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

#291

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #256

ccrush wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In light of all the Epstein stuff, it sure sounds like "were raping children, so don't implement end to end encryption, or someone might rape your children." I'd say it's ballsy, but with how publicly they executed Epstein right under our noses, it seems like they just don't face punishment for breaking the rules and want to rub it in our faces. It's not like any of us would get away with that. Fucking pathetic. The…

Epstein committed suicide. Did you miss the news coverage? And I’m not sure what the AG has to do with Epstein’s crimes. Did you get some people mixed up?

There were a ton of damning leaks coming out that would taint a jury pool.

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

#292

Post by godelski » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #254

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure how those four examples are supposedly invalidated by giving them a clever nickname. I'll take the privacy side in most any discussion of privacy-vs-security, but categorically denying the possibility that some crimes could be aided by encryption seems a step to far. It's also bad PR strategy: anybody not already on your side will be put off by your apparent lack of reasoning skills. Instead, ac…

> I'm not entirely sure how those four examples are supposedly invalidated by giving them a clever nickname. They're not. A number of horrible things will happen as a result of pervasive end to end encryption. However. You have to run the numbers here. On the one hand, perhaps a bit more crime, some of which horrible. On the other hand, the privacy of everyone . It's a hard sell. Just picture a politician on live tel…

I think the two key things to remember are that "failure will happen" and Blackstone's principle. We have to, as a society, decide which direction we want to fail (modes of failure). We also have to decide what amount is acceptable (having 0 crime is a good goal, but we will never get there and need to be realistic). I think it is clear which way the founders of the country wanted failure to happen, which is Blackstone's principle. "A hundred guilty men should go free before a single innocent man is is deprived of his freedom."

I think everyone here is familiar with Pareto. Capturing 80% of criminals is easy. Catching the next 10% is harder than catching that first 80%. Catching that last 1% takes significant amounts of resources, way more than the previous 90%. So it just isn't economically viable to stop it all (exponential curve and we don't have infinite resources).

So I'm not sure that saying

> A number of horrible things will happen as a result of pervasive end to end encryption.

But I don't think it is necessarily wrong either. I think encryption enables it, but this sentence implies causation (which is the rhetoric of those that want to remove encryption: causation).

How I read the horsemen comment is that these topics are used as boogie men. Because what sane person wants that stuff to exist? OF COURSE we want 0%. How can you be against stopping child trafficking? (practically) No one is against that! These are also topics we care VERY much about. Because frankly we should do everything we can to stop child exploitation. But we know the goal is unobtainable and to get only a handful more than we currently get (which is almost all of them!) requires huge violations of privacy and significantly more resources to be allocated. The horsemen are being used to get us on board and make us not ask if these methods are meaningfully effective or ask what the costs are. It also says that anytime you hear officials talk about the horsemen that you should perk your ears up and start asking serious questions. How effective is this? Does it actually help? What are the costs? The Patriot Act is a good example. It is not clear that it meaningfully reduced terrorism in any way and yet we gave up a significant amount of privacy (I can quote founding fathers on this too).

So it boils down to "if giving up the privacy does not do an effective job at making any meaningful reduction in actual child trafficking , why should we give that privacy up? There's clearly benefits to privacy. So is this issue really about child trafficking or is something else at play here and are they just feeding off my emotions?"

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

#293

Post by buboard » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

smueller1234 wrote: post #270

buboard wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who falls for that ?

I think anybody not paying close attention, with insufficient technical knowledge and other things on their mind.

i really don't think a layman, no matter how negligent, can fail to understand whats going on here, unless ideologically inclined to side with government surveillance.

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

#294

Post by nothrabannosir » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #254

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure how those four examples are supposedly invalidated by giving them a clever nickname. I'll take the privacy side in most any discussion of privacy-vs-security, but categorically denying the possibility that some crimes could be aided by encryption seems a step to far. It's also bad PR strategy: anybody not already on your side will be put off by your apparent lack of reasoning skills. Instead, ac…

> I'm not entirely sure how those four examples are supposedly invalidated by giving them a clever nickname. They're not. A number of horrible things will happen as a result of pervasive end to end encryption. However. You have to run the numbers here. On the one hand, perhaps a bit more crime, some of which horrible. On the other hand, the privacy of everyone . It's a hard sell. Just picture a politician on live tel…

> The horrible fact is, the value of human life is not infinite. A mere inconvenience, suffered by enough people, is worth killing a few. Such situations rarely present themselves.

If you consider "not saving while you could" the same as "killing", it's very common. So much in fact that it has its own WikiPedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

With a cosy link to a letter by the Department of Transportation:

> this guidance identifies $9.6 million as the value of a statistical life to be used for Department of Transportation analyses assessing the benefits of preventing fatalities and using a base year of 2015

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/2016...

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

#295

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

slig wrote: post #119

posix_compliant wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of domestic disturbances happen in private homes. Should they put cameras there, too?

It's called "Telescreen" and will be soon available.

Doesn't everyone want to catch guys like this [1]?

If not, you're a bad guy and we can discount any argument you put forth am I right?

Am I right?

High five? Anyone?

Anyone?

Point being that the enemies privacy have been waging an extremely successful propaganda war against our position for longer than most privacy advocates have been alive. A campaign that is at once massive and specially calibrated to go unnoticed. (How many connect the 'Telescreen' to the example in [1] in their minds?) They have the power to ensure that hand picked, specific examples, calibrated to inflame, are used as flag bearers in the zeitgeist. They have a long game of very specific goals, coupled with an army of natural language, behavioral psychology, and media experts all dedicated to that singular purpose. They have decades of experience at manipulating populations at scale, and a track record replete with successes.

Meanwhile, we sit on HN and social media talking to each other about how our side will be proven right in the end. You know, 'cuz "freedoms".

We have to start addressing the legitimate points that government and law enforcement types are making, because not doing so cedes more and more ground in public behavior and public opinion to those enemies of privacy. The great irony here is that we ourselves have helped them manage to cast themselves in the public eye as the "champions of safety", due largely to the poorly chosen nature of our bedfellows. We need to start getting out in front of a lot of the legitimate arguments that law enforcement is making, and we need to push back against professionally subtle narratives in the national media that attempt to attach us to yet more unsavory bedfellows.

----

[1] - https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/02/us/woman-assaulted-boyfriend-...

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

#296

Post by godelski » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #285

loup-vaillant wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not entirely sure how those four examples are supposedly invalidated by giving them a clever nickname. They're not. A number of horrible things will happen as a result of pervasive end to end encryption. However. You have to run the numbers here. On the one hand, perhaps a bit more crime, some of which horrible. On the other hand, the privacy of everyone . It's a hard sell. Just picture a politician on live tel…

It is not that simple. Two potential unintended consequences of this no-encryption rule come to mind that might actually not just not help, but in fact make it worse for the victims. 1. They said that FB captures 99% of those illegal activities by themselves. What makes us think that government will be able to capture that last 1% on their own? 2. Encryption gets removed, potential perpetrators move to another platfo…

> 1. They said that FB captures 99% of those illegal activities by themselves. What makes us think that government will be able to capture that last 1% on their own?

To stress even more on this point (I have to also FULLY agree with the second), what evidence is there that lack of encryption will even make it easier to capture this 1% more. Pareto is a real thing. I'm not convinced there's an easy answer to capturing the last 1% and that it can be done with minimal resource allocation. That's where I start being suspicious. The back of the envelope math doesn't work out.

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

#297

Post by Porthos9K » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

You'd think that with all his billions, Zuckerberg would buy himself a spine and tell the AG to fuck off. We keep having this debate because law-enforcement types won't be happy until they can monitor your thoughts in real time. You expand their powers even a little, and the next day they're clamoring for more. And it's always the same excuses: preventing terrorism or protecting children.

Well, I don't see the Feds cracking down hard enough on homegrown fascist groups, and I would be happy if Bob Barr's kids or grandkids were locked in a dungeon and made to sit in their own filth Omelas-style if it meant we'd have strong crypto for everyone.

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

#298

Post by wefarrell » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

xgb84j wrote: post #268

danShumway wrote: post #182

> mere numbers cannot capture the significance of the harm to children. Oh, bull crap. By this argument, literally no protection or liberty that allows even one child to be harmed could ever be tolerated. Why stop at vetting baby-sitters or teachers? We ought to require mandatory background checks for every person who ever visits a family or goes into a public space that might contain children. Law enforcement also o…

The argument about children is easily invalidated by the fact, that for some reason that during the Vietnam / Afghanistan / Irak war many children were harmed for much less than everybody's privacy.

Those are other people's children.

The reptilian brain will respond differently to children from different cultures on the other side of the world. I understand the logic behind your argument but policy isn't driven by logic.

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

#299

Post by girvo » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #241

jachee wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got any sources to cite for that watching and listening? Specifically Apple-related and North American examples?

>Specifically Apple-related and North American examples? That's an oddly narrow goalpost. Apple shares user encryption keys with the Chinese government, for example, giving the Chinese government access to all iCloud pictures, messages, documents, videos, etc.

Do they? Shit, I thought that they’d set things up that sharing the key was extremely difficult if not impossible without access to the device? That’s disappointing if true, is there a good article on this?

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

#300

Post by sigmar » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #18

Question for those more knowledgeable than I in this space: a huge value prop for iMessage is E2E encryption, correct? Why hasn't that gotten similar response from the AG? (OR has it already, and I may have missed it?)

I'd like to contrast with the other responses here by offering my suspicion that Apple is cooperating with governments to quietly swap out keys for users upon receiving a court order. It would explain why Skype was banned by China and iMessage was not.