Attorney General will ask Zuckerberg to halt plans for end-to-end encryption • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by mattnewton » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #44

"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." I don't understand why they don't just ask for what they want, why say it's about "user safety" when it's not about that at all. Just say "As a matter of national security, the government needs to be able to read user mess…

Because Americans would not make that trade, and that makes the government worker's job harder. So they spin it in a way that is more palatable so they can erode barriers to their job.

They (government workers at the agency) have no real incentives to fight for privacy other than having to live with eroded privacy, which most people just don't think about as giving something up until it affects them anyways.

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

#162

Post by gigatexal » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

Perhaps Zuck will make a deal with the Devil and go forward with this if he receives some agreement that they won’t break up FB into many companies and continue to allow the firm to do shady things with user data.

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

#163

Post by buboard » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

smueller1234 wrote: post #83

Johnny555 wrote: post #44

"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." I don't understand why they don't just ask for what they want, why say it's about "user safety" when it's not about that at all. Just say "As a matter of national security, the government needs to be able to read user mess…

Quite simply because this makes it hard for Facebook to fight back. If they do, they look like they're on the wrong side of morality. If the demand was phrased around security, it would be less emotionally laden (for most).

who falls for that ?

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

#164

Post by kitchenkarma » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

Brushfire wrote: post #11

If they don't do E2E, users will abandon Facebook for platforms that do support it (and already are). And they aren't doing this to commit crimes, but to prevent advertisements from targeting every conversation they've ever had.

You are unable to tell whether any service uses E2E. It is best to assume we don't have E2E services and adjust own opsec accordingly.

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

#165

Post by cannabis_sam » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #5

> 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…

>This is such a lazy argument

I mean, I agree with you on the argument completely, but I disagree that it’s a lazy argument.

It’s an extremely effective argument, relative to its factual content. The west is culturally conditioned to accept terrorism as justification and child abuse justifiably gets people riled up.

What’s lazy is people who can’t be arsed to look at complex things from multiple angles.

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

#166

Post by slimginz » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #162

Perhaps Zuck will make a deal with the Devil and go forward with this if he receives some agreement that they won’t break up FB into many companies and continue to allow the firm to do shady things with user data.

Agreements like that only work for the current administration in charge. Once Trump and crew is out of there that deal is dead. And since Trump hasn't indicated recently that he wants to break up Facebook, Zuck only has Warren to really worry about. If she wins, she's gonna do everything she can to break up that company regardless of previous deals with previous administrations.

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

#167

Post by edmundsauto » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #159

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you could always do an audit and see what percent of a thing your automated system catches. That definitely doesn't seem inherently unknowable.

You're not quite getting it. You measure accuracy of detection via a training set of definitely known examples, and comparing it to the detections reported by your system. You can say with certainty that their system catches 99% of your training data set, but that doesn't mean it Will generalize to "all permutations of child abuse ever". That's two totally different things. In the end their use of that statistic illu…

By this standard, no system could ever say that it generalizes to all permutations. Especially when the definition of the measurement outcome (child abuse) varies.

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

#168

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

vageli wrote: post #56

snarf21 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are partially right but the issue is that E2E isn't even enough. E2E doesn't matter if they force a patched binary that also sends the data to the government. This is EXACTLY what the Australian laws saws they must do, oh and it is a gag order so they can't disclose it. I'm starting to wonder if this is a smokescreen. Eventually give in to E2E because you know you have got app store signing keys for the apps so y…

> You are partially right but the issue is that E2E isn't even enough. E2E doesn't matter if they force a patched binary that also sends the data to the government. This is EXACTLY what the Australian laws saws they must do, oh and it is a gag order so they can't disclose it. > I'm starting to wonder if this is a smokescreen. Eventually give in to E2E because you know you have got app store signing keys for the apps…

On iOS, you can disable automatic app updates in the Settings.

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

#169

Post by m0zg » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #162

Perhaps Zuck will make a deal with the Devil and go forward with this if he receives some agreement that they won’t break up FB into many companies and continue to allow the firm to do shady things with user data.

Republican administration will not break up FB. Elizabeth Warren could, which is why she won't win the election if she's nominated. Big Tech, which is in charge of what we see and don't see is directly threatened by her, so you can bet that "algorithms" will all of a sudden find it appropriate to de-rank her content.

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

#170

Post by tempestn » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #136

Brushfire wrote: post #11

If they don't do E2E, users will abandon Facebook for platforms that do support it (and already are). And they aren't doing this to commit crimes, but to prevent advertisements from targeting every conversation they've ever had.

Please name these other platforms

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