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WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

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Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#61

Post by codyb »

Sargos wrote: post #52
hiccuphippo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already p2p messaging apps that do that without any blockchain nonsense. The blockchain would leave a permanent trace to which pseudonym posted what forever.

P2P messaging apps have a hard time with group messages because you have to have someone online to relay messages at all times. Group chats really have to have a shared storage medium to work.

What would the storage requirements be for a blockchain like that? It seems to me extravagant... and also would there be all the concensus algorithms? So I'd send a message and wait X amount of time for the network to achieve concensus that I had posted the message?

I can see the value in the distributed part certainly but if the storage requirements are very large due to a large volume of messages (I'd imagine any solution which caught on could quickly outpace the number of transactions on something like the ethereum or btc network), wouldn't it necessarily just end up centralized?

It's an interesting idea though.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#62

Post by empath75 »

baby wrote: post #20

Or rather, humanity has a lot of problems. Including rape, pedophilia, murders, etc. I don't think WhatsApp in particular has a problem. Are houses a problem because they hide crimes with their walls?

Why bother trying to prevent crime is what you’re saying?

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#63

Post by mrunkel »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #22
baby wrote: post #20

Or rather, humanity has a lot of problems. Including rape, pedophilia, murders, etc. I don't think WhatsApp in particular has a problem. Are houses a problem because they hide crimes with their walls?

Why aren't builders taking more initiative to employ moderators to monitor crimes inside the houses they build?

Would you expect your phone service provider to monitor its lines for illegal behavior?

If not, why is that different?

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#64

Post by cyphar »

tya99 wrote: post #58
muthdra wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has passed controversial laws designed to compel technology companies to grant police and security agencies access to encrypted messages. The government says the laws, a world first, are necessary to help combat terrorism and crime. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46463029

Passing a law is easy, but putting it in practice is enough thing. We of course won't hear about that side of it because "secret". I have no doubts that the big companies which this seems mostly for will be doing everything to decentralize and remove themselves from the problem citing "systemic weakness" and then doing nothing for the government.

> Passing a law is easy, but putting it in practice is enough thing. We of course won't hear about that side of it because "secret".

ASIO has to provide statistics on how many notices they issued in their yearly reports. In addition, recipients of reports are allowed to provide statistics about his many reports they've received. See s317ZF.

> I have no doubts that the big companies which this seems mostly for will be doing everything to decentralize and remove themselves from the problem citing "systemic weakness" and then doing nothing for the government.

Except that Apple (and other such companies) have explicitly designed their e2e systems in a way that they could be backdoored (users don't need to sign new identities with a key, so Apple can add a new one -- which is how the device adding feature works).

In addition, many such companies have the ability to provide a single backdoored binary to a single user. This, according to the legislation, would not be a systemic weakness. There is work you could do to make yourself resilient to company-wide sabotage but no company I'm aware of is doing it.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#65

Post by Nasrudith »

orblivion wrote: post #23
baby wrote: post #20

Or rather, humanity has a lot of problems. Including rape, pedophilia, murders, etc. I don't think WhatsApp in particular has a problem. Are houses a problem because they hide crimes with their walls?

This is a popular view, and it's one I may go to sometimes, but I wonder if it's only popular because it's what we want to believe. Really, it's reasonable to think that lowering the cost or risk of an activity will lead to more of it.

Well the thing is that many of the cost-lowerings are so unpredictable, all over the map and inevitable that assigning morality to it seems as futile and nonsensical as trying to decide if squares or circles are more moral.

People always say in retrospect about new technology 'they shouldn't have done this because I don't like the outcome' but how could they have known ahead of time and what would not doing it get them? There are very few cases when they really should have known better - leaded gasoline for instance.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#66

Post by wilde »

mrunkel wrote: post #63
legostormtroopr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't builders taking more initiative to employ moderators to monitor crimes inside the houses they build?

Would you expect your phone service provider to monitor its lines for illegal behavior? If not, why is that different?

They’re already sending the data to the NSA. The least they could do would be to block these unending spam calls.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#67

Post by Nasrudith »

hnauz wrote: post #32
Sargos wrote: post #10

This problem is only going to grow in the future. You can't control or reliably censor information on a free and open internet. The only way to ensure that nothing "bad" happens on the internet is to completely lock it down and whitelist everything that is posted. This isn't going to happen. In a few years blockchain based messaging apps will be launching and they will not be controlled by Facebook or anyone else. Yo…

You can, actually, by not having a free and open internet. Which is what we will eventually have. And it won't be because of some super shady and evil council of old men in suits, but because the public will beg for it.

That doesn't make sense any more than thinking they can somehow ban encryption when their economy is dependent upon it. Even China with its efforts so overkill that it does the opposite of its job by making it incredibly obvious something is going on when words start getting randomly censored like censoring 'Shanghai stock market' after it ended on a number that was a very coded reference to June 4th, 1989 aka Tienanmen square.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#69

Post by al_chemist »

empath75 wrote: post #62
baby wrote: post #20

Or rather, humanity has a lot of problems. Including rape, pedophilia, murders, etc. I don't think WhatsApp in particular has a problem. Are houses a problem because they hide crimes with their walls?

Why bother trying to prevent crime is what you’re saying?

More like "Who's crime is it anyway?"

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#70

Post by abc-xyz »

empath75 wrote: post #62
baby wrote: post #20

Or rather, humanity has a lot of problems. Including rape, pedophilia, murders, etc. I don't think WhatsApp in particular has a problem. Are houses a problem because they hide crimes with their walls?

Why bother trying to prevent crime is what you’re saying?

It's not WhatsApp's responsibility to prevent these crimes, and the only way for them to do so would be to violate the privacy of all their users.

That's a very bad trade-off, which would no doubt also result in other types of crimes being committed. It would also be completely pointless since these people could just switch to the next app, or setup their own app, or encrypt the files before sharing them on any random file sharing service.

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