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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?

#241
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is exactly the same with guns. Mind you i come from country with relatively hard to get gun licenses. What about sports shooting? Collecting? Personal defence in dangerous areas? Hunting(which because we fucked up ecosystems in some areas, culling is necessary)? Also over here modern black-powder guns are legal, without license. And they are both VERY dangerous(way more dangerous in a crowds) and relatively cheap.…

> What about sports shooting? Collecting? Personal defence in dangerous areas? Hunting(which because we fucked up ecosystems in some areas, culling is necessary)? I covered that in hunting rifles. Various types of rifles have legitimate uses. However, it's an argument not in good faith to say that anything with a possible sport should be legal. I can't make a rocket launcher sport and demand that rocket launchers bec…

AKs and ARs are used for hunting and use the same rounds as other non "assault rifle" weapons. There is no ballistic difference. Both are just as deadly. Moreover, many more people are killed with knifes than rifles[1].

1. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

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

#242
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Guns are directly linked to the actions of those bad actors. A private tunnel of communication is not so directly linked to the actions of child abusers (nor the images they share on these platforms).

They are both tools that can be used for good or evil.

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

#243

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…

“ 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. ” They don’t believe this; it’s an argument framed in a bad faith so that they can strip peoples rights and jam laws down our throats. Their mastery is in framing. Never use…

"See George Lakoff’s work in framing. It’s essential in environment of heavy propaganda."

A bit late but thanks for suggesting Lakoff. I'm 1/3 through the video linked by another user and am loving it; it should be dubbed in other languages and spread around.

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

#244
If two people wisphered secret messages between each other,should that be allowed? Should a policeman be privy to all whisperings? E2EE is just wisphering except much more efficient and can happen at large distances.

Should you be allowed to send mesages over snail mail using code words understood by only the recipient and no one else?

These are political questions. Governments having the authority to listen in on all private conversations implies they have that authority. Do you accept that authority where you are unable to express yourself to other humans without government employees logging and monitoring your expressions of thought? Maybe you really have nothing to hide now,but if ever you are given a reason to disagree and dissent with societal norms,your expressions of dissent will be monitored by the very people that have a lot to lose by allowing your thoughts to be expressed. If you can accept regulation of your speech and this authority over your life and liberty then it makes sense to oppose E2EE.

The problem is that the people whose communication is being monitored never accepted this authority,E2EE is just a way of enforcing my expectation that my communication to someone will be read only by that person. Removal of this right or privilege must be done via due process and full transparency without which justice and fairness would be very difficult.

Last point: E2EE prevents mass monitoring of communication. For warrantful intercepts,law enforcement benefits the most out of having access to the whole device. One approach would be to force a transparent backdoor that will side-load rootkits that come with a device specific certificate with a certificate transparency log maintained by a watchdog gov agency that enforces requirement of a warrant for each cert and criminal penalty for mis-issuing of certs or tampeting of CT logs. What if someone roots their phone and removes the backdoor? Make it illegal much like silencers and bullet-proof vests are illegal. It does sound very unpleadant and uncomfortable but much saner than weakening protocols. Like it or not you won't be able to convince elected politicians there is no way to securely gain access to a suspected criminal's phone even with a warrant.

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

#245
A counter argument for blocking e2ee because of sharing CP/Terrorism can be split in two parts:

1) If you have proof that they are sharing it then you simply do a criminal trial base based on that proof. No need to block e2ee because you already have proof.

2) If you do not have proof then you are assuming guilt without proof, and that is the opposite of how our justice system should operate. Innocent until proven guilty. No need to block e2ee, because you have not shown that any concrete person is breaking the law. And if you did show it, then look at point 1)

And thus we have exhausted both possible options, and in both cases there is no need to block e2ee.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

At this point I would actually prefer a criminal street gang to physically protect me. Because they don't care about my private life as long as I pay up. Government does care about my private life, even if I pay up.

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

#247
I don't understand the question. E2E encryption used in what? Consumer social-network software? High-security government communications?

Bad actors will always have access to E2E encryption so any argument which discusses this is misleading. So the question is then should the governments have access to the communications of the general population? No.

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

#248
Not all crime is bad and some “crime” is essential for progress.

What is illegal follows fashions. For example in the UK homosexuality used to be illegal. Our hero Alan Turing was imprisoned for it. There needs to be some latitude for people to do illegal things because the state doesn’t always get it right.

A perfect survellience state is not in ideal in this regard.

You probably want fairly good law enforcement to protect us from crimes but just for it not to be too damn good.

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sam…

A police officer does not need to be convicted criminally for you to get money from the state. If they've treated you unconstitutionally or unlawfully you're within you're rights to sue for damages under section 1983.

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sam…

A police officer does not need to be convicted criminally for you to get money from the relevant government. If they've treated you unconstitutionally or unlawfully you're within you're rights to sue for damages under section 1983.
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