Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cyberlaw.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 347 posts

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

#161

Post by orblivion »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #3

> the “techlash” by Congress and the public “in the wake of myriad privacy scandals” and the 2016 election This just makes my head explode. Because tech companies tend to be poor at privacy, let's use that logic to make it so the government can invade your privacy anytime they want?

This is a world where (at least it seems to me) the same people are against net neutrality legislation but want the government to regulate Facebook. By the time you get into the nuances of why the tech companies support encryption in some cases, you've lost the PR game.

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

#162

Post by dahfizz »

dmitrygr wrote: post #125
skybrian wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically what happens when law enforcement uses a search warrant to get access to user data from a tech company. While this process does have weaknesses, it is still the difference between a legal process overseen by the courts and one based on espionage where agents do whatever they want without oversight. Note that strong network encryption is essential for ensuring that they have to get a warrant. I don't…

A computer is like an extension of your mind. for centuries, law enforcement has been unable to search your mind, by court order or otherwise. I see no reason to change that.

I've heard this argument a few times, and I don't think it passes legal muster. A computer is much more analogous to a fancy paper notebook than a part of your brain.

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

#163

Post by dependenttypes »

mindslight wrote: post #115
bob1029 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

One time pads are not secure by modern cryptographic standards. Elaboration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6008695

If integrity is an issue you can just add a poly1305/ghash tag to the message. They are not encryption algorithms so it is unlikely that they are going to be banned, and just like OTP they are provably secure. In addition they are not difficult to implement (or execute by hand).

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

#164

Post by Karunamon »

solotronics wrote: post #90
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…

For me at least this is the thing that will push me to leave and renounce citizenship. I am sure I represent an insignificant minority to them, but I can't live somewhere without my own security on my data and cryptocurrency. Over the last few years I moved basically all my assets into Bitcoin and have left the legacy banking systems behind. With a few keystrokes they can lock you totally out of all your funds and yo…

I don't mean this to sound snippy, but where would you go? Most non-US countries I'm aware of have even worse restrictions around speech, encryption, and so forth.

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

#165

Post by dropoutcoder »

alasdair_ wrote: post #155
dropoutcoder wrote: post #93

If you were forced to design an exceptional access system that minimized abuses and risks of compromise, how would you do it?

It depends on whether the access is to be to encrypted data at rest or something like a realtime wiretap, and if there needs to be a way to prevent the spied-on party knowing they were being spied on or not. One way to do data-at-rest (e.g. a locked phone) is to require physical access to the phone along with some kind of expensive, destructive procedure (e.g. an electron tunneling microscope and shaving away the hou…

For clarification, the goal is to provide a way for the government to decrypt encrypted comms that pass through the internet.

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

#166

Post by lukifer »

misiti3780 wrote: post #118

Seriously question, how are they going to stop me from downloading signal from source, building it locally, and installing it on my and everyone i knows cell phones?

I wouldn't overthink it; the same way they "stop you" from dodging taxes, using illegal drugs, etc: the threat of violence if you're caught. https://xkcd.com/538/

The real question in my mind is whether they'd manage to overturn, or carve out an exception to, the "code == speech" ruling. [1] Would we actually see academics arrested for teaching someone how to craft an unbreakable encrypted message, let alone posting their code to GitHub? It would probably take a panic event far beyond 9/11 for the public to acquiesce to such a thing.

In practice, I suspect law enforcement just wants numbers, to nail more pelts to the wall, and would be entirely okay with choking off encryption at the source for average consumers: by outlawing the creation of mass-market encryption apps without backdoors. It's also not infeasible that they might try some sort of mandatory key disclosure, again enforced by threat of violence: "I, Alice, sent an encrypted letter to Bob on Feb 26th 2020, using key 0x123..., which I am hereby committing to the government database as required by law. I'd prefer you didn't use that key without a warrant, pretty please with sugar on top."

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-estab...

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

#167

Post by hitpointdrew »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #101
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.

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

Reminds me of something my dad always told me, "I'd rather see 10 guilty people walk free, than have 1 innocent person in jail."

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

#168

Post by Accujack »

shmerl wrote: post #86

So there is a "techlash" against privacy abuse now, and DOJ thinks it's a good idea to push even further privacy breach by fighting encryption? How stupid is that? Hopefully they'll get even a stronger push back.

I think the term "techlash" in the blog is an attempt to shape opinion on the source of the problem.

Really, the issue is "corplash", or backlash against large corporations abusing privacy... and even then, it's really not the corporations' fault, it's the fault of the US government for not making what they're doing illegal.

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

#169

Post by Ididntdothis »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #146
Ididntdothis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know but I have never heard any details especially how they want to keep the backdoor secret. Cracking the backdoor would be such a high value target that a lot of people would spend insane amounts of money and energy on it.

Do not under any circumstances let the discussion move from "whether" to "how". Reject the premise of the question. Such a system cannot be built; the requirements are broken. Treat it as though someone asked you to build a system that solves the halting problem, or factors products of large primes in linear time: the correct direct response is patient explanation of impossibility, and the correct indirect response i…

I don’t think it’s right to reject something outright. You should always give people the opportunity to show what they have. Then take a look at it and decide whether it’s good. A strong indicator for a scam is that they won’t show anything when asked for details. Then things should get rejected.

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

#170

Post by heartbeats »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #101
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.

Freedom isn't free. I think people have just ought to realize that. People have this idea that free countries are more efficient, which is probably true in the long run, but it's a cop-out to just call it a day there.

Once I was in Belarus. It's a heavily authoritarian country, make no mistake. When they had protests against their rigged elections, they traced the phones of everyone who went, then brought them in for questioning and asked them what they were doing there. The president later said: "We have rigged the latest election. 93.5 per cent have voted for Lukashenko. But they say it is not a European outcome. We have made it 86 per cent."

But it does work. I was at a restaurant there. Some girls are chatting, and they walk away to go get something, and just leave their bags there unattended. Why? Because it's an authoritarian country - people aren't going to steal stuff there.

This was in the capital of one of the poorest countries in Europe, but it was still one of the safest places I've ever been.

EDIT: I don't mean to praise authoritarian countries, on the contrary. We should support human rights even if it is less efficient, because the object of governance is not to strip people of their freedoms for pennies on the dollar.

Post reply on HN