect it to be extremely low.

Exactly what? My point is that encryption is fairly common right now, even for average consumers. If political activists use Tor and Signal quite regularly, why wouldn't criminals do the same? I still don't quite understand why you're comparing what criminals did back then to what they could do right now.

I'd expect that currently, most criminal use of encryption is accidental. That is, everyone switched from SMS to whatsapp, criminals just did what everyone did.

Sure, there might be exceptions for high-level criminal conspiracies. But most crime isn't of that kind. For terrorist, I imagine there is a large spectrum of covert abilities.

Re: Americans' Access to Strong Encryption Is at Risk, an Open Letter to Congress

#90

Post by noir_lord »

benevol wrote: post #65
Nomentatus wrote: post #2

The irony here is that simple one-time-pad solutions (OTP) will continue to be available to securely encrypt the sort of messaging that's of use to terrorists (relatively short infrequent messages), instead it's the general communications (including for banking) that the rest of us perform online that will be made vulnerable. You don't even have to program or use a computer to create these OTP solutions, for limited…

> So taking away secure encryption from the rest of us is just security theatre Even more importantly, it's a power grab of the powerful (which mostly translates into "the rich", and vice versa) aiming to further dominate and manipulate the remaining population ("the 99%") in order to secure and increase their dominant situation.

One of my favourite economists has a quote I like.

> The Hampton's aren't a defensible position.

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