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

nytimes.com

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

#101

Post by jedmeyers »

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…

Well, a lot of things are possible, but implementing a knee-jerk legislation usually is not a way to achieve it.

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

#102

Post by jackgavigan »

Perhaps governments need to apporach the problem from a different angle: How can we limit the extent to which bad actors (e.g. terrorists, organisaed crime, etc.) can benefit from private/secure communications technologies without compromising civil liberties and our citizens' right to privacy?

If anyone can solve that problem, surely it's us - the technologists, the problem-solvers?

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

#103

Post by higherpurpose »

mc808 wrote: post #37

"Michael S. Rogers, the director of the N.S.A., has proposed that technology companies be required to create a digital key that could unlock encrypted communications, but divide and secure the key into pieces so that no one person or government agency could use it alone." Conveniently, Microsoft has a patent on just that. http://www.google.com/patents/US8891772 Michael S. Rogers should disclose any financial interest…

As well as one for a Skype backdoor:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2509604/data-privacy/mi...

Microsoft has some interesting project choices.

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

#104

Post by domfletcher »

My favourite quote on this (from the UK perspective) from Ross Anderson (one of the co-authors): “A point I would like to make to the prime minister and his circle is: whoever put the prime minister up to this should get a complete bollocking. The proposals are wrong in principle and unworkable in practice.”

There is no quicker way of alienating people who understand complex things than by pretending that you know better and have thought of a brilliant solution.

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

#105

Post by homunculus »

wl wrote: post #66
JupiterMoon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NOTE I don't want to get into the politics of gun ownership. Just fact seeking. I was under the impression that the AR-15 is very readily available? Do these not count as assault rifles?

An assault rifle is a select-fire (having the option of more than one shot per trigger pull) rifle shooting an intermediate cartridge. An AR-15 is not an assault rifle because it isn't a select-fire. The M16, which the AR-15 is based on, is an select-fire weapon and is thus is an assault rifle. The main difference between an AR-15 and a hunting rifle is that the hunting rifle tends to use a more powerful cartridge. T…

I'm not trying to be obtuse but don't most hunting rifles still work on a bolt action model thus requiring an operator to chamber a round manually whereas the AR-15, and rifles like it, 'automatically' chambers the next round in a fraction of a second.

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

#106

Post by nitrogen »

stephengillie wrote: post #23
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…

Lawmakers (smart ones, anyway) don't break laws; they make what they want to do legal, and then just do it. Give a person a hammer, and everything's a nail; give a person a lawmaking ability and suddenly everything's illegal. Even when inaction is the wisest course, it looks too much like indecisiveness to be politically feasible. One of the problems is that we can't figure out a better system of using humans to gove…

One of the problems is that we can't figure out a better system of using humans to govern humans.

There are a lot of things we can improve, though. First past the post voting systems mathematically guarantee polarized two-party systems aligned on emotionally charged but relatively inconsequential issues. So we should switch to approval voting.

Having the same person purport to represent our interests in everything from which soda sizes we're allowed to drink to whether we can make our own end-of-life medical care decisions leads to incompetent science denialists running the government's science committee, gross ignorance of the consequences of their actions w.r.t. encryption, etc. So we should design a system with separate representatives for each technical domain, combined with an optional directly democratic override on a vote-by-vote basis.

Etc.

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

#107

Post by higherpurpose »

gnu8 wrote: post #2

The headline belies the utter ridiculousness of the idea. Why would the United States and United Kingdom be singled out to have backdoor access to all communications? To hang onto the tattered remnants of their empires while keeping their own people in line despite their declining political legitimacy.

I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if the US and UK governments would be perfectly fine with China, Russia and so on being able to hack and spy most of their citizens and companies as long as they could also do that.

From their point of view it might be quite a good trade-off, because they probably think it's far more useful for them to spy and hack US and UK citizens than it is for China and Russia.

And they also probably think that they, the elites, could use something better than what everyone else uses, too. So there's no negative to this.

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

#108

Post by jedmeyers »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #55
wl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

NOTE I don't want to get into the politics of gun ownership. Just fact seeking. I was under the impression that the AR-15 is very readily available? Do these not count as assault rifles?

Adding to what user wl already said - 'assault rifle' is a really vague term, but historically it is defined as a rifle that soldier can use to provide a covering fire to himself while assaulting an enemy position. Before first 'assault rifles' appeared comrade soldiers where supposed to provide suppressive fire during an attack. And from that definition it is clear that semi-auto weapon cannot be considered an 'assault rifle'.

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

#109

Post by 15charlimit »

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…

>actually truly believes that being disarmed is a prelude to genocide

Try, if you can, to provide an example of genocide that wasn't preceded by mass-disarmament of the targeted populace (assuming they hadn't been previously disarmed).

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

#110

Post by mostlystatic »

magicmu wrote: post #38
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just with governments, but people's whims in general. To quote G.K. Chesterton [1]: And then, last but the reverse of least, there plunged in all the people who think they can solve a problem they cannot understand by abolishing everything that has contributed to it. We all know these people. If a barber has cut his customer's throat because the girl has changed her partner for a dance or donkey ride on Hampstead…

That is a spectacular quote, and really embodies the impetus of the American people to not only blame excessively when things go wrong, but to place blame in a manner which absolves all parties of any (perceived) responsibility.

In general I think that's a good thing. People are hard to change, but redesigning the system is relatively easy.
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