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Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#91

Post by papermachete »

mffnbs wrote: post #45
papermachete wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not designed to maim or kill, just to accelerate a piece of mass. Police regularly use beanbags and target shooting is an olympic sport. Designing firearms spans all of STEM and keeps people employed well. If the US government wanted to reduce the lethality of firearms, they would ban calibers, not accessories. Even so, a .22LR olympic pistol is enough to take down a bodybuilder with one critical hit. So olym…

You can do the same with e2e encryption. It’s not secrecy, it’s literal 1s and 0s.

If the encryption was successful and 'unbreakable' it better be just 1s and 0s.

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#92

Post by igama »

jdsnape wrote: post #76
diffeomorphism wrote: post #55

Politicians propose to forbid all buildings from having doors. After all "bad people/stuff etc." could lock the doors and hide behind them. Anyone arguing against that is obviously against safety. Counterpoints: - Do we currently have a big door problem? - Wait, don't doors also serve an important function? - Won't that make everybody much more insecure and basically do nothing against "bad stuff"? - What if I put a…

I'm not sure this is a great analogy as yes, we permit people to have doors and locks but society also provides a mechanism for the government to lawfully get access to them. If the Police have a legit reason to access a property they go to court and get a warrent, and if they need to they'll kick the door in to get in. The current government requests to be able to access encrypted info with a warrent are an extensio…

"If the Police have a legit reason to access a property they go to court and get a warrent, and if they need to they'll kick the door in to get in." That's what currently takes, place, Government doesn't have the keys, they have to use force to get in, or other methods. (However there are physical limits to materials, so there is usually a way to break in)

But, by having a special key that opens all the doors, anyone could copy it - yes rules can put in place to who as access, etc, etc, but by knowing there is a "hole" in each device, every possible malicious agent will try and break it as soon as possible. Then what?

We have seen examples by Law Enforcement officers using accesses to gather data that would required a court order, but they didn't have one, and it was for personal reasons. So, how does that work out?

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#93

Post by throwawayjava »

lysium wrote: post #90
jdsnape wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is a great analogy as yes, we permit people to have doors and locks but society also provides a mechanism for the government to lawfully get access to them. If the Police have a legit reason to access a property they go to court and get a warrent, and if they need to they'll kick the door in to get in. The current government requests to be able to access encrypted info with a warrent are an extensio…

Shouldn’t they come to me then and look into my phone instead of constantly looking into my messages on the server? I think the door is a great analogy.

and if you say "no", they're screwed. Whereas with a door, they can just push you out of the way and kick it down.

I'm opposed to back doors, but the door analogy is a bad one.

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#94

Post by forgotmypwd123 »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #55

Politicians propose to forbid all buildings from having doors. After all "bad people/stuff etc." could lock the doors and hide behind them. Anyone arguing against that is obviously against safety. Counterpoints: - Do we currently have a big door problem? - Wait, don't doors also serve an important function? - Won't that make everybody much more insecure and basically do nothing against "bad stuff"? - What if I put a…

> (see TSA locks and basically any time in history that was tried).

For anyone unaware, the TSA lock master key was leaked by including a photo of an actual master key in a newspaper article about said locks. I don't think encryption keys shared with police/govt. will be any safer.

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#96

Post by isostatic »

throwawayjava wrote: post #93
lysium wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn’t they come to me then and look into my phone instead of constantly looking into my messages on the server? I think the door is a great analogy.

and if you say "no", they're screwed. Whereas with a door, they can just push you out of the way and kick it down. I'm opposed to back doors, but the door analogy is a bad one.

If you say no, then you're arrested for contempt of court or similar.

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#97

Post by dx87 »

1123581321 wrote: post #83

If I were arguing by analogy I would ask why we allow door locks. Door locks let people do bad things inside their houses. Yet we are all safer from criminals because of them, overall. And it also helps keep police honest about getting a warrant first before they disturb your house.

The counter argument I've heard to that is that there is no such thing as an unbreakable lock. If someone is doing something illegal in a building, the government can eventually get in. Strong encryption is effectively unbreakable, and basically free for anyone to use. Trying to make a faciliy even remotely as secure is going to take millions of dollars because you need to not only secure the lock, but the entire facility has to be hardened.

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#98

Post by gorgoiler »

Crime is a people problem which needs a people solution — officers on the beat, detectives securing convictions, courts bringing justice.

The fight against E2E is a political red herring to win votes. Politicians abrogate their responsibility to uphold law and order by playing with emotions instead. The current news cycle is absolutely symptomatic of that.

It’s a positive message: funding real police work instead can actually solve important crimes, if you recruit and train them. Let’s focus on that instead of a digital dragnet. I’d rather have real detectives on the streets cracking people trafficking gangs, than a database cluster.

Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?

#100

Post by 1123581321 »

dx87 wrote: post #97
1123581321 wrote: post #83

If I were arguing by analogy I would ask why we allow door locks. Door locks let people do bad things inside their houses. Yet we are all safer from criminals because of them, overall. And it also helps keep police honest about getting a warrant first before they disturb your house.

The counter argument I've heard to that is that there is no such thing as an unbreakable lock. If someone is doing something illegal in a building, the government can eventually get in. Strong encryption is effectively unbreakable, and basically free for anyone to use. Trying to make a faciliy even remotely as secure is going to take millions of dollars because you need to not only secure the lock, but the entire fac…

True. I would say that the government can still compel individuals to surrender access to encrypted files with physical force.

I would also say that, similarly to how you can’t do all your criminal work inside a self-destructing safe, you can’t do all your criminal work in one e2e chat. Data will still be entering and exiting it somewhere, and if multiple people are involved, the relationships between them are weak points. But that’s getting too into the weeds. I think talking about something as simple as a lock would reframe the discussion for all but the most sycophantic.

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