Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption? • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by anonymousDan » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

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…

Counterpoint (playing devil's advocate) - if we ban e2e encryption platforms (or require a backdoor), then anyone found to be using a non backdoored tool is suspicious, reducing the effort required for law enforcement investigations.

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

#172

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

asdkhadsj wrote: post #8

maxaf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I see these comparisons made so, so frequently and it bothers me. Guns are not the same as encryption or cars. Yet they're so often made in apples to apples comparisons that it's mind boggling to me. Weapons are uniquely special in that they are specifically designed to maim and kill. Via defense or justified actions is irrelevant; it's a tool of war. Arguably, if there was E2E software that was specifically designed…

Even then... outlawing guns won't stop criminals from using them.

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

#173

Post by diminoten » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #155

diminoten wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars have a long history of killing people, so do planes, so does AIDS, so does... everything, really. So we make changes, we improve, and now AIDs related deaths have dropped off significantly, we haven't had a fatal plane crash in the US in 10 years, and car related deaths in the US have decreased steadily since the 1960s. Yes, governments have a history of being unsafe to their citizens, but it's not anything like…

Comparing governments as bad actors (malevolent groups of people trying to retain and increase their power yielding already disproportionate amounts of power) to cars and diseases (inanimate objects or, well, diseases) is not a fair argument. On one hand, organized crime, observable in most countries where governments are present, on the other hand everyday objects and a disease. Doesn’t look like an argument made in…

You say it's not a good argument but you don't say why. I think it's appropriate, insofar as it's the very government that's made these things safer, improved the lives of their citizens by getting involved.

The exact same mechanisms are available to fight both car deaths and malicious actors. Why do we trust the government to do one but not the other?

(Keep in mind I'm NOT in favor of backdooring crypto, I just don't think "but the government is corrupt" is a good argument against it)

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

#174

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #168

tracker1 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every power any government has ever been given has been abused. Best to limit any government as much as reasonable. Most places where child endangerment is/would happen is already encrypted, and it doesn't seem to be significantly hindering investigation. Beyond this, requiring a master key won't stop independent implementations that don't have such a thing. It's like criminals are willing to break the law or somethi…

> Every power any government has ever been given has been abused. Best to limit any government as much as reasonable. Do you really think this is sellable to the average voter? That isn't a mainstream opinion.

Which is pretty sad. It's part of what this country (USA) was founded on.

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

#175

Post by parliament32 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

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…

You don't have to go down to your police station with a copy of your key every time you change you lock, which some of the "solutions" imply. Further, there are no laws for how strong of a door you can build: you're more than welcome to have a safe with a 3-ft thick steel door and an unpickable lock, that'd take a professional a month to get through.

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

#176

Post by zeckalpha » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

Terrorism is a particularly weak argument for e2ee because terrorists can and do exploit systems WITHOUT e2ee.

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

#177

Post by parliament32 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

forgotmypwd123 wrote: post #94

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.

Everyone knows that encryption master keys will go exactly the same way -- they'll leak eventually (maybe there'll be a newspaper article with a picture of the master key).

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

#178

Post by emilecantin » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

CJefferson wrote: post #109

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.

Yes, and that's a debate we should have as a society. I personally think privacy is more important than government's ability to peek at private conversations, but this is something we should collectively decide.

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

#179

Post by parliament32 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #152

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…

To counter that metaphor, what would the objection be to doors that lock, but the police are given a master key? There are a few obvious issues with centralisation and the possibility of bad actors on the police, but I’m not sure how persuasive it is against “ think of the children!! ”

The objection is they'll lose it, and locks will be useless. See: TSA locks are now useless because the TSA leaked images of the master keys, which anyone can create now.

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

#180

Post by kempbellt » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

sdan wrote: post #154

squarefoot wrote: post #150

I support it 100%, because I have everything to hide as my life is mine and doesn't belong to anyone else, including governments or improbable divinities. If for some people in power this mean I'm either a murderer, a rapist, a drug dealer, a pedophile, a terrorist, or whatever, they're free to spend taxpayers money to find out how wrong their assumptions were, then get voted out of their seats. Anyone using the "if…

> I'd keep defending this principle even in case one of those criminals would exterminate my entire family. I think that's a bit too far... but I get your point. When having a discussion around privacy, I had no response to "you shouldn't have anything to hide" because I know privacy should somewhat be a human right (especially given its commoditization) but didn't know exactly why it's so important given that most G…

Maybe you and I have different understandings of what a "right" is. I define a "right" as something that cannot be taken away, and there are very few of these. Your story, your thoughts, and your will, are all you have a right to - while you are alive.

Every other nicety in life is due to mutual respect, agreements and the ability to use force should those agreements be broken.

If I am using a restroom, I don't have a "right" to privacy. Tell that to a prisoner who has to take a shit in front of their cellmates... Even in comfort of your own home, someone could kick the door open. The fact that they don't kick in the door, is due to mutual respect for boundaries. This is what I would call a privilege, which has been mutually _agreed upon by_ and _granted to_ all parties involved.

Privileges make up our freedoms. They are the things that we fight for, and should continue to do so.

We should make an effort to not conflate the two, as it tends to blur the lines and give people a false understanding of what they have a right to intrinsically, vs what they must fight for.