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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

#181

Post by ilikehurdles »

Karunamon wrote: post #164
solotronics wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My expat friends and family have mostly set up shop in Germany. It seems like Germany has pretty strong encryption support[1]. Doesn't hurt that they also bought homes there at around 1% interest and get no less than 6 weeks PTO a piece.

[1]:https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/05/30/encryption-debate-i...

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

#182

Post by Accujack »

I think the term "techlash" is an attempt to shape opinion on the existence, source, nature and of the problem being discussed.

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.

Corporations are actually obligated to make money for their shareholders. A corporation does not have the free will to choose a moral course over those obligations, especially in the US.

Corporate officers have to seek out and take advantage of every opportunity to make money available to them or otherwise they may well lose their jobs or even be sued.

Since it's not illegal to make money off of invading privacy, corporations are obligated to try provided doing so won't negatively impact their profits.

Calling it "techlash" implies that somehow tech is at fault, or even large tech corporations, but in truth the US Government is at fault for not updating privacy laws for the computer age. The term directs anger away from the real culprits.

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

#183

Post by slg »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #131
slg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Criminals being able to hide evidence is a serious concern for the average person. Suspects . Alleged criminals. Until convicted, they're not criminals. The government does not have an unlimited right to collect all information; they have a limited, judicially controlled right to try to collect information. One key detail: strong encryption does not prevent investigations from targeted collection of information, su…

>Suspects. Alleged criminals. Until convicted, they're not criminals.

And even after they are convicted, they and their associates are still protected by encryption. Encryption protects everyone equally. That is viewed as a positive by pro-encryption people and a negative by anti-encryption people.

>The government does not have an unlimited right to collect all information; they have a limited, judicially controlled right to try to collect information.

This the point of warrants. The problem of massive warrantless collection of data by the government is a bigger and separate issue. I personally think encryption is a valuable tool to address the symptom of that problem, but it does nothing to actually fix problem of a corrupt and/or authoritarian government. One of my personal annoyances with the tech community is that we have a tendency to try to work around any governmental problems as if that solves the issue while making no attempt at fixing the root cause.

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

#184

Post by lostcolony »

NateEag wrote: post #130
notRobot wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm having trouble understanding why people would say mathematical functions are bad. That's such a naïve way of putting it. People don't care about the mathematics behind it. They think it's "bad" because they think it enables terrorism and the spread of child sexual abuse imagery or whatever politicians have led them to believe.

Let's be clear - encryption can absolutely enable those things. That is not all it does, but pretending it does not is stupid.

The internet enables all of those things too. Before that, telephones and fax machines did.

Hospitals enable the spread of disease by clustering all the sick together with a constant flow of healthy people (visitors, doctors, etc). They also enable the development of superbugs.

What's your point? You're confusing incidental usage with enablement. The lack of these good things doesn't prevent the occurrence of the evils listed, and to make a conversation one sided for how much it exacerbates the evil without instead focusing on the good and the reason they exist is incredibly disingenuous (which is the clearly the intent of most of the people on a soapbox about the evils)

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

#185

Post by Mirioron »

heartbeats wrote: post #170
dkdk8283 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

Chances are high that you could do the same in most European countries. Just like in the Soviet Union, thieves exist in Belarus. People's perception might be that they're safer, but that doesn't mean they actually are. Just like during Soviet times, people felt safer, but crime still happened. It just wasn't talked about, because it makes the state look bad.

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

#186

Post by triceratops »

newfeatureok wrote: post #31

I was talking to a layperson about encryption and privacy and they were very much against both interestingly. They compared encryption to wearing a mask in public and said if people don't want to be noticed (w.r.t privacy and encryption) they shouldn't be "participating" (it was unclear what they meant by this). Just goes to show you how the average person thinks about these things. I have to admit I wouldn't like it…

Ask them if they're OK with being told to put TSA locks on their house and car, to prevent crime. Anyone can buy a key online but at least we're all safer. /s

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

#187

Post by lostcolony »

SkyBelow wrote: post #154
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…

>That doesn't seem like a very enlightened ethics discussion. That is an apt summary of my college ethics discussions. Even in cases where the professor was doing their best to encourage discussion, the majority of the class couldn't think beyond first order effects and hypotheticals would quickly get emotional and devolve into character attacks.

Yeah. I was shocked at how many -CS MAJORS- were pro-DRM.

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

#188

Post by Acrobatic_Road »

Retric wrote: post #179
Karunamon wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New Zealand has stronger free speech protection than the US and no encryption issues. More freedom of the press and even ‘free’ heathcare for citizens or permanent residents make it a solid contender.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3468958/the-uk-and-nz-...

>New Zealand’s Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act was introduced in 2013.

>On receipt of a warrant from a surveillance agency, a network operator – defined as a public telecommunications network or a telecommunications service – must “decrypt a telecommunication” on their network or service, but only if it has “provided that encryption”.

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

#189

Post by tbyehl »

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 I can encrypt my postal mail. Humanity has been encrypting things for maybe 2,600 years.

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

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

#190

Post by heartbeats »

ndarwincorn wrote: post #160
mindslight wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that still allows law enforcement to do their job? Do libraries not keeping records of who has read what books not allow law enforcement to do their job? Do prohibitions against arbitrary searches not allow law enforcement to do their job? Does having to make a plausible argument in front of a judge not allow law enforcement to do their job? Do individuals not having a number tattooed on their forehead not allow la…

While I agree with your point, if you're going to critique law enforcement this only goes halfway: In the US, the idea of the publicly funded law enforcement officer can trace its lineage back to antebellum slave catchers. Much like they now (and forever) frame any perceived difficulty as preventing them from doing their job, they've successfully re-framed their role in society as protecting and serving (people) inst…

How is that a good thing though? American police are not very popular, to put it bluntly. Even among the Americans I know who support their efforts, they still do not have any affinity towards individual police officers.

Compare this to the situation in Europe and Asia (or at least the civilized parts like Japan), where it's perfectly acceptable and normal to ask a policeman for directions. And where their role is indeed to protect and serve people (not property).

"Police have the role of protecting and serving people" really does not feel like such a controversial viewpoint to me.

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