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Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

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Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#291

Post by gcanyon »

pravus wrote: post #108
gorgoiler wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you and the word “implicit” is crucial here. If the state is suspicious of you then they can come over, break in, tie you up, search all your stuff, and take anything they like home with them. It sounds infuriating but it’s what we need in order for the state to catch villains and the crucial part is they can only do it with a warrant . If a judge ordered you to unlock your phone and hand over all your m…

> If a judge ordered you to unlock your phone and hand over all your messages, you’d probably be sour but you should also be morally ok with complying. No. It is not my moral obligation to obey the orders of other human beings. Ever. If you want this to be a moral issue you must first prove that there is a moral basis for compliance and I've yet to hear one. Pointing a gun to my face and telling me what to do doesn't…

> It is not my moral obligation to obey the orders of other human beings.

If you are prepared to live without everything "other human beings" offer you, then sure -- but you're not prepared to do that. So you must reach some sort of agreement with "other human beings" even if that means obeying the occasional "order".

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#292

Post by gcanyon »

dools wrote: post #127
pravus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a judge ordered you to unlock your phone and hand over all your messages, you’d probably be sour but you should also be morally ok with complying. No. It is not my moral obligation to obey the orders of other human beings. Ever. If you want this to be a moral issue you must first prove that there is a moral basis for compliance and I've yet to hear one. Pointing a gun to my face and telling me what to do doesn't…

There doesn't really have to be a moral basis nor does there have to be consent. You can refuse, and you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult, but you have the choice. For many, society doesn't provide any advantages and so they choose non-compliance and all the consequences that come with it.

> you can choose to live outside of society. That might be very difficult

Try "impossible". No person reading HN is prepared to forgo all of what civilization provides. There are probably a very few people on the planet, who are already living in an extremely isolated tribal setting, who could go it alone, but if they're reading HN I hope they'll speak up now, I'd love to hear their opinion on this.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#293

Post by gcanyon »

ctoth wrote: post #49
gcanyon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Actually, I believe you have this backwards. In the time when the Constitution was written, conversations were private (concealed) by default. In order to listen to a conversation, you had to physically listen to the conversation. It is only in the last couple decades that mass access to this sort of conversation is even possible, so encryption seems to be restoring the same implicit right which always existed. Said…

Sure, technology has benefitted the government as well. But if you're going to cite the fact that 250 years ago surveillance required live eavesdropping, then the weapon analogy needs to go back to the time before guns and other range weapons, when you had to physically shove in the pointy bit.

In any case, my point was about the ability of civilians to conceal, surveillance is only relevant in its inability to keep up.

To your main point, it's important to understand that most people don't feel the need to conceal their conversations from the government. Note: this is not an "if you're not doing crime, what do you need to hide?" argument. I'm just stating the fact that the reason the government can surveil so much information is because people don't choose to encrypt their communications. If they did, the government would have access to very little. Until/unless they set up cameras and microphones everywhere.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#294

Post by gcanyon »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #64
gcanyon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your argument is complete nonsense. It has never been easier for the government to access your speech because never before has such a large portion of speech been recorded. Police 30 years ago would kill for the data they have access to now. Encryption slightly slows down how quickly the amount of information they have access to is growing, but it can't remotely complete with how quickly the amount of available infor…

As I replied to someone else, it's important to understand that the only reason the government can surveil so much information is because people don't bother to encrypt their communications. If they did, the government would have access to very little, because government-resistant is readily available.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#295

Post by gcanyon »

Buttons840 wrote: post #33
gcanyon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In just the last 20-30 years we've gone from "if the government wants to know your speech, they are a warrant(-ish) away from getting it" Couldn't people just talk quietly and nobody would ever know what they said to each other? Humanity has survived how long under this condition?

Wire-tapping is a thing. Sensitive microphones are a thing. "The Thing" is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#296

Post by gcanyon »

asynchronous wrote: post #26
gcanyon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’d disagree with you on that last point. Some of us think the 2A is about private ownership of tanks.

I was wondering if I'd get this argument :-)

I guess it comes down to how you define "arms" and I'm not a constitutional scholar. So: you do you, enjoy your tank :-)

And if you haven't seen it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_(film)

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#297

Post by gcanyon »

komali2 wrote: post #14
gcanyon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 weapo…

Hence why I said "almost" no one. I'd bet a dollar that the number of people arguing for free ownership of bazookas is low-single-digits of a percent of the population. But I'd love to see hard numbers on that :-)

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#299

Post by Buttons840 »

gcanyon wrote: post #295
Buttons840 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In just the last 20-30 years we've gone from "if the government wants to know your speech, they are a warrant(-ish) away from getting it" Couldn't people just talk quietly and nobody would ever know what they said to each other? Humanity has survived how long under this condition?

Wire-tapping is a thing. Sensitive microphones are a thing. "The Thing" is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Again, you act like not being able to wire-tap is a new thing. How long did humanity survive without wires?

The ability to have a private conversation that remains a secret forever is a fundamental human right that goes back a hundred thousand years.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#300

Post by gcanyon »

Buttons840 wrote: post #299
gcanyon wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire-tapping is a thing. Sensitive microphones are a thing. "The Thing" is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Again, you act like not being able to wire-tap is a new thing. How long did humanity survive without wires? The ability to have a private conversation that remains a secret forever is a fundamental human right that goes back a hundred thousand years .

I'm not sure we agree on the definition of "fundamental human right" -- are you using it to mean "an aspect of fundamental reality"?
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