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DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

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Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#101

Post by dkdk8283 »

btilly wrote: post #14

Why does this say that the DOJ has been pushing for this since 2016? They have been pushing for some variation on this since basically forever. I first became aware of it back under Clinton with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip . And the debate has been essentially the same since. Law enforcement wants to be able to break security, and promises that their super secret, super safe system will provide eve…

Watching old movies from 60s/70s sometimes have scenes where the characters are worried about calls being recorded or otherwise having no privacy.

The typical response is “What is this, Russia?” or something similar.

Privacy is really important. I will always error on the side of privacy even if that means not everyone bad is caught.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#102

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

chaostheory wrote: post #79
btilly wrote: post #14

Why does this say that the DOJ has been pushing for this since 2016? They have been pushing for some variation on this since basically forever. I first became aware of it back under Clinton with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip . And the debate has been essentially the same since. Law enforcement wants to be able to break security, and promises that their super secret, super safe system will provide eve…

> Law enforcement wants to be able to break security, and promises that their super secret, super safe system will provide everyone else protection from evildoers while letting law enforcement find the bad guys Wasn't this how Google, Adobe and several other tech companies had a major security breach about 5-7 years ago? They provided the DOJ backdoor access.

> They provided the DOJ backdoor access.

If you're thinking of PRISM, no, at least not in the voluntary, intentional sense of the word "provided". Many of the major tech companies had non-public backbone fiber, and links across that fiber were unencrypted. The NSA tapped this dark fiber to read unencrypted traffic. This famously hit Google, which subsequently moved to encrypt all internal traffic, even traffic that would never leave its networks.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#103

Post by Buttons840 »

caconym_ wrote: post #72
Buttons840 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in an ethics discussion the professor simply asked "is X bad?" That doesn't seem like a very enlightened ethics discussion. How certain are you he said "bad"? If he has instead asked "is encryption problematic?", the outcome can be interpreted much differently because there are problems with encryption. Especially in an ethics discussion, there are definitely pros and cons to encryption. (FWIW, the pros outweigh t…

Asking about a nuanced subject in broad and blunt terms can be pedagogically useful because you hear what people really think, unfiltered ... and maybe they hear it too, priming them to realize that they've been underthinking the topic. From there you can get into nuance, which is easier when you know where you currently stand. I have no idea what tack this prof took with the question, but I think you've drawn a hast…

I didn't intend to conclude anything. I was just asking if he remembers exactly what the professor asked, and saying that the exact phrasing of the question changes my interpretation of the results. I do not expect him to remember, nor do I think there is anything wrong with his comment, but I wanted to ask.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#104

Post by mullingitover »

Encryption keeps the government out of things it shouldn't be snooping on, and also keeps other governments out of those things. If key escrow is mandated, it would be cracked to high heavens by parties unfriendly to the US within a year or two,tops, mark my words. Then what?

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#105

Post by HuangYuSan »

function_seven wrote: post #73
alistairSH wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask them if they'd be ok with the mailman reading all their ingoing and outgoing mail. If they say "Yes", at least they're being consistent.

Dangerous analogy to offer in an argument. The easy reply: "The Government can get a warrant to read my mail today. All I'm asking is for the same capability online, so they can get warrants to read pedophile and terrorist messages"

And isn't that a valid point to make?

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#106

Post by cesarb »

bob1029 wrote: post #57
blattimwind wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTPs are impractical to use for average people, while their use is entirely tractable (and widespread) for covert operations.

Everything technological is impractical to use for average people until people like us go out and build a practical solution. OTP is not a very complicated scheme. All you need is a good source of entropy, a place to store a big fat array of it all, some XOR operations, and a safe way to hand the codebook to your trusted parties (e.g. phone-to-phone transfer options).

You don't even need XOR, just modular addition (XOR is basically addition modulo 2). The Wikipedia article has an example doing it by hand with letters (using addition modulo 26).

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#107

Post by unlinked_dll »

slg wrote: post #36
westmeal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a majority of the students had no idea what encryption was and because the authority figure (the professor) asked them whether or not it was bad they just went with it? I'm having trouble understanding why people would say mathematical functions are bad.

Encryption allows data to be locked away from the government including law enforcement and prosecutors in a way that was nearly impossible for the average citizen a few decades ago. Warrants can't break encryption like they could doors or locks. As much of life moves to the digital world and becomes encrypted, that can be a drastic change in how the justice system works. Pro-encryption people need to keep this in min…

Why can't the government serve warrants to give up their private keys?

I don't really see the State's argument against encryption except in the case that they want to break encrypted information without due process.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#108

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #83
wyldfire wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mistaken. Virtually any proposal that the government might offer will be a key escrow. We already know it's bad and why it's bad, because it's been debated for decades. I don't think there are any more novel solutions that should revitalize the argument. The problem isn't that there aren't enough oversight mechanisms or checks to prevent abuse. The problem is that the design has unfixable security defe…

You say “might offer”. Have they offered anything?

"Offer" is perhaps an overly positive term. The DOJ has issued a number of speeches, letters, etc. insisting that tech companies must build a backdoor to let the government decrypt messages as required.

Re: DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot

#110

Post by jb775 »

caleb-allen wrote: post #9

A small anecdote. A few years ago in an undergrad business class, we were having some discussion and the topic of encryption came up during one of my presentations. A student asked a question related to the ethics of encryption (I don't recall exactly what), and I was clearly confused by the question. To clear up confusion, the professor asked those who thought encryption was "bad" to raise their hand, and at least 6…

Should have followed up with: Do you think having a lock on your front door is bad?
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