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Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

reuters.com

11–20 of 299 posts

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#11
“Tech companies should include mechanisms in the design of their encrypted products and services whereby governments, acting with appropriate legal authority, can obtain access to data in a readable and useable format.”

Yes, because governments always act with appropriate legal authority, by definition, right?

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#13
Imagine for a moment that ssh became illegal.

Is it even possible for the tech economy to continue? What would that look like?

My head hurts.

Actually, think of what Attorney General Barr said: Corporations should have access to strong encryption, just not little people.

In that horrifying sort of world, there would be encryption licenses perhaps. And general purpose computing would be under a large threat.

It is so absurd that it would only work under a totalitarian system. Maybe that's what we'll eventually get.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#14

This is a good time to remember that police forces work for governments and not the other way around. Of course it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea. They’re asking for something to make their job easier... can’t blame them for trying, and of course who doesn’t want to catch people who h…

I'm pretty sure part of the job of a bodyguard is to ensure the well being of their client. If they ask for something that improves safety but makes the client miserable, they are not doing their job.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#16

This is a good time to remember that police forces work for governments and not the other way around. Of course it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea. They’re asking for something to make their job easier... can’t blame them for trying, and of course who doesn’t want to catch people who h…

I also this is a good time to remember that not every citizen has to have the same values on this. Some people might think the tradeoff in terms of freedoms vs security is worth it.

It seems everyone is so eager to paint the other side as objectively wrong / motivated by bad intentions, when in reality I don't believe this is an objectively right answer. As a society we have to decide how much freedom and security we want at this moment in time.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#17
Encryption is math, and not even hard math at that. You have as much chance of stopping evil people from using encryption as you have of stopping them from doing multiplication.

Make every politician who opposes encryption feel like an idiot for thinking they can stop people from adding and multiplying.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#18
post #16

This is a good time to remember that police forces work for governments and not the other way around. Of course it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea. They’re asking for something to make their job easier... can’t blame them for trying, and of course who doesn’t want to catch people who h…

I also this is a good time to remember that not every citizen has to have the same values on this. Some people might think the tradeoff in terms of freedoms vs security is worth it. It seems everyone is so eager to paint the other side as objectively wrong / motivated by bad intentions, when in reality I don't believe this is an objectively right answer. As a society we have to decide how much freedom and security we…

[deleted]

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#19
I had an idea that a decent compromise is to limit keystrength, but not have any kind of backdoor.

This way the vast majority of communication is protected, and the government can't just spy en mass.

But, if there was some specific target they could throw a lot of computing resources at it. But they would need to know in advance who to target, they couldn't just have a wide dragnet.

Thoughts?

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#20

This is a good time to remember that police forces work for governments and not the other way around. Of course it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That doesn’t mean it is a good idea. They’re asking for something to make their job easier... can’t blame them for trying, and of course who doesn’t want to catch people who h…

Many years of reading on HN, I used to just accept that encryption is the best thing. And from a point of view of what will happen, that’s what will happen. But should we as a society want this?

I would argue these days that it is far better to be able to reconstruct a conversation and prove someone said something. In case things go wrong, we have to have a way to establish truth, and prove things, so we can have fairness in outcomes.

Now, if we have governments that punish people for being dissidents or engaging in victimless crimes, the answer is to fix the government and the laws, and not to sneak around. That’s like making slavery better for those few people who happened to have nice masters (or encryption).

So, what’s the upshot? We need more immutability and also work hard to make governments not punish people for victimless crimes.

PS: freedom of speech should refer to actual speech of humans, not the unregulated ability of organizations to provide megaphones (whether Twitter or network TV). I think these are harmful for society, and I would be happier if every statement in science, news, politics, history etc. would be peer reviewed and battle it out in some wiki site before the general public sees it. Unless they want to press the Talk page to see the battle going on behind the scenes, regular people should see the article AFTER multiple sides have battled it out. I see the current megaphones controlled by Sinclair or Twitter or Newspapers or Network TV a lot more harmful and dividing our society.

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