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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?

#101

Post by szermer »

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…

Reminds me of the concept of 'Perfect Security' from the 1800s

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/perfect-security/

The pursuit of lock-picking is as old as the lock, which is itself as old as civilization. But in the entire history of the world, there was only one brief moment, lasting about 70 years, where you could put something under lock and key—a chest, a safe, your home—and have complete, unwavering certainty that no intruder could get to it.

This is a feeling that security experts call “perfect security.” Since we lost perfect security in the 1850s, it has remained elusive. Despite tremendous leaps forward in security technology, we have never been able to get perfect security back

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

#102

Post by criddell »

kylek wrote: post #86
criddell wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as long as the same legal hurdles are in place, you don't have a problem with Facebook (for example) being required to provide law enforcement with access to unencrypted comms?

Don’t put words in my mouth. Your example is not the same thing to me.

I didn't intend to put words in your mouth.

I'm trying to understand the difference between a conversation over Facebook and a conversation on a telephone. Legally they are treated differently and I don't see why that should be.

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

#103

Post by KerryJones »

atoav wrote: post #18

Because encryption is math and knowledge. Banning it will only stop legitimate users while bad actors can still just go ahead and encrypt their stuff. If politicians consider leaving everybody vulnerable to catch criminals, this is a incredibly high price to pay. I’d argue that the price is so high that even with evidence that this would help catch criminals we should still consider not doing it. However there is no…

I agree -- this is my fundamental disagreement with many laws that are in place. When they penalty to the good-actor is so severe to catch a small minority of bad-actors, it's a poor choice.

I do believe we should search for solutions, I don't believe that we should let a small % of bad actors control our lives.

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

#104

Post by cesarb »

The reason for using end-to-end encryption, instead of encryption which is not end-to-end, it to protect against the service provider. That is, if Whatsapp's encryption is really end-to-end, you don't have to fear that the Facebook servers might have been invaded by evil hackers intending to leak your most private communications to the whole world; the evil hackers would have to invade your personal device directly (and they can't invade everyone's personal devices, since that risks exposing their evil misdeeds to security researchers).

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

#105

Post by brlewis »

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.

> and if you say "no", they're screwed

This is false. If it's ever true, the crime is confined to the perpetrator's mind.

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

#106

Post by jessewmc »

I think one of the simplest arguments is that criminals who need privacy will move to their own platforms. Any law that weakens encryption only weakens the privacy of regular citizens.

People make a variant of this argument about guns, but there is an important distinction with encryption: encryption is purely defensive, doesn't escalate situations, and doesn't accidentally (or otherwise) kill anyone.

This framing makes it abundantly clear that any law against encryption is about one thing only: Spying on law abiding citizens.

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

#109

Post by CJefferson »

emilecantin wrote: post #44

Compare it to an envelope in the regular mail. How would they feel if every post office along the way opened their mail, made a photocopy, and put it back in a new envelope before passing it on? Because that's the way things currently are with e.g. Facebook Messenger, Gmail, etc. E2E is when your envelopes are only opened by their final recipient.

But, I think the government should, with a warrant, be able to open peoples mail in transit. And they currently do. E2E encryption with no backdoor removes this ability from them.
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