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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

#131

Post by logfromblammo »

Myrmornis wrote: post #115
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Um, what? You have linked to an explanation of why it's not fine. This mistake is getting more and more common, even among educated people. It's quite embarrassing/funny because it stems from a belief that "I" is inherently more "educated", and the result sounds anything but. I know us English speakers can't speak any non-English languages, in contrast to the rest of the educated world, but it's really not too much t…

This is actually one of my fury triggers whenever the spouse is watching trashy reality shows on television.

I recall from my early public education that my peers and I were all taught incorrectly. They told me and my classmates to use "I" rather than "me" in all compound nouns, rather than to use the correct pronoun. This is burned in my memory. It happened. Don't try to gaslight it. At least one teacher taught every last one of their students the wrong grammar.

For instance, this would be correct. "She and I [1] went to the theater, and the ticket-agent told her and me [2] that matinee prices ended at 4 PM." Countless fools would put "her and I" in position [2], sparking a righteous, impotent rage in my soul.

Also, it's "I know we English speakers can't speak...". Try taking out the descriptive. "I know us can't speak..." versus "I know we can't speak..." Select the correct pronoun, then put the descriptor back in.

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

#132

Post by Myrmornis »

logfromblammo wrote: post #131
Myrmornis wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? You have linked to an explanation of why it's not fine. This mistake is getting more and more common, even among educated people. It's quite embarrassing/funny because it stems from a belief that "I" is inherently more "educated", and the result sounds anything but. I know us English speakers can't speak any non-English languages, in contrast to the rest of the educated world, but it's really not too much t…

This is actually one of my fury triggers whenever the spouse is watching trashy reality shows on television. I recall from my early public education that my peers and I were all taught incorrectly. They told me and my classmates to use "I" rather than "me" in all compound nouns, rather than to use the correct pronoun. This is burned in my memory. It happened. Don't try to gaslight it. At least one teacher taught ever…

Haha fair enough! And thanks for pointing out that it's actually been propagated by school teachers sometimes. I definitely deserve to be corrected publicly on the "us English speakers" thing. I could try to defend myself on the basis that I was deliberately affecting a more popular mode of speaking at that point, at the expense of correctness, but the truth is I've never said or written "we X doers". I'll bear it in mind for the future!

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

#133

Post by acdha »

sitkack wrote: post #123
acdha wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a grave mistake to demonize a single politician you dislike: if it were that simple, they'd have dropped it as soon as that one person left office. In reality, there's a large community pushing for things which they perceive as making their job easier and that persists across administrations — that started well before Clinton ran for office and certainly didn't end after he left.

You are putting words in my mouth. I demonize no one. My feelings about them (The Clintons) have indeed declined over the years. I mostly have huge respect for Al Gore. But my personal feelings have absolutely nothing do to with their material involvement with the Clipper Chip. Nor do I care when it started. They all carried the baton of government key escrow which is not something I am going to forget. It is a grave…

“paws” isn't a neutral term – it has strong negative connotations.

My point was simply that while, yes, Bill Clinton ultimately owns his official actions, it's naive to ignore the massive weight of the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus, especially coming off of the Cold War footing, on a subject where he was hearing from a lot of experts in government and business saying this was a good move.

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

#134

Post by acdha »

libeclipse wrote: post #130
acdha wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a grave mistake to demonize a single politician you dislike: if it were that simple, they'd have dropped it as soon as that one person left office. In reality, there's a large community pushing for things which they perceive as making their job easier and that persists across administrations — that started well before Clinton ran for office and certainly didn't end after he left.

If you disagree with someone, the right thing to do is to put forward your own side of the argument. It isn't polite to simply disregard what someone says because of your conceptions about where that belief is coming from.

Is it polite to pompously lecture someone about making an argument while ignoring the one they made?

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

#135

Post by libeclipse »

acdha wrote: post #134
libeclipse wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you disagree with someone, the right thing to do is to put forward your own side of the argument. It isn't polite to simply disregard what someone says because of your conceptions about where that belief is coming from.

Is it polite to pompously lecture someone about making an argument while ignoring the one they made?

Rather that than attack the straw man.

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

#136

Post by Nomentatus »

pjc50 wrote: post #87
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 survei…

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

If true, more reason to let the rest of us bank safely with it. There are ISIS manuals, and advice to use the best of the apps available.

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

#137

Post by Nomentatus »

Klathmon wrote: post #7
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…

>But very short messages (in an unknown format) aren't generally breakable, anyway, and that's the likely case. Hell, in most cases they wouldn't be detectable! With so much random data flying around today, you could encode short messages in just about anything. comments on reddit or hn or one of the alternatives, image metadata, etc... If you are looking to hide data on the scale of kilobytes, your options are basic…

Right - I was going to mention Steganography, but that's a long back-and-forth discussion.

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

#138

Post by Nomentatus »

slededit wrote: post #14
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…

Convenience really does play a part here though. The easier it is to be secure the more people will take advantage of it. Good for the most part - but bad from the FBI's perspective when a criminal uses it to hide their misdeeds. The likelihood for a criminal to use a one time pad is extremely low. The likelihood of them having an encrypted cell phone with useful information is much higher. It would be tough to argue…

Building the software that automates it all isn't hard, including the random number generation - and such an app could go on airgapped computers. It wouldn't be harder to use than a faucet. After the random part (not hard) it's just XOR, some of the simplest programming imaginable.

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

#139

Post by Nomentatus »

_jal wrote: post #121
libeclipse wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine implementing your amazing solution in real life. I don't see a situation being frequent where you'd know the message weeks or months in advance of when you send it. If we follow your scheme, there's no encryption; we just meet up when we need to communicate. What if we're on opposite sides of the earth? If we had exchanged keys months earlier, this wouldn't be a problem.

I must have explained poorly. I was not proposing "just communicate securely in advance". I was highlighting the problem with OTPs. The fact that your key material is the same size as the message means all your security is in the key, thus in your key distribution method. Among other problems, this means no rekeying without replicating your original hand-off - you can communicate exactly as many bits as your previous…

USBs carry a lot - and couriers are terrorists usual way of doing business. I don't see this as any barrier.
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