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Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

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Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#41
post #5

George Orwell's 1984 should be a required reading for high school students. Not just in the U.S., but world wide. It really highlights just what dangers come from the idea that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, and the sheer amount of power and influence a global, instantaneous, and always on intelligence network can have over the population.

I would add Anthem to that list. It predates 1984 by 11 years, and Orwell likely borrowed a lot of concepts from it.

Yvgeny Zamyatin We 1921. Orwell acknowledged its influence on 1984, and believed that Brave New World was also influenced by it, though Huxley said otherwise. Anthem's resemblance may not be purely coincidental.

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#42
post #17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are we supposed to prevent them from doing these bad things? Well, we might not be able to. Such is the price of liberty. Personally, I think the thousands that died in the trade centers do not justify the massive loss of civil liberties, and it's STILL not clear we would have been able to do anything about it. Bad guys are going to use encryption no matter what. Citizens should not be restricted from using it…

This is a great reply. Thank you. My thoughts based on it: 1) It's a tough sell to Average Joe. Average Joe wants it both ways - he wants Liberty AND to be protected from bad guys. Obama etc. were effectively hired to protect Average Joe from the bad guys. If Obama were to say "Sorry guys, we can't protect you in the name of Liberty", he's going to be eviscerated. 2) Agreed completely that banning encryption is fooli…

Rights are frequently unpopular with the Average Joe. There are often majorities for the abrogation of rights for the minority side. That is why a Bill of Rights, and a government of divided powers.

If the Average Joe doesn't like it, well, then it's the President job to explain the relationship between encryption and rights like free speech, presumed innocence, and security from search without a warrant. Not to go looking for ways to abrogate those rights to satisfy the Average Joe.

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#43
post #10

Allow me to ask what I'm certain is an incredibly naive question, so please bear with me. But it's a question that the average / non-tech folks ARE asking, and I'm not looking to be attacked, I'm looking for an intelligent answer (or corrections if my assumptions are wrong.) Base scenario: We have adversaries. Our adversaries are plotting something objectively bad - to blow up things and kill innocent people. They ar…

I'm wondering if your implication that these interceptions are in fact one of our most valuable tools is true.

An excellent point. I don't know if it's true. The government is certainly arguing it's true. How do we test that?

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#44
post #17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are we supposed to prevent them from doing these bad things? Well, we might not be able to. Such is the price of liberty. Personally, I think the thousands that died in the trade centers do not justify the massive loss of civil liberties, and it's STILL not clear we would have been able to do anything about it. Bad guys are going to use encryption no matter what. Citizens should not be restricted from using it…

This is a great reply. Thank you. My thoughts based on it: 1) It's a tough sell to Average Joe. Average Joe wants it both ways - he wants Liberty AND to be protected from bad guys. Obama etc. were effectively hired to protect Average Joe from the bad guys. If Obama were to say "Sorry guys, we can't protect you in the name of Liberty", he's going to be eviscerated. 2) Agreed completely that banning encryption is fooli…

> Average Joe wants it both ways - he wants Liberty AND to be protected from bad guys.

If Average Joe "wants Liberty AND to be protected from bad guys" then he doesn't have both if he doesn't have Liberty.

The only way you can have Liberty and Security is if you don't sacrifice one for the other. The need for the sacrifice is the lie. There is no reason you can't have both, because sacrificing liberty is not necessary for security.

In reality the opposite is the case. "Those who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither and lose both." Liberty and privacy are essential components of security. You're not secure if the bad guys can compromise your entire infrastructure just by infiltrating the police or police computers (to say nothing of the security risk from corrupt government officials). Creating intentional security vulnerabilities in order to facilitate government spying does not bring about a security improvement. It's based on the premise is that we need to reduce security in order to be secure, which is preposterous and untrue.

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#45
This all seems to be a bit of a red herring:

1) Based on what I've read from experts and what I know, if a national security agency targets your data, they will get it. Even government systems containing state secrets, protected by other state security agencies, have proven to be vulnerable. Banks are penetrated; even RSA's crown jewels were stolen, IIRC.

2) Even if 'content' data is encrypted, metadata almost certainly is not. Security agencies can identify which data belongs to their target and collect it, even if encrypted. Also, IIRC, recent leaks indicated that the NSA automatically collects much encrypted traffic, including Tor and maybe VPN traffic.

3) Metadata, as most people here probably don't need to be reminded, is as valuable as content. Again, regardless of what encryption you use your metadata probably is vulnerable and security agencies can easily collect it and utilize it.

4) Therefore, it seems that encryption only prevents low-cost search of bulk-collected content. It doesn't provide any security for metadata (usually), encrypted content still can be collected, and unencrypted content probably is vulnerable if you are a high-value target.

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#46
post #10

Allow me to ask what I'm certain is an incredibly naive question, so please bear with me. But it's a question that the average / non-tech folks ARE asking, and I'm not looking to be attacked, I'm looking for an intelligent answer (or corrections if my assumptions are wrong.) Base scenario: We have adversaries. Our adversaries are plotting something objectively bad - to blow up things and kill innocent people. They ar…

I find it works best to use something the "Average/non-tech" person will surely understand:

"What if there were cameras in your house that recorded everything you did & said, but the government promised you the footage would only be reviewed in the case that they suspect you committed a crime. How would you feel about that?"

I've gotten a lot of mileage from this metaphor myself. The response is usually silence while they internally question their worldview or something. Never gotten a counter argument, nor anyone replying with "I'd be okay with that". Would be interested if HN could poke a hole in this so I can patch it. :)

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#47
post #10

Allow me to ask what I'm certain is an incredibly naive question, so please bear with me. But it's a question that the average / non-tech folks ARE asking, and I'm not looking to be attacked, I'm looking for an intelligent answer (or corrections if my assumptions are wrong.) Base scenario: We have adversaries. Our adversaries are plotting something objectively bad - to blow up things and kill innocent people. They ar…

How did they find out Person Y's phone needed to be searched/monitored to begin with? Obviously they have other sources of intelligence. The question also doesn't address the issue of how far is too far, imagine how many crimes would be discovered with nightly searches of everyone's homes. Should we begin searching everyone's homes warrantlessly? What is more detrimental to society, the criminals, or the police state…

Excellent points. Thanks.

First let me clarify that I agree the notion of "banning encryption" is misguided and wrong. I'm looking at Obama's position (perhaps incorrectly) as "we need to be able to have backdoors", not "ban encryption".

I think the government's argument would be that yes, the most sophisticated adversaries will always find a way around monitoring. But I think they'd argue that 95% of adversaries are not the most sophisticated, so the position to is to make it as easy as possible to catch that 95%.

"If we're trying to monitor 100 bad guys and 95 of them are just using iMessage, then let's make it easy to read what the 95 of them are saying and deal with the other 5 with more sophisticated countermeasures, rather than having to use more sophisticated countermeasures for all 100 of them."

I absolutely see the whole argument here. I'm just trying to figure out what the right solution is.

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#48

Blatant attempt by intelligence services and law enforcement to get their personal wish lists legislated by shamelessly exploiting a tragedy. I'll happily donate a constant percentage of my company income to fight whatever useless laws come out of this. It'll be fought immediately if they try to legislate backdoors or any equivalent tinkering. Last time we had a big legal fight about strong encryption, we got a supre…

Why don't you donate to EFF?

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#49

My biggest issue with all this is that when you give them the power to take away rights to prevent terrorism or protect children, the government will use their powers wherever convenient. For example, the patriot act has been used in 1,618 drug cases and only 15 terrorism cases[1]. It has also been used for everything from copyright violations to Las Vegas money issues[2]. 1. (2011) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blog…

Not to mention potential misbehavior by rogue elements, even when official policy is innocent. LOVEINT being a recent example in precisely this domain, but instances are manifold.

And LOVEINT resulted in zero people going to prison. It was a blatant abuse of power too.

They violate the rules and nothing happens.

Re: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight

#50
post #10

Allow me to ask what I'm certain is an incredibly naive question, so please bear with me. But it's a question that the average / non-tech folks ARE asking, and I'm not looking to be attacked, I'm looking for an intelligent answer (or corrections if my assumptions are wrong.) Base scenario: We have adversaries. Our adversaries are plotting something objectively bad - to blow up things and kill innocent people. They ar…

Technology marches inexorably forward. These algorithms already exist in unbroken form. What the government is doing is mandating that Apple and Google make user's data less secure. The government will claim that any such backdoor will only be openable by them and only in cases of great need (read terrorism).

What will happen is that non-governmental organizations will find these keys and get the same ability. What will happen is that the government will overreach, as they have done before time and time again.

This isn't about stopping terrorism, this is about keeping the current ability to spy on US Citizens. The internet was the single greatest intelligence boon in history and the government is concerned about loosing spying capacity.

Unsophisticated terrorists would gain little protections from at-rest and over-the-wire encryption. It's really quite easy to screw up and be found in the dragnet. Sophisticated actors would be using additional software anyway. You know, the kind that already exists.

The libraries are free and public. The algorithms publicly published. You can't put the cat back in the bag.

The government is trying to legislate particular usages of math. They are literally saying that Apple and Google shouldn't be using certain sequences of numbers. This isn't an exaggeration or hyperbole since everything is encodable in numbers and obviously some communication is illegal.

This is literally illegal equations, and it is so very far down a slippery slope that every citizen should be concerned.

To answer your question, the government will still not be able to decrypt many communications, even with this backdoor. These technologies protect casual users from data theft, but putting in backdoors makes everybody less safe.

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