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Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

wired.com

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Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#11

Post by barbazoo »

mc32 wrote: post #6
wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

It's a problem across the spectrum. "Don't say gay" and the whole book banning business across the US come to mind. Is there legislation anywhere implementing "left wing censorship"?

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#12

Post by skybrian »

wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

Yes, Wired was originally pretty libertarian, but that was a long time ago. I don’t know what it’s like now.

As for what’s mainstream American, people disagree. Historically, we’re a pretty unruly people. Still are, sometimes. But here is the Fourth Amendment:

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

(Emphasis added.) You can argue about whether that should also apply to secure online communications, but the idea that there are compromises between state power and individual rights is pretty fundamental to US law.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#13

Post by cempaka »

wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

Only Nixon could go to China, and only Obama could normalize total mass surveillance.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#14

Post by komali2 »

gcanyon wrote: post #8
wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

There's a case to be made that encryption/private communication has gone through the same sort of progress as personal weaponry has, only on a much shorter time frame and to a much greater extent. In weaponry, it's taken ~200 years to go from bespoke muskets with a firing rate of a couple rounds per minute to semi-automatic and automatic weapons capable of firing multiple rounds per second. In just the last 20-30 yea…

> I'm just saying that almost no one advocates for the 2nd amendment right to a bazooka

This isn't necessarily true. To believe that the 2nd amendment allows the right to carry a concealed weapon basically anywhere sort of requires one to believe every citizen has the right to carry any weapon. The amendment is meant to indicate that congress simply can't regulate whether citizens choose to own and carry around weapons, and what sort of weapons those might be. If the weapon could be considered an "arm," it can't be regulated.

This is one of the obvious modern flaws with the USA constitution and why the 2nd amendment should be abolished before any reasonable gun control can happen in the USA. Kavanaugh and other justices right now seem to think that there are "of course" conditions and restrictions that should be allowed, like not carrying guns into "sensitive places" or not allowing felons to have guns, but a future justice can simply disagree, and that's that.

Also, many people in the USA believe they should be allowed to have a bazooka.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#15

Post by komali2 »

mc32 wrote: post #6
wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

The only time I hear this is when people refer to it. I've yet to find examples of it myself, bearing in mind that companies choosing what can and can't be said on their platforms doesn't constitute censorship (unless we're willing to admit that platforms have a monopoly on public communication).

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#16

Post by mc32 »

barbazoo wrote: post #11
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

It's a problem across the spectrum. "Don't say gay" and the whole book banning business across the US come to mind. Is there legislation anywhere implementing "left wing censorship"?

That was about introducing sex ed to third graders. Have third graders put down their toy cars, dolls and blocks yet? And then you have a Cal governor suinf a school dist demanding they teach the curriculum he believes is correct. So you have an example of two governors, one on each side, tellig districts what to teach

But, the thing is, liberals _used_ _to_ espouse free speech as long as it was legal and defended it to the death, so to speak. Conservatives, well, they were conservative and were more on the "decency" argument but today that is reversed and the liberals are tending more autocratic than the conservatives.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#17

Post by mc32 »

komali2 wrote: post #15
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

The only time I hear this is when people refer to it. I've yet to find examples of it myself, bearing in mind that companies choosing what can and can't be said on their platforms doesn't constitute censorship (unless we're willing to admit that platforms have a monopoly on public communication).

When you have Federal embeds counselling companies on content, that's essentially censorship. I don't know what else you'd call it.

That's banana republic level technique and tactics. This is something a Francisco Franco might have done. No, no, we don't have censors, we're just making sure only the truth of the moment is published. And of course, blackhole all the contradictions.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#18

Post by tetrep »

barbazoo wrote: post #11
mc32 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

It's a problem across the spectrum. "Don't say gay" and the whole book banning business across the US come to mind. Is there legislation anywhere implementing "left wing censorship"?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of legislated PC terminology for government workers somewhere (but, ironically, what first comes to mind is the banning of "Latinx" by Sanders). What about NYC protecting fat workers from being fired? Body-positivity and similar things tend to be "left" in the US.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#19

Post by j_crick »

greyface- wrote: post #4

No mention of criticism for requiring use of phone numbers as identifiers. Falsely claims phone numbers are not linked to usernames.

Yeah, any discussion of anonymity and Signal can start and end with phone numbers. They could maybe offer an option to use just a username and some kind of authentication? But somehow they don’t :(

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#20

Post by flangola7 »

mc32 wrote: post #6
wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

It's not so much a shift as the US coming into alignment with the rest of the world. Harmful expressions like hate speech and inciting violence have more or less always been recognized as things you don't put up with in a civilized democratic society, just as you don't put up with physical violence to resolve disputes or allowing vehicles to drive any which way on motorway.

The essence of freedom of speech has always been the ability of the common or marginalized folk to discuss and criticize those with power and privilege - the state, the landed, the majority. Attacking marginalized minorities is not the purpose of it and is a categorically different type of action - the marginalized don't have power over others to begin with.

Frustratingly the US is actually rather poor about expression freedom in a number of other ways (ways which ironically almost never come up when Americans talk about speech freedoms), and ranks below many other western nations.

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