Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty • Hacker News Board

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#151

Post by _boffin_ » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #67

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #30

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

Many people look at things like the Stasi and think - the problem with it was who was in charge, not that it existed. We’re the good guys so it would be a good thing. Not a bad thing. The problem is, they’re almost always the absolute worst to deal with, as almost any evil is excusable when done ‘for the right reasons’ or when ‘we’re the good guys’, where selfish evil at least sometimes takes a break or feels bad. An…

Who knew that after all these years, it comes to light that the Stasi only did it to protect the children..,

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#152

Post by quickcheque » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #30

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

Perhaps it was never a liberal 'free' democracy in the first place. Or if it was, then it resides at an unstable point, and the stable points are full of nightmares.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#153

Post by PeterisP » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

rakoo wrote: post #52

high_5 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unrealistic in technological but sociological terms.

That's not unrealistic then, it's just a lack of will.

For human-related endeavors, motivation of the stakeholders is the key part that determines whether something is realistic or not.

All kinds of technical difficulties can be fixed with effort and talent of a few people, but if something requires will of the masses and there's a lack of will, that thing is simply not going to happen no matter what you do - because there's no "just" with respect to lack of will, that's lack of something necessary that you can't easily create.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#154

Post by bee_rider » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #143

bee_rider wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Might makes right” seems more like an observation of a particular instance in the feedback loop of building power. America is for example in a pretty strong position, but maintains power by doing diplomatic stuff. Being in some sense the leader of a big coalition of friendly countries (imagine if we had to force EU countries to accept our bases by violence, it is way cheaper to just be on friendly terms with them an…

It's called hegemony. Hegemony is just another form of dominance, as ultimately it's backed up by force of arms. Power flowing from the barrel of a gun and all that.

The sort of economy required to build a top-tier military nowadays requires international trade and cooperation.

If this sort of military force can’t be produced without a bunch of willing allies, then the force is just an intermediary step. It is constrained by the need to keep those allies willing.

I’m not saying the world is all butterflies and roses, just pointing out that that constraint is real, and I think it is not really what people think of when they say “might.”

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#155

Post by pdonis » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

dgroshev wrote: post #121

jessenaser wrote: post #6

The easiest way to combat "you have nothing to hide" is if you were in a country taken over by dictators or terrorists, those leaders don't care and cannot be reasoned with. They will use the backdoor at any time to punish dissent or any misalignment with their rules. And if people say, "but our country is free", tell them that if your country was not, how would you get back to freedom? Is your software and hardware…

This feels a bit redundant. If you were in a country taken over by dictators or terrorists, those dictators or terrorists won't hesitate to deploy a mandatory surveillance regime (see: Xinjiang), they don't need a leg up from the previous democratic government. If your country is not overtaken by dictators or terrorists, the "nothing to hide" argument stands. This hypothetical situation is not made materially worse b…

> the "nothing to hide" argument stands

No, it doesn't, because it's not an argument. It's just an assertion--and one which, as another poster has pointed out, is false. Everyone has things to hide. But "hide" is not a pejorative term here; it's just a recognition of the fact that people have private lives that they don't want to share with everyone. The so-called nothing to hide "argument" depends on ignoring that fact and treating "hide" as if it had to be something nefarious.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#156

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

rakoo wrote: post #115

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, that's why I put the "free" in quotes. I am not deluded to the point that I think everyone had a great time in the last 30 years or so but since the fall of the USSR and some of it's satellites states , it seemed like we were on an upward trajectory in terms of human rights, democracy and civil liberties. If the last 30 years have only been a blip in terms of freedom acquired by some parts of the gl…

> since the fall of the USSR and some of it's satellites states , it seemed like we were on an upward trajectory in terms of human rights, democracy and civil liberties. The fall of the USSR is the victory of capitalism and most above all the spread of neoliberalism, definitely not an upward trajectory for human rights, democracy or civil liberties. If you think it's been going up, it's because you were not in the gr…

> If you think it's been going up, it's because you were not in the group that has been crushed by it, which means you were in the group that, on the global stage, was crushing the other.

Which is the group being crushed by capitalism? The major complaint against it is inequality, which in practice has meant that it has benefited some people a lot and some people only a little. There are very few people worse off under it than what came before.

Its biggest failings are government failures to appropriately price externalities and the enactment of rules that constrain competition when a government is captured by industry.

But how do you want to fix that? Government-operated commerce certainly doesn't, the environmental record of state-operated industries is catastrophic -- you're essentially asking the industry to regulate itself. Anarchy can't price externalities, how does it propose to prevent anyone from dumping in the river?

So what do you want to do instead?

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#157

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #87

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #30

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

> Why can't the powers that be just leave the people to live their lives in peace without being snooped on by the surveillance apparatus? The very microsecond that some tragedy befalls the populace, the very first thing people start screaming about is how pathetic the government is for not knowing about the tragedy in advance and preventing it. We don't live in 1923. We live in 2023. You can't put a secret agent in a…

> You can't put a secret agent in a room with a bunch of nefarious terrorists anymore, because those terrorists don't sit in a room with each other. They talk on Telegram.

So you... put some secret agents on Telegram to infiltrate the terrorists. In the same way as you got into the room with them before people had portable phones. You bug their phones in the same way as you used to bug their rooms -- through physical access. Which is effective but expensive, and so it works against terrorists and serious criminals but not for mass surveillance.

> When the nation falls to all the other nations' intelligence apparatuses and covert operations, you will decry it and ask why the government did nothing to stop it.

If we actually had sufficiently secure communications to ward off our own intelligence agencies, why would some other country's have any more luck? Preventing theirs from working against us is good.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#158

Post by esafak » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

TRiG_Ireland wrote: post #118

crazygringo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, the idea that there is any kind of "permanent ground truth" around morals/laws is very much up for debate. Some philosophers think it exists (usually called "natural law" [1]), while many others think it's nonsense. I would guess that most anthropologists, for instance, would say it's rubbish -- people who have studied the exceedingly wide variation in what is considered moral or immoral across cultures. A…

In actual practice, I mostly see Natural Law cited as an excuse for homophobia, used in a manner which is transparently reasoning backwards from conclusions. I imagine that actual philosophers might occasionally make better use of it, but I am put off the idea.

Natural law or appeal to human nature? Can you cite an example?

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#159

Post by Xymist » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #67

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #30

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

Many people look at things like the Stasi and think - the problem with it was who was in charge, not that it existed. We’re the good guys so it would be a good thing. Not a bad thing. The problem is, they’re almost always the absolute worst to deal with, as almost any evil is excusable when done ‘for the right reasons’ or when ‘we’re the good guys’, where selfish evil at least sometimes takes a break or feels bad. An…

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth."

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#160

Post by TedDoesntTalk » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

tripu wrote: post #24

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #11

I take issue with the phrasing. No one can force upon me their moral obligations. It’s my choice alone.

(Stylistic) point taken. I stand by what I wrote, although it could be argued in less stringent terms.

Persuasive writing is a skill. You lost my attention and I turned against your argument because of your "stylistic point". If it'd been written differently, I would have definitely agreed and supported the points I did read.