Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication • Hacker News Board

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#41

Post by Crito » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 2:52 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #33

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings, as any European on here will confirm. Not sure why you brought guns into this argument other than it being a pet issue.

A gun ban would not work in America, which is why he brought it up. The American public is already armed, really likes being armed, for the most part is not registered as being armed, actually truly believes that being disarmed is a prelude to genocide, and openly admit that they would use their arms against anyone who tried to take them.

Remember what happened when the Federal government tried to get some farmer to pay for the grazing land he was using? People several states away showed up with rifles, and they had no skin in the matter. If you tried to take their rifles, they (and many others) would try their best to kill you.

If America were full of Europeans, perhaps it would work. It isn't, so any notion of gun banning in the US is nothing more than wishful thinking at best.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#42

Post by shit_parade3 » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 2:52 PM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #30

beedogs wrote: post #9

The way I see it, law enforcement has had it far too easy for far too long. The Snowden revalations finally turned over all the rocks and people saw that they have been grossly overstepping both ethical and legal boundaries, and encryption is finally getting the mindshare it desperately needs. So to their petulant cries of being unable to read our communications anymore, I say: fuck 'em. Time to earn your keep now, b…

I want law enforcement to be a difficult, time consuming job. Idle law enforcement is a terrible thing. When law enforcement has spare time, they will find ways to occupy it. Sometimes it will be by overzealous enforcement of low level laws and other times their idleness will be used an a pretext for politicians to pass even more micro-managing laws. It's this kind of thing that led to women being arrested for wearin…

The other solution to idle law enforcement is to reduce the positions in law enforcement.

Bureaucracies have a natural tendency to grow, people ceding power to the state need to be more vigilant in demanding the reduction of outmoded and lax capacity instead of funding their own micromanaged oppression

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#43

Post by wl » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

de_Selby wrote: post #27

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

> School shooting - new gun laws. I agree with the sentiment of your post, but as a non-American this one jumps out at me. I don't think it fits the rest of your argument, adding more control and checks for something as dangerous as gun ownership is a good thing.. in particular, it would take a lot to convince me that private ownership of assault rifles is anything but bad news. I have read some arguments about priva…

Civilians haven't been allowed to buy new assault rifles in the US since 1986. As a result of the severely restricted supply, they're very expensive and rather rare. But even before the registry was closed to civilians, registered machineguns were only used in a handful of crimes since they were regulated in 1934.

In the US, there is a pattern of politicians pushing for their pet gun control measures after some mass shooting, regardless of whether or not it would have stopped the incident that justifies the legislative push. The most recent example is the reaction to the Charleston church shooting, where some politicians pushed for an "assault weapons" ban (which is political term about cosmetics—these are not machineguns) and background checks for private party sales, despite the shooter not using a weapon that would have been covered by the proposed ban, purchased from a licensed gun dealer after passing a standard background check. While universal background checks are arguably a good thing regardless of what motivated the push, the "assault weapons" ban is pure political nonsense. Such guns are almost never used in crime and previous bans were shown to not have any effect on crime. When a gun is used in a crime, it is almost always a handgun.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#44

Post by noir_lord » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 2:57 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #5

Being HN I'm sure many of us have dreams about future computers that are seamless extensions of our bodies, doing more than we could ever imagine with a phone or a watch. Do we also have nightmares about a hacker stealing a government's back door key and giving us a heart attack in our sleep?

> Do we also have nightmares about a hacker stealing a government's back door key and giving us a heart attack in our sleep?

While hackers interfering with embedded devices in people is worrying I'd be more frightened about bugs in the devices from sloppy minimum cost systems.

While not awesome current stuff is ok(ish) largely because it's a relatively small market so the people in it are better than the average dev.

I've been programming a long time, I'm a reasonably talented developer and I wouldn't touch that stuff at all.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#45

Post by dmix » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

de_Selby wrote: post #27

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

> School shooting - new gun laws. I agree with the sentiment of your post, but as a non-American this one jumps out at me. I don't think it fits the rest of your argument, adding more control and checks for something as dangerous as gun ownership is a good thing.. in particular, it would take a lot to convince me that private ownership of assault rifles is anything but bad news. I have read some arguments about priva…

The problem is that you people like to extrapolate from one small scenario where the law will work without considering the greater practicality or long-term effectiveness of the law. The scenarios ignore basic facts about humans and technology. The simple fact is humans are resourceful and criminals have proven to be very dedicated.

Consider two things,

a) Regarding:

> in particular, it would take a lot to convince me that private ownership of assault rifles is anything but bad news.

The technological different between an 'assault rifle' and a semi-automatic hunting rifle is very small. As Cody Wilson has demonstrated, with a few 3d-printed parts you can turn a simple rifle - which is already restricted by law from being an assault rifle - into a fully blown assault rifle with a relatively small amount of technical knowledge.

The same was true for decades with anyone with metal machining skills.

So how much of a difference will it make if the tech available is merely restricted and not banned? If you can easily modified the technology?

b) The proposed encryption laws must insist that they won't interfere with American corporations from creating, selling, and exporting encryption to valid purchasers. The development of better-and-better encryption will not stop. It will still be one of Americas greatest exported technologies. An industry the US dominates (software).

So now taking that into consideration, will it be feasible to stop criminals from getting access to encryption?

Similar to encryption, America is the largest exporter of weapons in the world - unlike the UK or Scandinavian countries.

The simple fact is that there will be a huge market of both weapons and people (with specialized-skills) which will leak their guns/knowledge onto the black market. Combine that with the internet and decentralized tech and you have a very challenging regulation environment.

At best, it will be become yet another 'arms race' between criminals/police that is ultimately a net-negative investment for society (see: drugs).

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#46

Post by joshuapants » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #33

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings, as any European on here will confirm. Not sure why you brought guns into this argument other than it being a pet issue.

You might find this an interesting read: http://www.thepolemicist.net/2013/01/the-rifle-on-wall-left-...

In addition, I don't know of any European nations that have outright banned guns, so that point isn't entirely correct.

> Not sure why you brought guns into this argument other than it being a pet issue.

No, it's an entirely valid one and fits the discussion.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#47

Post by phkahler » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #36

phkahler wrote: post #12

This debate seems like a manifestation of a problem with governments: They think they can legislate anything they want. Need access to some communications - green light for massive data collection. Some of it is encrypted - just mandate a back door. School shooting - new gun laws. Any problem activity - we'll just make it illegal. Something not getting done - we'll just mandate someone take care of it. They really do…

The problem isn't that they aren't changing anything they couldn't do before, namely reading communications, post, telephones etc have always been accessible to the state. The problem is that technology has allowed two things: a) Secure communications channels the government can't read b) The state to monitor mass communication in a way even the Stasi couldn't using humans The notion that you should be able to commun…

>> The problem is that technology has allowed two things: a) Secure communications channels the government can't read b) The state to monitor mass communication in a way even the Stasi couldn't using humans

I think the US mail is more secure, and it's been delivered by the government since way before computers existed. Sure they now scan the meta-data, but the content goes undisturbed except for specific interventions.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#48

Post by api » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

Crito wrote: post #41

idlewords wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings, as any European on here will confirm. Not sure why you brought guns into this argument other than it being a pet issue.

A gun ban would not work in America, which is why he brought it up. The American public is already armed, really likes being armed, for the most part is not registered as being armed, actually truly believes that being disarmed is a prelude to genocide, and openly admit that they would use their arms against anyone who tried to take them. Remember what happened when the Federal government tried to get some farmer to…

This actually adds a lot of nuance to the argument -- one of the reasons you can't just legislate anything is that you must take into account not only technical limitations and requirements but also the characteristics of the local population. Different cultures will respond differently to different laws.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#49

Post by joshuapants » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 3:02 PM UTC

Crito wrote: post #41

idlewords wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gun ban is a reasonable and effective way of reducing the number of school shootings, as any European on here will confirm. Not sure why you brought guns into this argument other than it being a pet issue.

A gun ban would not work in America, which is why he brought it up. The American public is already armed, really likes being armed, for the most part is not registered as being armed, actually truly believes that being disarmed is a prelude to genocide, and openly admit that they would use their arms against anyone who tried to take them. Remember what happened when the Federal government tried to get some farmer to…

The other question is a matter of scales. Mass shootings are tragic, but vanishingly rare. If you propose to ban or strictly control guns specifically in reaction to mass shootings, you haven't weighed the costs and benefits of doing so.

Re: Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Access to Encrypted Communication

#50

Post by joshuapants » Tue, Jul 07, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #17

jebblue wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The united States isn't an empire, that's what it was formed to get away from. It's a collection of people, living in different communities called states that strive to stay united to form a more perfect union. It isn't a perfect experiment because people are not perfect but it's the best effort history has seen so far.

Tell that to the countries the US keeps invading. At the very least Grenada, Iraq (2003), and Panama. But the list is far longer and more complicated (and stretches back fifty years or more). Nobody would call the US an "empire" if all it did was keep in its own territory and stay out of other country's internal affairs. Nobody calls Canada an empire for example. But the US keeps deciding to outright attack other cou…

Canada itself isn't an empire, it's just part of one.