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Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

arstechnica.com

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Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#31

Post by cmurf »

typenil wrote: post #2

We can have a little test - let's put backdoors on all of law enforcement's encryption usage and see how long it stays safe. I really don't know if people like Barr are arguing in good faith. But then I try to assume incompetence first and malice second.

Except we have actual history to look at in Barr's case, Iran-Contra. I absolutely consider this malice first and incompetence second. That malice is classism, people are not equal, some people are inherently better people, and they have more money. Everything is a product. And wealthy people can buy more of that product than others.

This is an attempt to make sure ordinary people cannot have privacy, cannot be protected from either each other, other governments or this government, but wealthy people will continue to be able to buy that protection one way or another. It's a feudalist's proposition. You do not understand the motives without understanding the underlying ideologies. Not everyone can be a lord over their own data - it's a fact. Your data, peasant, is not your data! It belongs to your lord. And who the lord is case by case, it could be the government, it could be a particular corporation or a trade group of them.

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#32

Post by jakelazaroff »

> The cost of encryption, he said, is measured in "victims" who might have been saved from crime if law enforcement had been able to lawfully intercept communications earlier.

The cost of backdoors is measured in hospitals paralyzed by ransomware, personal information stolen by hackers, government secrets obtained by hostile nations. Not to mention the threat of pervasive surveillance by our own government, which has long shown it's willing to intrude on our privacy as much as it possibly can, laws be damned.

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#34

Post by cr0sh »

yibg wrote: post #20
OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #9

Does mr Barr not understand that criminals will simply use free non-backdoored software instead? Of course he does. It's hard not to read this as another attemt to listen in on the conversation of regular citizens instead.

Seems like a failure of the tech community that most people don’t understand the ramifications of backdoors. People can also point to the example of China where there are indeed government backdoors and things are fine (from the government can get access but others can’t point of view). Clearly we don’t want to be like China in this regard but it does give an example of a “working” backdoor setup.

> but it does give an example of a “working” backdoor setup.

I'd argue that it's actually giving the illusion of a working setup - not that the setup actually works.

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#35

Post by pwinnski »

yibg wrote: post #20
OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #9

Does mr Barr not understand that criminals will simply use free non-backdoored software instead? Of course he does. It's hard not to read this as another attemt to listen in on the conversation of regular citizens instead.

Seems like a failure of the tech community that most people don’t understand the ramifications of backdoors. People can also point to the example of China where there are indeed government backdoors and things are fine (from the government can get access but others can’t point of view). Clearly we don’t want to be like China in this regard but it does give an example of a “working” backdoor setup.

If I tell a child that 2 + 2 = 4, and show them four blocks in groups of two, and have them draw pictures demonstrating that 2+2=4, and sing songs about 2+2=4, and yet they persist in believing that 2+2=5, is that my failure?

The tech community has repeatedly and thoroughly explained the impossibility of secure backdoors, but it is apparently a more difficult thing to grasp than 2+2=4, especially when one does not wish to grasp it.

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#36

Post by skybrian »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #28

This was briefly confusing, as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion. But I'm interested in what the constructive path forward is on the rather more important issue of ubiquitous encryption. I think most people generally accept that well-regulated wiretapping (and other forms of interception of communication) are a useful and importan…

Note that a lot can be learned from "metadata" (keeping track of who is talking to who) and it's also hard to prevent without adding a lot of inefficiency via something like onion routing. So that would be the logical place for some kind of law enforcement compromise while still encrypting the messages themselves.

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#38

Post by inetknght »

blfr wrote: post #24
ceautery wrote: post #7

Shockingly, comments are disabled on the AP video of him saying this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-QQwv1U2aY

I checked ~10 AP videos but they all had disabled comments so it's probably their default.

Given the toxic nature of Youtube comments, I can't blame them

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#39

Post by mLuby »

tehjoker wrote: post #22

We don't need to make arguments like "I trust the state, but what about criminals?". All US administrations have exhibited strong evidence of criminality and work to suppress dissent and oppress minorities. The current administration makes AG Barr's machinations exceptionally clear as they employ an ever more viscous kidnapping force and (incompetently) attempt to start wars around the world. If you want to be able t…

A "viscous kidnapping force" is an especially sticky problem. ^__^;

Re: Tech firms “can and must” put backdoors in encryption, AG Barr says

#40

Post by lm28469 »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #12
sokoloff wrote: post #8

> The FBI ended up in possession of the shooter's iPhone during the investigation but was unable to unlock the device, as the attacker had been killed and therefore could not be compelled to share his PIN. Is it not the case that he couldn't be legally compelled to share his PIN even if he were alive?

No one can force your to share information. Let's say your PIN code is 1324, and you suffer from stress induced transposia (just made that up). Every time you are asked to say or share your PIN code, you get stresses & use 1234, even though you meant to use 1324. There's no way make you say the correct PIN code. In a more realistic example, what are you going to do to someone who simply forgot their PIN code?

>what are you going to do to someone who simply forgot their PIN code?

Put them in jail indefinitely, apparently.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed-indef...

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