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Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

globalencryption.org

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Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In part because they have full access to the classified info about the threats that are being disrupted regularly

That's the excuse they use. Unfortunately, they've often been shown to also be lying bastards in other matters, so why would we believe them for this situation?

I didn't say anything about believing them

Or their other behavior

Just that its easy to imagine being in that role, being privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped, and never again thinking twice about violating all these rules just to prevent that kind of thing.

Doesn't mean what they're advocating for isn't messed up. But its not hard to think through how they get there.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#232
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In part because they have full access to the classified info about the threats that are being disrupted regularly

If they're trying to influence public opinion and there really are a bunch of successes from surveillance programs that can be defeated with consumer-grade encryption, they could find ways to declassify statistics. I suppose there's the concern that a statement like "we prosecuted 2387 child molesters based on surveillance of unencrypted chat" would cause future offenders to stop using unencrypted chat, but I think t…

This is one of those classic problems where if they didn't violate civil rights and something terrible happen the public backlash clamoring for civil rights violations would push them 10x further into outright oppressive practices (i.e. after Sept 11th in the US) than if they'd just broken the rules in the first place.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about banning end-to-end encryption while keeping client-server encryption (like Telegram or Apple does)? If people are not allowed to transfer money anonymously, why allow them communicate anonymously?

People are allowed to transfer money anonymously, vis-a-vis cash. Banks belonging to the Federal Reserve system are of course subject to a number of arbitrary regulations that are certainly debatable, but also not outside the realm of ordinary government regulation of interstate/international commerce. Wholesale banning of anonymous money transfers would also, in my opinion, be a violation of 1st and 4th amendments.…

Most of the world already has a "interaction between a natural person and the government is subject to formal identification with government-issued documentation", the US could indeed go that route if they wanted. Nobody could feasibly ban private anonymous communication, though.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finished reading the book yesterday. I truly believe Orwell was a time traveler. (joke) The parallels between Oceania and some nations of the world nowadays is infinite.

You should try reading some of his non-fiction. This was written in 1944: "I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrers of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that ori…

This is amazing. I didn't know he wrote non-fiction. And I can tell there is little difference between this piece of essay and what we read from Emmanuel Goldstein in the book. Perhaps Emmanuel Goldstein is Orwell in 1984, or even Winston and everything else in the book was written "based and around" Orwell's non-fiction essays. Who knows? Thanks for sharing anyway.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try reading some of his non-fiction. This was written in 1944: "I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrers of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that ori…

This is amazing. I didn't know he wrote non-fiction. And I can tell there is little difference between this piece of essay and what we read from Emmanuel Goldstein in the book. Perhaps Emmanuel Goldstein is Orwell in 1984, or even Winston and everything else in the book was written "based and around" Orwell's non-fiction essays. Who knows? Thanks for sharing anyway.

That one is from a letter, but yeah, it is basically a brain dump of the thoughts that would eventually crystallize into "1984" three years later.

OTOH for "Animal Farm" he specifically wrote an essay[1] explaining why he wrote it, meant to be a preface to the book. Ironically, the preface was dropped from the book when it was originally published for the very same reasons discussed in the essay. And I feel that many of those reasons are still at play today.

[1] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#236
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one reads the linked Wikipedia entry, one would learn that OTP is the only uncrackable form of encryption. It’s not something a government can easily block nor decrypt regardless of technology.

However, for whatever reasons, we have decided that OTPs (as in TANs) are insecure. (Hint: 2FA is much easier and less costly to administrate.)

Good grief. How is OTP unsafe?

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#237
post #187

>As we have stated in the past, there is no effective way to weaken encryption for some use cases such as law enforcement while keeping it strong for others. I've never been fully satisfied by this assertion. Apple has the ability to push whatever code it wants to whatever device it wants. They can make a version of iOS that bypasses encryption and restrict it to only run on devices identified by a warrant. They coul…

great idea. while we are at it, we should also require that the police have a key to your house and vehicle, as well as your debit card pin number and, email password, and bank password. its necessary security, so you agree with this correct?

They effectively have all of those things already. You don't need a key to enter a house or a car, and they can get anything they want from your bank and email provider with a subpoena.

I agree that giving law enforcement a universal key that can defeat all encryption would be a monumentally stupid idea, but it's not actually necessary to enable them to bypass encryption on specific devices. As far as I can tell, privacy activists have just made up the fact that law enforcement wants a universal key because it's easier to argue against that than to argue in favor of their actual position.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#238
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not even nudging, that's just providing a necessary option. There is no coercion between "I want to throw something away" and "There's a trash can on the curb".

"Not providing the option very frequently" is pretty indistinguishable to me from "nudging in the wrong direction"... but here's a much more explicit nudge example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Mess_with_Texas

You're just trying to redefine the concept of the nudge. What a nudge is, really, is a thing whose purpose is to influence a choice, not to constrain it so that there is no choice.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#239
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Die vierte Gewalt – Wie Mehrheitsmeinung gemacht wird, auch wenn sie keine ist" https://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/richard-david-precht-hara...

Richard David Precht is a poor caricature of a French public intellectual figure and loves to create outrage to stay relevant. He lives off the same mainstream media that he criticizes.

Precht doesn't seem particularly French to me. He is a solid craftsman. I associate French intellectuals more with esprit and a certain craziness.

His earlier books had a slightly penetrating American style, popular science peppered with human interest stories.

Precht, however, is willing to make himself unpopular, but he is also one of the few intellectuals who can afford to do so. Many media workers probably don't like to read how strong the pressure to conform is, they prefer to suppress that.

Re: Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the excuse they use. Unfortunately, they've often been shown to also be lying bastards in other matters, so why would we believe them for this situation?

I didn't say anything about believing them Or their other behavior Just that its easy to imagine being in that role, being privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped, and never again thinking twice about violating all these rules just to prevent that kind of thing. Doesn't mean what they're advocating for isn't messed up. But its not hard to think through how they get there.

> privy to some insane shit that barely gets stopped

Hmmm, sounds more like fantasy thinking (to me). :/

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