So I guess we have a moral
imperative to fork Chrome to actually enforce cert pinning even against locally-installed roots, then?
The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
11–20 of 96 posts
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#12Posted a few days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10655418, but got so little discussion that we won't treat it as a dupe but have instead merged the threads.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#13Posted a few days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10655418 , but got so little discussion that we won't treat it as a dupe but have instead merged the threads.
Huh, thank you. I missed it back then, and assumed that when the submission went through it meant that the dupe detector okayed it.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#14They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…
Are you implying that "law enforcement officials" have moral standing, especially in the US? Torture, racism, fraud, corruption, brutality, are what springs to mind, along with a total lack of will to reform. To hell with that.
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective.
So no, that implication really isn't there.
The lack of will to reform is not total amongst LEOs. The lack of political will to do many seemingly sensible things in this country is a moral failure that every citizen shares.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#15For anyone here who doesn't know who the author is, Phil Rogaway is one of the most important academic cryptographers; he's responsible for OAEP, PSS, OCB, UMAC, FPE, and the constructions behind XTS, the universal standard for disk encryption. The meat of the paper is in Sections 2 (where the unintended power dynamics of some modern academic crypto research projects is discussed) and 4 (where he provides suggestions…
This is a very good paper and it's disappointing that it didn't get higher on HN. That being said I disagree with some of paper's points. I don't believe that cryptographers should take on moral responsibility for how they perceive their work may or may not be used. If a malware writer uses XTS to lock up a hard drive should Dr Rogeway be morally responsible for that since he helped create the constructions for XTS?…
There is a clear distinction between a moral responsibility and a legal liability. The moral duties of scientists versus policy makers have little to do with the moral separation between idea and implementation.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#16They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…
Are you implying that "law enforcement officials" have moral standing, especially in the US? Torture, racism, fraud, corruption, brutality, are what springs to mind, along with a total lack of will to reform. To hell with that.
Torture, racism, fraud, corruption: yes.
Total lack of will to reform: no.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#17They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Part of the argument is in convincing your opponent that your morality is superior to theirs. Or, perhaps, that their stance violates their own sense of morality.
Why? I can't just live morally and let my "opponent" do what they think is right?
I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it.
I feel no need to convince other people that my morality is superior to theirs.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#18They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Part of the argument is in convincing your opponent that your morality is superior to theirs. Or, perhaps, that their stance violates their own sense of morality. Why? I can't just live morally and let my "opponent" do what they think is right? I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I feel no need to convince other people tha…
> I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it.
I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#19They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective.
That is only true if there are no universal preferences: things like self ownership, all things being equal, is always preferable to slavery.
Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Part of the argument is in convincing your opponent that your morality is superior to theirs. Or, perhaps, that their stance violates their own sense of morality. Why? I can't just live morally and let my "opponent" do what they think is right? I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I feel no need to convince other people tha…
> I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly
> I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly
I suspect ISIS would not agree with that statement, but with one that is slightly different:
"I feel very strongly that people should decide that what I think is right and fight for it."