U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#61

Post by jetti » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 3:58 AM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #29

EvilEndures wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way? Law enforcement and government are addicted to power to an unhealthy degree. Convincing people to voluntarily give up power is rarely successful. You seem to believe majority support is enough to make something happen. It…

After President Franklin Pierce's child died gruesomely in a train wreck, it was believed, even by his own wife and family, that it was God's punishment for him seeking authority and power. I didn't live in the past, but my reading of it leads me to believe that, at least through US history, it seemed that the public consciousness in the past has had very real skepticism of authority. Perhaps that is the opposite tod…

Pierce was part of the first generation of U.S citizens and would have grown up with stories of British ruled colonies, which could have helped foster the skepticism of authority you mention.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#62

Post by jetti » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:02 AM UTC

"Law enforcement agencies forcing technology providers to rewrite software to capture and hand over data that is no longer encrypted"

Would this, or could this, fall under compelled speech? Especially if an employee is using the product themselves?

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#63

Post by annadane » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

Article on HN: "The government shouldn't be trying to do this, we need encryption, decentralized services"

Article on Reddit: "Delete Facebook! Fuck Zuckerberg."

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#64

Post by sneak » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:13 AM UTC

*a different department of the US government. We already know that the NSA wiretaps Messenger at will extrajudicially via PRISM and other programs.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#65

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:15 AM UTC

annadane wrote: post #63

Article on HN: "The government shouldn't be trying to do this, we need encryption, decentralized services" Article on Reddit: "Delete Facebook! Fuck Zuckerberg."

Both reasonable reactions, just different takes.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#66

Post by tribesman » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:30 AM UTC

The other day i posted a rant on p2p here on HN and everyone was like, huh! Use whatsapp.

We need to build our own p2p and e2e secure chat client like whatsapp which works on every platform.

Sure, it's possible - skype was exactly this before except for the e2e part.

Why we techies can't? Let's make a group and dissect the problem in our free time. Who is up for it?

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#67

Post by dingaling » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 4:56 AM UTC

realusername wrote: post #58

Phlarp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's too late to criminalize prostitution, every is already having sex" "It's too late to criminalize possession of drugs. Half the country takes pharmaceuticals!"

I fail to see the point, without encryption, there's no modern web, no e-commerce, no smartphones, absolutely everything relies on it like water. Unless you want to go back to pre-2000's technology of course.

Of course e-commerce will be fine, because browser vendors will obtain licenses to ship TLS modules and as a condition of such will include the .gov root cert.

It's trivial when you can pass arbitrary legislation.

Back in the 90s we had to deal with US gov restrictions on encryption export. Software companies and organisations fell into line. It was a big deal when 128-bit keyed Netscape became available globally in 1997, per State Dept approval, but even then the full-strength server-side SSL was still restricted to 'approved' entities.

And even 56-bit server SSL was only exportable with us.gov key escrow.

I used to use Apache with the 40-bit SSL option. Pathetic strength but no-one was going to risk jail-time by breaking laws.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#68

Post by praneshp » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 5:12 AM UTC

EvilEndures wrote: post #49

gerdesj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Public Option has 75% popular support. Medicare-For-All has 59% popular support. [HR] Yet we have neither. Brexit was decided on an embarrassingly close vote: 51.9% So we have two seemingly popular things that haven't happened and one that has happened but was not so popular (but it turns out that it was more popular than was suspected by anyone beforehand). I'm afraid that is politics. If it helps, I am not a fa…

> There is no conspiracy and I don't think that it is fair to accuse your police and government of being arseholes (to put words in your mouth!) Sometimes we simply have to accept that our personal will does not always dovetail with that of the majority - that is how democracy works. To be fair though, there is also nothing wrong with getting a good rant in on HN. You've clearly never dealt with either in the US for…

> To be honest, I don't think people should cry they have a mandate from the people with less than a 55% majority

Can I ask what 55 is? (for instance, in India 66 is a special percentage required for some bills).

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#69

Post by Xcelerate » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 5:17 AM UTC

badminton1 wrote: post #56

mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

It is not the answer. What are the building blocks for encryption? 1) An cryptographic algorithm 2) Some form of key generation 3) A software implementation of 1) and 2) 4) A binary distribution of 3) 5) A computer that executes 4) In practice, chances are those 5 are all rigged. They are rigged because you have so far trusted: - That there are no tricks in the algorithm or its practical implementation - That there a…

1-5 have worked so far for Bitcoin.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#70

Post by lallysingh » Sat, Aug 18, 2018, 5:18 AM UTC

Phlarp wrote: post #53

realusername wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Possession of encryption software could be treated the same as possession of drugs It's too late for that, every machine, every browser, every user is using encryption software all the time.

"It's too late to criminalize prostitution, every is already having sex" "It's too late to criminalize possession of drugs. Half the country takes pharmaceuticals!"

The difference being that there's way too much necessary legitimate use of cryptography to stop now, and as the traffic is encrypted, you can't tell what traffic isn't legitimate. Plus steganography and plenty of places accessible on the net that aren't the United States.

This isn't meatspace, the dynamics are quite different.