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Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

blog.tripu.info

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Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#101

Post by bee_rider »

pmarreck wrote: post #54
crazygringo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, the idea that there is any kind of "permanent ground truth" around morals/laws is very much up for debate. Some philosophers think it exists (usually called "natural law" [1]), while many others think it's nonsense. I would guess that most anthropologists, for instance, would say it's rubbish -- people who have studied the exceedingly wide variation in what is considered moral or immoral across cultures. A…

I think the Law of Power (basically, "might makes right") will run circles around any other "law" concept. Whether even this conforms to some "natural law" underneath, is secondary IMHO.

“Might makes right” seems more like an observation of a particular instance in the feedback loop of building power.

America is for example in a pretty strong position, but maintains power by doing diplomatic stuff. Being in some sense the leader of a big coalition of friendly countries (imagine if we had to force EU countries to accept our bases by violence, it is way cheaper to just be on friendly terms with them and pay a little rent). Being the world’s reserve currency. Setting up and having outsized influence in international organizations.

That sort of stuff requires give-and-take diplomacy, cooperation, and setting up a system of international norms and laws that everyone at least pretends to respect.

Might might make right, but a complex system of rules, conventions, laws, negotiations, reputations and even person-to-person relationships made quite some might. It’s sorta chicken and egg.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#102

Post by rdm_blackhole »

lazide wrote: post #94
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people look at things like the Stasi and think - the problem with it was who was in charge, not that it existed. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It seems to me that most of the Eastern European states would be against this law but as it stands, they most certainly welcome it. > How a group does is more about what it does with it, and how it directs it/reins it in (and acknowledge…

The tricky part is, everyone tends to forget the inconvenient things. Or just not research them. Even if it’s staring them in the face. And denying that we could be bad (or have bad tendencies) that need to be resisted makes it more likely that we would, ultimately, be really bad. But acknowledging we can be bad ‘hurts’. People want to feel good, and right, and justified. The more pain they are in, the more true it i…

Thanks for the clarification. I understand your point about the research not being done and also the lack of acknowledgement that we as a species are not as good to each other as we think and that we are very much capable of repeating the horrors of WW2 in a heartbeat.

But still, I can't help feeling like we are regressing.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#103

Post by raverbashing »

baal80spam wrote: post #69
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you meant: du-jure -> de jure

I think you meant: de jure -> de iure

"de jure" is fine even if the letter 'j' was invented after the term was invented

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#104

Post by lazide »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #102
lazide wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tricky part is, everyone tends to forget the inconvenient things. Or just not research them. Even if it’s staring them in the face. And denying that we could be bad (or have bad tendencies) that need to be resisted makes it more likely that we would, ultimately, be really bad. But acknowledging we can be bad ‘hurts’. People want to feel good, and right, and justified. The more pain they are in, the more true it i…

Thanks for the clarification. I understand your point about the research not being done and also the lack of acknowledgement that we as a species are not as good to each other as we think and that we are very much capable of repeating the horrors of WW2 in a heartbeat. But still, I can't help feeling like we are regressing.

I think you’re right that we are. What we do next is the deciding factor.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#105

Post by phito »

avodonosov wrote: post #93

If you suddenly die, would you want your family or heirs to access your data (photos, writings, communicatinos, projects, documents, whatever)? If yes, how to achieve that without compromising the security of encryption of all your data?

You share your private key with them. Either before dying (that requires a lot of trust, I wouldn't recommend it), or after being dead through a will.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#106

Post by Radim »

tripu wrote: post #31
Radim wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially with these gems in the text: > (Norway) the most robust democracy in the world (which also happens to be a EU member state) Norway is not in the EU. > Hungary and Poland, are still immature barely-liberal regimes with more than a whiff of political repression (“flawed democracies”) Coming from a Spaniard? Go fuck yourself. Like tripu , I am strongly and vocally in favour of privacy and individual agency. B…

> Norway is not in the EU. You are right, thank you! I just fixed that. > Coming from a Spaniard? Go fuck yourself. I was already fixing the error, and writing in my head the kind answer above. I hadn't seen this nasty comment. Why the ad hominem? I'm ranking governments — not individuals — according to international reports I've seen. Those classifications are debatable, of course. There might be bias, or nuances I'…

A reaction to the relentless anti-Polish & anti-Hungarian propaganda being spewed by the "mature fully-liberal regimes" of the EU. Enough.

You'd think the people of Poland and Hungary (who voted in their leaders, democratically, repeatedly) have horns and drink baby blood. This undermines your other valid points re/ privacy – who'd want to hitch their moral wagon to someone this naive?

The "Spaniard" part was in reference Spain being the bedrock of fascism (via Spaniards…), and remaining a dictatorship long after WW2. In stark contrast to the struggles of Poland's "immature" democratic republic during the same period. The irony was too sweet to pass up.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#107

Post by OfSanguineFire »

tripu wrote: post #20
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #8

The author advocates using encryption as an ethical duty, OK. But it would not be an effective form of civil disobedience. This is unrealistic: > We should all use PGP, SSL or equivalent tools; VPNs, Tor and/or SSH tunnelling; IPFS, or other distributed file systems — and ditch proprietary OS's in favour of Linux or truly free Android distros. This is not anything the general public, for whom today their mobile phone…

Author here. (Thank you for all the comments!) Yes, I know SSH tunnelling and compiling your own Android are tall orders for the average user. Here I'm just hinting at some examples that are well-known among us geeks, but there are easier to use alternatives to all that. I suspect Protonmail is as easy to use as GMail. VPNs are so easy to use nowadays. The UX on Signal isn't particularly challenging to the average us…

> There is a lot we techies can do to educate normies...

This isn’t something you’ll find universal agreement about. My own position is that we techies are seen as weirdos by most of the population, and what we should do is leave normal people alone. Definitely not try to “educate” them – think about how elitist that’s going to sound to many of them.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#108

Post by rakoo »

alexvitkov wrote: post #74
rakoo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not unrealistic then, it's just a lack of will.

Yes, most of these tools are a pain in the ass to use, so people can't be bothered. The only universally used tech on this list is SSL, because end users don't need to "install SSL and learn to use it" - we had to put in the work to upgrade or shitty servers, and they get the benefits. Time had proven that the "don't you care about your privacy" argument doesn't work, so it's up to us to make the privacy-respecting t…

That's exactly my point. I'm not deluded to the point I expect people to read up and install all these tools; it's our job to make these tools so ubiquitous that it doesn't take any effort to effectively use them.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#109

Post by rakoo »

high_5 wrote: post #64
rakoo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not unrealistic then, it's just a lack of will.

Mostly not a lack of will but much more local and urgent priorities than figuring out SSH and PGP, like jobs and chores for example.

As I said in another comment, it's not about everyone installing ssh and pgp and configuring them and learning how to use them, it's about us in the tech community to provide tools so easy to use you don't even know you're using state-of-the-art privacy tools. Like what Signal has done, and now it is expected that any messenger at least positions themselves on the end-to-end-encryption. Or like what Deltachat is doing with automatically configuring PGP such that users don't ever need to read those 3 dreaded letters.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#110

Post by Kim_Bruning »

danbruc wrote: post #88
lazide wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. And underlying ‘might makes right’ is another even more basic one, ‘they who survive and reproduce wins’. Everything else gets layered on top, with more and more sophistication. Ethics and morals are attempts to encode various ideas of long term successful strategies for that longer term goal, to help counteract many of the shorter term incentives. But, like most ‘shoulds’, they are often just wishes by those di…

The most basic law is the only law that can not be broken, the laws of physics. That is what might makes right is backed by, surviving and reproducing is what you get as the result of being able to inflict more violence on the other side than they can on you.

> surviving and reproducing is what you get as the result of being able to inflict more violence on the other side than they can on you.

This is a common misconception. A lot of surviving and reproducing is possible when you work together and cooperate. As King Pyrrhus found out the hard way fighting the Romans.

Sure he initially succeeded in defeating a roman army or two. But you know what? Due to their superior organization skills, the Romans could just field another one. And another one.

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined"

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