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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?

#221

Post by viklove »

jdsnape wrote: post #204
igama wrote: post #92

Earlier 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…

well, there is kinda a key is that lets anyone in - in the UK they call it 'the enforcer' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcer_(battering_ram) If an officer does something that should require a court order and don't have one then they end up prosecuted in the same way a criminal would be. You put checks and balances in place to make sure that they are caught.

The problem is using "the enforcer," breaking in, and taking file cabinets is loud and obvious. Accessing your gmail account and dumping its entire history takes seconds and is entirely unnoticeable.

You can't compare physical and digital privacy, why are people still trying it?

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

#222

Post by relaunched »

I'm not stating that this is my opinion, rather a reasonable position would be based on the 4th Amendment.

>>>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Under the 4th, It could be argued that when the government has demonstrated that they have met the standard for reasonable, technology should allow them to have access to that data. Therefore, it's unreasonable that access to data in question is controlled by potential co-conspirators; those with perverse incentives to withhold compliance. It's also unreasonable for entities that operate within the governments jurisdiction to circumvent this constitutional requirement.

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

#223

Post by eqdw »

1) Because I want it and what is this, soviet Russia?

Dead serious. The mentality that everything you want to have needs to be explicitly justified to society before you are permitted to have it is a sick twisted authoritarian mindset. I thought our society was better than this

2) The same reason I support the second amendment. The government is gigantic and powerful and scary. Even if it acts in the most benevolent way possible, it is gigantic and powerful and that is _intrinsically_ scary. The government can _fuck up_ and destroy ten thousand lives before anyone even notices. Consequently, people need ways to defend themselves from the government proactively. Encryption is one such way.

2b) If someone wants to argue that "what if criminals use it to do crime", remember that marijuana is still a federal crime, and some absurd percentage like 30% of all Americans have smoked it at least once. It is well within the government's power to just spider through all social media to see all references to marijuana, use that as probable cause, and do raids on _MILLIONS_ of people. Will this happen? Almost certainly not. COULD this happen? Absolutely. Unless, of course, all those communications were encrypted such that nobody could access them. I don't think "I pinkie swear I won't do it" is a good enough protection for me against that possibility

3) the cynical answer: we already have ample evidence of actual child sexual abuse rings, but for some bizarre reason the authorities lost interest in following up on that once the ONE guy they got hung himself. If they aren't willing to do the police work on this issue that they already can, I don't see what the argument is to give them full access to all crypto systems.

4) Technical answer: Just because you make a backdoor and give the government the only key, doesn't mean the government is the only people who are going to use that door. Maybe they lose the key. Maybe they give the key to someone who turns out not to be trustworthy. Maybe someone makes a secret copy of the key. Maybe a burglar doesn't actually get the key, but he's really really good at picking locks and so the backdoor makes it that much easier for him to get in. Security is a hard problem and every single compromise increases your risk surface area. The first lesson of security is "assume the worst possible thing happens, and then prepare for something worse than that". Such a back door (or, alternatively, legal prohibition of e2e encryption), dramatically compromises security simply by existing.

5) The tinfoil hat answer: The fact that they want it so badly tells me that they shouldn't have it

6) The current year answer: Do you want Donald Trump to personally have the ability to spy on anything that you, specifically, do? Y'know, if he's bored one day and wants to find something stupid to tweet? Do you want him to have that power? I don't

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

#224

Post by jcranberry »

igama wrote: post #92
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…

"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…

The police are not the only ones who can get a battering ram.

>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.

This is true in theory but it this a risk in practice?

>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?

You sue for damages under section 1983.

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

#225

Post by gwillz »

sergioj97 wrote: post #32
gwillz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this devil's advocation. I certainly don't agree with it but it makes a great conversation. Stir that pot.

> I certainly don't agree with it but it makes a great conversation. Does it though? It seems like a fallacious comparation for reasons that other comments have already explained. And as such, it makes a confuse, meaningless conversation.

Yeah I guess that's fair. It's a fairly shallow attempt to evoke a response.

At the same time, I still enjoy it because it did create a lot of responses.

I find discussions these days end up being an echo chamber of the same opinion. Something different and something to argue against is more interest than everyone just confirming each other.

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

#226

Post by nsuser3 »

rileymat2 wrote: post #24
todd3834 wrote: post #17

Encryption is math. Can we really make a form of math illegal? I feel privacy is a basic human right regardless of what country you live in. I’m not fan of punishing the majority because of a screwed up minority. People who commit illegal acts as horrible as child abuse and terrorism are not going to respect the law when it comes to encryption. Again, you can’t stop people from doing math. The idea of making it illeg…

But using it is applying math, so yes you could make its application illegal, says devil’s advocate because I am pro encryption.

Smarter bad actors could still do it without being detected. Hiding an encrypted message in unsuspicious messages isn't that difficult. I really don't see the point of having such a law.

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

#227

Post by atoav »

anonymousDan wrote: post #171
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.

This would be only true if this was a international law. In all other cases you will have a ton of people just using what the other side under a different jurisdiction uses without even knowing it has no backdoor in it. The increase in false positives that comes with this will make it an unusable heuristic to identify criminals.

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

#228

Post by donohoe »

Shorter encryption debate:

  Them: Terrible things are terrible

  Us: Yes they are

  Them: Stop the terrible things

  Us: We don't know how to do that without side effects that would be even more terrible.

  Them: Just do it without causing the side effects.
Source: https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1180092773975953409

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

#230

Post by candiodari »

jcranberry wrote: post #224
igama wrote: post #92

Earlier 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…

The police are not the only ones who can get a battering ram. >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. This is true in theory but it this a risk in practice? >We have seen examples by Law Enforcement offi…

> This is true in theory but it this a risk in practice?

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

TLDR: yes. Especially for companies and political dissidents (because countries, including the US, have used their secret and not-so-secret services to go after these. China vs Dalai Lama seems to be a rather well-known example, as is the theft of Airbus secrets by the NSA (not that the EU didn't do the same to Boeing). And if you can't trust the NSA with those keys, who exactly do you suggest we trust ?)

> You sue for damages under section 1983.

Ok, well let's keep in mind that this police officer was not convicted:

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

So unless you've got better cause for complaint than 12 bullets in your back and more than one witness, why even bother trying ?

I don't get where people get the idea that cops are somehow above ridiculous abuse of the system. When it comes to direct abuse of surveillance:

https://jezebel.com/cop-previously-charged-with-stalking-sho...

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/prosecutors-cop-us...

Note the duration of time these police officers were allowed to proceed, even after complaints were filed. Years.

The problem with any system that consists of people, is that people can be total immoral and criminal. Including, of course, Law enforcement, even judges. That means that we should make such systems safe even if groups of people within them conspire to commit crimes. Failure to do so can result in incredible damage to people. For a very recent example:

https://www.thelocal.it/20190628/italian-police-uncover-gang...

TLDR: the major, police, social workers, youth services and psychiatrists conspired to kidnap children and sell them to brothels, sex shop owners, and whoever else paid them ... out of hundreds of children stolen in this way, 2 have been returned after these people got caught.

Of course it was subsequently revealed that there are multiple dozen municipalities where such conspiracies existed. The state immediately intervened to stop all investigations except the one that had already made the paper "la Republica".

There is not a single European country where members of youth services haven't been caught doing the same, from Romania, to Sweden, to France, to the Netherlands.

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