Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Snowden Meets the IETF

mnot.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 80 posts

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#41

Post by scrollaway »

tajen wrote: post #34
scrollaway wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separate reply to your edit. [btw, you can click the timestamp in my comment if you are not presented with a reply link] > If you think these companies enjoy wasting resources on porn filter then you're crazy I don't know who's misleading you but BT offered parental controls, including adult content filtering, long before the 2013 governmental push. All they did was turn it on by default (it was off by default, befor…

> there are better technical ways Sorry I'm a non-devops programmer ;) bad me. What are the better ways? HTTP 403 and friends? (Praying that you won't say "a .exe to fix the browser's access to porn")

Router-level blocklists/firewalling are the most common, but there are other ways. Think of how companies sanely implement their internal web access filters.

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#42

Post by e12e »

Zigurd wrote: post #12
SEJeff wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More security, more usability. Pick one. That is why we are in the mess we are in

When Skype was secure, was it usable?

Secure how? It's always been opaque and subject to the whims of a central compaby and a centralized architecture?

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#43

Post by davidgerard »

s_q_b wrote: post #3

The more I consider the ramifications of these news reports, the more I realize we need full decentralization and total encryption. We have the tech: Strong encryption, Tor-like relays, and the blockchain. What we need is a way to make services based on these technologies not just as easy to use but easier to use for the average Jane. If the internet as we know it is to survive, we have to crack this nut.

And you were doing so well until you said "the blockchain".

(The singular with a "the" means the Bitcoin blockchain, which is increasingly centralised under a decreasing number of Chinese mining pools. And this is apart from the stupendous list of problems with literally every single aspect of Bitcoin. It may not be a great idea to pin any of our hopes on the digital Cue::Cat.)

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#44

Post by e12e »

s_q_b wrote: post #3

The more I consider the ramifications of these news reports, the more I realize we need full decentralization and total encryption. We have the tech: Strong encryption, Tor-like relays, and the blockchain. What we need is a way to make services based on these technologies not just as easy to use but easier to use for the average Jane. If the internet as we know it is to survive, we have to crack this nut.

No, we live in a capitalist society - what is needed is a way to monetize such services that is as easy as trading in sensitive personal data behind the guise of "free" services.

Or a different social order (my favorite) - but the first problem is probably much easier to solve in a short time-frame.

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#45

Post by davidgerard »

higherpurpose wrote: post #16
pjc50 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security must, by its very nature, prevent you from doing insecure things. This manifests as an obstacle to users, so they end up choosing the insecure route (writing down passwords etc etc). Decentralised systems tend to lose to centralised ones because there's no money locus for advertising, development or curation. It's not totally doomed; the popularity of Snapchat suggests there is demand for services that don't…

Blockchain-based decentralization looks somewhat easier to monetize.

What we see in practice with all extant implementations of blockchains is increasing centralisation. Because computing hashes is the sort of computation whose efficiency per watt greatly increases with more and more specialised hardware. Thus the Bitcoin situation, where the promise of everyone being able to mine a few coins has become a small number of Chinese mining pools; altcoins do no better.

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#46

Post by pigeons »

enraged_camel wrote: post #35
JoshTriplett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's necessary, but not sufficient. We need both sane policies and technical measures to ensure that nothing less than those policies is possible. If we only have the technology, policy-makers can and will make life difficult both for the users and makers of these technologies; more draconian regimes will simply never allow those technologies to take root to begin with.

Either that, or they will simply intimidate and even torture people for their private keys. May sound far-fetched, but it isn't.

Force them to intimidate and torture at least one side of every communication they want, instead of letting them intimidate and torture three or four centralized service operators to get everybody's communication.

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#47

Post by superobserver »

davidgerard wrote: post #43
s_q_b wrote: post #3

The more I consider the ramifications of these news reports, the more I realize we need full decentralization and total encryption. We have the tech: Strong encryption, Tor-like relays, and the blockchain. What we need is a way to make services based on these technologies not just as easy to use but easier to use for the average Jane. If the internet as we know it is to survive, we have to crack this nut.

And you were doing so well until you said "the blockchain". (The singular with a "the" means the Bitcoin blockchain, which is increasingly centralised under a decreasing number of Chinese mining pools. And this is apart from the stupendous list of problems with literally every single aspect of Bitcoin. It may not be a great idea to pin any of our hopes on the digital Cue::Cat.)

Glad someone already said what I was going to say about the Blockchain tech. There's no security in that, especially given the feudal nature of the bitcoin market (now and going forward).

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#48

Post by davidgerard »

superobserver wrote: post #47
davidgerard wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you were doing so well until you said "the blockchain". (The singular with a "the" means the Bitcoin blockchain, which is increasingly centralised under a decreasing number of Chinese mining pools. And this is apart from the stupendous list of problems with literally every single aspect of Bitcoin. It may not be a great idea to pin any of our hopes on the digital Cue::Cat.)

Glad someone already said what I was going to say about the Blockchain tech. There's no security in that, especially given the feudal nature of the bitcoin market (now and going forward).

Indeed. I forgot to add: And when the NSA is our threat model, an inviolable record of every transaction ever, that lawyers refer to as "prosecution futures", may not be the technology of choice.

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#49

Post by rowofpixels »

enraged_camel wrote: post #35
JoshTriplett wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's necessary, but not sufficient. We need both sane policies and technical measures to ensure that nothing less than those policies is possible. If we only have the technology, policy-makers can and will make life difficult both for the users and makers of these technologies; more draconian regimes will simply never allow those technologies to take root to begin with.

Either that, or they will simply intimidate and even torture people for their private keys. May sound far-fetched, but it isn't.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: Snowden Meets the IETF

#50

Post by jobeirne »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #39
s_q_b wrote: post #3

The more I consider the ramifications of these news reports, the more I realize we need full decentralization and total encryption. We have the tech: Strong encryption, Tor-like relays, and the blockchain. What we need is a way to make services based on these technologies not just as easy to use but easier to use for the average Jane. If the internet as we know it is to survive, we have to crack this nut.

We don't have the tech for two important, related things: user-friendly, trust management tools as effective as in person; key management for various, complex scenarios. These two have so many issues that even technical people screw up. I've certainly seen a lot of good work on these. Yet, we're not there yet and getting there is worth a ton of effort by anyone who will try. We get that, then we might integrate it wi…

Seen keybase.io? I think that's one of the best stabs in this direction I've seen so far.
Post reply on HN