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Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

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Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#141

> We are writing to request that Facebook does not proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services without ensuring that there is no reduction to user safety. Oh, so you’re asking for more end-to-end encryption? > While the letter acknowledges that Facebook, which owns Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, captures 99% of child exploitation and terrorism-related content t…

It's like when the Republicans said in the 90s that you don't solve problems by throwing money at them.

But that's exactly how many problems are solved.

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#142
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> captures 99% of child exploitation and terrorism-related content Credit where it's due, good on them building such effective systems to catch this content.

Image filtering is now trivial even using simple transfer learning, leading to >99% accuracy. It's just the training datasets might be super disgusting and question one's will to live when confronted with the savagery that is going on around the world.

How is it not a crime to possess the training set?

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#143
post #59

For those of you opposed to this request from the government, what do you think the negative consequences are for end to end encryption? Do you think there are no negative consequences or are they just negligible? Just try and imagine what the cost might be, how broad the impact might be and who and how many would bear the brunt of those costs. Nobody really cares about your personal Facebook messages to your friends…

You make the mistake of assuming the watchmen have and will always have noble intentions. Rather, you should assume that at some point, someone in power will have the most ignoble intentions.

What do you think the negative consequences are for a government to have a permanent record of every private conversation made over the Internet? Bear in mind that the fraction of all private conversations which occur over the Internet is only increasing.

You must assume that "exceptional access" really means "routine access". While the government claims it only wants access to some encrypted content, decryption leaves no trace. The NSA's collection posture is: "Sniff it All, Know it All, Collect it All, Process it All, Exploit it All, Partner it All." Does it sound to you like the NSA will sit on their hands while some other USG functionary has the Golden Key?

> Nobody really cares about your personal Facebook messages to your friends and family. You're not that important. But still considering what is being offered in payment for this privacy, it's still worth it to you?

Perhaps you're correct now. But imagine that a decade from now, you (or a friend or family member) become an activist or a political candidate. Now your incumbent political opponents have a wealth of sensitive private data to mine to find anything to imprison or discredit you. The argument extends further than your own direct interests: What happens to our political system when policymakers are completely transparent to the NSA and their political co-conspirators?

Considering the very real risks of a totalitarian government ruling with an iron machine learning model, or a silent coup by military intelligence, is it still worth it to you?

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#144
post #91

> We are writing to request that Facebook does not proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services without ensuring that there is no reduction to user safety. Oh, so you’re asking for more end-to-end encryption? > While the letter acknowledges that Facebook, which owns Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, captures 99% of child exploitation and terrorism-related content t…

The Second Great CryptoWar: https://reason.com/2013/03/12/the-second-great-crypto-war/ > "The proponents of this process use fear tactics to win support, what the four cypherpunks dub "The Four Horsemen of the Info-pocalypse: child pornography, terrorism, money laundering, and the War on Some Drugs." In other words, laws passed to go after child pornographers, terrorists, money launderers, and drug dealers end up chi…

What's the fourth horseman?

edit: ok ok sorry I misread

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#145

> We are writing to request that Facebook does not proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services without ensuring that there is no reduction to user safety. Oh, so you’re asking for more end-to-end encryption? > While the letter acknowledges that Facebook, which owns Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, captures 99% of child exploitation and terrorism-related content t…

> captures 99% of child exploitation and terrorism-related content Credit where it's due, good on them building such effective systems to catch this content.

I assume that's capturing 99% of the child exploitation that is captured, not that's estimated to exist on their platform. It might be good for them, or bad for the government, or par for the course.

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#146
post #121

Does End-to-End Encryption mean anything here? What's stopping the government from just forcing Facebook to provide access to the servers directly, or through some sort of portal? This just means the government can't intercept them without Facebook cooperation... no?

I believe end-to-end means that the message is encrypted on the sender’s device, remains encrypted in transit and on Facebook servers, and is then only decrypted on the receiver’s device. Facebook themselves would not be able to read user’s messages.

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#147
post #120
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rephrase as "They are responsible for capturing 99% of the illegal content that is caught." i.e., of the illegal stuff that goes through their system, some of it is captured, and the majority of that is caught by Facebook's own system. Note, this article is recent and highly relevant: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-... > And when tech companies cooperate fully, encryption and anonymizatio…

> Note, this article is recent and highly relevant.. Talk about fear mongering, that article is horrible. It's the same old argument. "Child abuse is bad therefore you can't have any privacy", they position you as being against protecting children when your stance is actually pro security & privacy.

I think that reasonable people can hold both f̶a̶c̶t̶s̶ things in their heads at the same time

1. Privacy is important and good

2. It has almost certainly contributed to an explosion in the production and sharing of child pornography and abuse

The question is what is the moral way to reconcile the two, not to deny that either exists.

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#148
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they know they capture 99% of such content given that WhatsApp is (if I understand correctly) encrypted fully end to end such that Facebook cannot access the messages passing through it?

Rephrase as "They are responsible for capturing 99% of the illegal content that is caught." i.e., of the illegal stuff that goes through their system, some of it is captured, and the majority of that is caught by Facebook's own system. Note, this article is recent and highly relevant: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-... > And when tech companies cooperate fully, encryption and anonymizatio…

If this article is for real, then it's certainly not being pushed mainstream.

> The Times’s reporting revealed a problem global in scope — most of the images found last year were traced to other countries — but one firmly rooted in the United States because of the central role Silicon Valley has played in facilitating the imagery’s spread and in reporting it to the authorities.

Clearly the NYT is laying the problem at tech's feet, and we are the best ones able to thwart this. Many times I've scoffed at the government's continual removal of privacy, but this is the first time it's sunk in. Perhaps they have a case.

> 1998 - 3k cases. 2008 - 100k. 2014 - 1M. 2018 - 18.4M.

These figures from a total of 45M images flagged.

Again, is this for real, or this this propaganda?

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#149
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Second Great CryptoWar: https://reason.com/2013/03/12/the-second-great-crypto-war/ > "The proponents of this process use fear tactics to win support, what the four cypherpunks dub "The Four Horsemen of the Info-pocalypse: child pornography, terrorism, money laundering, and the War on Some Drugs." In other words, laws passed to go after child pornographers, terrorists, money launderers, and drug dealers end up chi…

What's the fourth horseman? edit: ok ok sorry I misread

1) child porn

2) terrorism

3) money laundering

3) war on [edit: some] drugs

Re: Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption

#150
post #121

Does End-to-End Encryption mean anything here? What's stopping the government from just forcing Facebook to provide access to the servers directly, or through some sort of portal? This just means the government can't intercept them without Facebook cooperation... no?

I believe end-to-end means that the message is encrypted on the sender’s device, remains encrypted in transit and on Facebook servers, and is then only decrypted on the receiver’s device. Facebook themselves would not be able to read user’s messages.

Ah, ya that makes more sense.

Although I have a tough time believing Facebook would lock themselves out fully... they need all those data points for pushing ads...

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