DOJ plans to strike against encryption while the Techlash iron is hot • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by labawi » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

lastres0rt wrote: post #232

KorematsuFred wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Obviously if you put all people in jail they will be very safe there. But then you have less people working and producing more useful stuff than rotting in jail. The best example I give of this trade off between freedom and safety is that of women in saudi arabia. They have the least amount o…

Well of course they do; it's not rape there as long as you marry the 12-year-old first.

It can suffice to marry the girl after rape (not sure of country and specifics).

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

#272

Post by nikonyrh » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

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…

Maybe the professor should have asked whether drugs are bad. (and yet this is still a poor analogy)

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

#273

Post by c22 » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

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…

One time I was at a coffee shop in Chicago and I saw a woman leave her laptop unattended while she went to the bathroom with no ill effects.

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

#274

Post by JoshTriplett » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:04 PM UTC

dropoutcoder wrote: post #265

tbyehl wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I failed to actually state what I was trying to probe from you: Why do you view it as unethical to not consider Law Enforcement needs wrt strong end-to-end encryption?

Having exceptional access is important to keeping and improving society. It’s unethical to ignore and fight LE’s ongoing needs regarding such access. E2EE at scale, unchecked, is an extreme viewpoint with trade offs that I consider unethical at best, and fundamentally dangerous at worst.

You haven't explained why, you're just re-asserting what the comment you replied to was expecting you to explain.

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

#275

Post by mindslight » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:08 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #263

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…

You're being too binary about this. Yes, we should be skeptical of law enforcement. Judicial oversight is essential. But we should still care about police effectiveness at catching law breakers. Why have laws if they can't be enforced?

It is you and law enforcement who are being binary. Plenty of laws are currently being enforced in the presence of strong encryption. The sky hasn't fallen.

In fact, these high profile cases the FBI et al attempt to use as wedges generally involve someone who has already been caught with plenty of evidence, but the authoritarian impulse still demands more.

As far as laws that can only be enforced/observed by reading people's private thoughts and communications, then yes indeed, why have those at all?

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

#276

Post by CKN23-ARIN » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

dropoutcoder wrote: post #149

JoshTriplett wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave whatever jurisdiction was attempting to force me to build something unethical, and after being safely out of that jurisdiction, disclose absolutely everything I can about the attempted coercion.

In that case you would not be forced, at least in a more extreme application of the word. Regarding ethics, my opinion is that it’s unethical to offer strong E2EE to the masses at scale, without considering the needs of LE.

LE in which jurisdiction(s)? If the E2EE is widely used, the "needs" of local LE will be varied and often contradictory.

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

#277

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:17 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #235

scarface74 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you trust the courts not to rubber stamp police requests?

Not entirely, but the judicial system's power to oversee law enforcement is an essential underpinning of the rule of law. Without that, laws don't have any power anymore and the executive does whatever it wants. I guess if you're preparing for the apocalypse you don't count on that, though?

The judicial branch and law enforcement are two sides of the same coin. The executive branch (FBI, police, etc) statistically target the poor and minorities when choosing what laws to enforce and the judicial branch sentences them more harshly.

The Supreme Court just ruled that you can’t sue law enforcement for civil rights violation - including killing people unjustly.

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

#278

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #231

scarface74 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So generically, who should I be more worried about having my information and having more power? Google to advertise to me better or the government who can take my stuff based on a vague suspicion via civil forfeiture and has the power to send me to jail? More personally, as a Black guy living in the mostly White burbs in the south - ie looking suspicious for living my life - who should I worry more about big tech (th…

> who should I be more worried about having my information and having more power Wu. Constructing a "lesser evil" choice is simply a way of justifying evil. > Google to advertise to me better It's not mere "advertising". Google's surveillance trove will be exploited for economic gain in unenumerable ways. Sort individuals into classes, market a message of safety, and discriminate to keep the undesirables away - it's…

Constructing a "lesser evil" choice is simply a way of justifying evil.

On the scale of “lesser evil” the government being able to arrest, harass, violate civil liberties and lock someone up is off the charts compared to what big tech can do.

Sure that may be prudent, but it is not morally right nor is it sustainable. And backfitting from "what is" to "what should be" is never a good idea.

So I should be more worried about what you consider is “morally right” instead of putting myself in a position where I can afford a competent lawyer - instead of an overworked public defender - to keep me or my family from being railroaded by the criminal justice system?

But that isn't an intrinsic argument against anti-totalitarian regulation akin to the GDPR. Rather the lack of the action on the latter is better seen as further evidence of said corruption.

You realize that you want to give the government more power that in my parents lifetime (who are still alive) has said that interracial marriage should be illegal, segregation should be legal and even as recently as the 80s has had laws making it crime punishable by jail time for adults of the same gender to have sex?

As far as big tech vs the government, big tech has never discriminated against me when trying to get a job. I feel the same way about tech vs the government that Muhammad Ali felt about going to the Vietnam War. I’ll leave it for the readers to search for what he said.

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

#279

Post by arebop » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:34 PM UTC

jsn wrote: post #133

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

You are mistaken. PRISM is specifically a program that "collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies" [em. mine]. NSA wiretapping the non-public links of Google et ol was not PRISM (I'm not even sure that the name of that program was ever disclosed).

[citation needed]

I see this claim is made in the Wikipedia article [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)]: "PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google LLC under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms.[6]" but the cited source [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-i...] does not support this assertion; on the contrary it explains "[NSA] has secretly broken into [...] Yahoo and Google". It certainly doesn't make the stronger claim you seem to suggest here that PRISM is limited to FISA requests.

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

#280

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

I know some people do think this, but the opposite is actually true, because of the popular shift from voice to computerized text and images for almost all communications.

A few decades ago, criminals spoke on the phone to coordinate actions. If the police were aware of this in advance, they could tap the phone line and listen in to that conversation. However if they found out about it after the fact, there was no record of the conversation for law enforcement to go get. The sands of time hide information extremely well.

Today, we use mobile devices, and prefer text and image-based communications--email, SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage, Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. Unlike voice conversations of the past, these default to creating a permanent record of the conversation, which police can go get after the fact. Encryption is an attempt to re-establish the privacy and security of these conversations that existed back when they would have been a voice call over analog telephony.

The idea of "going dark"--promoted by law enforcement to fight encryption--is wrong. What has actually happened is that INCREDIBLE BRIGHTNESS of information has developed over the past few decades as all our computerized communications now default to living forever.

Encryption is a tool for trying re-establish the level of "light" (information availability) that our culture and laws came to expect over hundreds of years.