Argument? Its a trade off freedom vs security. Traditionally patriots have chosen freedom.
Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
191–200 of 255 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Again, you can’t stop people from doing math. The idea of making it illegal is silly. I don't think anybody is suggesting two individuals should not be allowed to use math to protect their conversations. Even if Facebook adds a way for law enforcement to access communications individuals are still free to talk in code or encrypt their messages before putting it on the wire. With your old telephone, your carrier can…
Such a law would serve no reasonable purpose, though. Criminals can use one-time pads and it's also not hard to make a little encryption program based on existing cryptographic primitives. In fact, drug cartels have specialists for that who could probably even develop and implement their own secure-enough Feistel cipher if they wanted to. The only purposes such a law seems to serve is to catch clueless idiots who wil…
Do the telephone wiretap laws serve any reasonable purpose?
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#193What argument in favor? There doesn’t need to be one: it’s the right thing to do. It’s why I use iMessage. It’s why I trust Apple.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#194The most compelling reason I've heard, yet one I rarely use due to its complexity is about unrecoverable government capture. It goes like this:
In the past, governments could be overthrown by internal revolutionaries or external forces.
In the near future, governments will be able to surveil and anticipate their citizenry so as to make revolution impossible. They will do this because governments (political parties) have a self-preservation instinct. And with nuclear weapons in play, external overthrow is increasingly suicidal (excepting small countries).
Furthermore, that internal surveillance department can be turned on the government staff itself, leaving a small group of (unelected) officials with power over the rest of the government. Eventually one of them will gain the upper hand.
That means there could come a point of stasis, where governments become unassailably entrenched that humankind is stuck in a local maximum with whatever governments existed then.
Let's hope our current dictator for life is beneficent.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
How do you know nobody has a copy of your house key? I live in an apartment building and it's actually mandatory for the super to be able to enter my apartment in emergencies so he has a key.
That's not the argument they made.
I do not know that there is no one out there in the world who has a key to my house. Even if there was and someone found that key on a city street they would likely not be able to figure out which house it opened.
I know there is no legally mandated key to everyone's house that would allow anyone to enter whomever's house they please.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#196I 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…
The "I have nothing to hide" argument is silly, but:
> Just try asking them their own passwords and hear the very predictable reply.
Is equally silly. Having nothing to hide is very different from having nothing to steal.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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 to maim and kill it might be received in a similar manner as guns. This is nothing more than a politically motivated lie. You cannot escape the fact that guns are overwhelmingly used for peaceful p…
I'm against most restrictions on gun ownership as I assume you are, but I can't agree with your analysis here.
Though I'm currently living somewhere it's not legally possible, I have carried a pistol for self defense in the past. I never had to draw it or fire it at anybody. Nobody is dead or maimed because of my pistol. When carrying a pistol, I was always especially careful to try to de-escalate any potential conflicts, because I do not want to maim or kill anyone.
Its designed purpose, however is 100% to maim or kill other people. I carried it in case I needed to maim or kill someone (or more likely, use the threat of doing so) to prevent harm to myself. It isn't a piece of sporting equipment that's only incidentally deadly, like a target pistol, but a purpose-built defensive weapon.
Claims that the subset of firearms designed primarily to be antipersonnel weapons are something else come across as disingenuous to neutral observers. I hold pro-gun positions because I believe individual armed self-defense is a good thing, not because I think we should consider guns primarily as sporting equipment and only incidentally as weapons.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#198Because I'm an anarchist and believe that the only two people that can police communication between me and another person, are me and that other person.
Live and let live.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…
This line of argument is disingenuous.
Blades are, at one level of abstraction, designed to sever fibers and occasionally other materials. A straight razor is designed for a human to use to shave hair. A nakiri is designed for a human to use to slice vegetables. An executioner sword is designed for a human to use to kill another human by decapitation.
Likewise, many firearms are designed primarily to be good for shooting other people to incapacitate or kill them. I do believe most people should be able to obtain such weapons, but I don't find it difficult to imagine why someone might think otherwise.
Re: Ask HN: What are your arguments in favor of end-to-end encryption?
#200As an American, we can start with: The People's 4th Amendment rights trump the Government's.
I'm always bothered by the sense of entitlement inherent in governmental campaigns against encryption. A properly-executed warrant allows the government to search for evidence and seize it. It does not create an obligation for the target to tell the government where the evidence is and how to make use of it.
Also inherent in our justice system is the concept that not all criminals get to be caught and convicted. Presumption of Innocence, Blackstone's Ratio, 5th Amendment, etc.
I don't think any of us want to live in a society where every law-breaker can be caught. We all break laws. I've barely left my home for 10 minutes today and am not entirely certain I haven't broken any.