I blame prime numbers, even co-primes should be banned. Please contact your representative and help us free the world from evil math.
Weird Al gets it: https://youtu.be/YY6I4MwrX7k?t=438
Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
131–140 of 312 posts
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, it's without a hint of irony, as the same media companies deploy SSL/TLS on their websites for - at least - login and signup, taking payments, and more. I'm not sure if it's simply that no one has explained that SSL/TLS is encryption, and the nefarious things that could be done (stealing identity, credit cards) if certain communications aren't encrypted. In the end, it's more education, isn't it? Most…
I'm pretty sure they are trying to push for encryption with government backdoor access. SSL certificates are issued by centralized authorities that can easily provide access to governments (if they don't do so already). Not that I agree with what they're trying to do.
Do they want attackable weaknesses in crypto, or a "master" key?
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of putting words into other someone else's mouth, it's a shame that the level of education/awareness regarding the fundamentals of how society works is so lacking. Without encryption, internet doesn't work. Without internet, banking and e-commerce doesn't work. Really, not a single user-identifying service can function without encryption. Also, encryption is based on math and logic. You can't really prohi…
To play devil's advocate, saying "but you can never ban encryption anyway" sets up a false dichotomy. You're right, there are open source projects that will survive no matter what you do. But you can certainly force or convince companies like Apple and Google to prevent those apps from being available in their stores, and you can force large companies like Facebook to give you a backdoor. Sure, someone tech savvy can…
Considering some of the largest app markets are not run by US (or EU) based companies (e.g. China), the assumption of control is also a fallacy.
"If you make encryption-by-default impossible, the amount of unencrypted messages will increase, and you'll have gained those." Requires you to monitor every message for every form of data, and assuming the false assumption that banning encryption increases the simplicity of finding messages, you would probably only find more things not related to what you are looking for. Only assuming you have control over all data channels, which even the US doesn't have.
On the other hand: This message is then flagged: bomb, truck, explode. While you could better be looking at other stuff like origins and communication contacts. These give a clearer view than the random words you will be picking up, even when they are encrypted.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that arguing would clearly be flawed. I could thing of a lot of weapons that I would not want to see in the hands of everybody I meet on the street. I think it is partially correct to say that about certain information based "tools" (like encryption or information in newspapers) but sometimes that is not true as well, for example with certain malware
Historically, though, the real threat is usually a state actor -- often one's own government -- that has been granted (or has seized) a monopoly on such tools. In particular, the modern notion that the state is the only rightful wielder of force has an unlimited downside. Terrorism is pretty far down the list of things that frighten me.
The problem with having everybody possess potentially deathly tools is not terrorism, but crime in general. I, for myself, can think of a lot more crimes committed by normal people than the government.
The historical argument is of course not completely unreasonable, but there are also an awful lot of discrepancies when looking at states government today and 300 years ago. At least in Europe, where I live, the government can be trusted in a lot of issues --- especially it is highly likely that they _try_ to do what is best and are no "evil emperors".
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#135I blame prime numbers, even co-primes should be banned. Please contact your representative and help us free the world from evil math.
I blame it on unicode. Without unicode these terrorists would not be able to communicate with impunity.
I think more to the point, blame Joel Spolsky:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html
He made it easier to understand unicode!
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have to get rid of this narrative of bad versus good people while we're at it. It removes every bit of nuance from the discussion.
That's the point. What the Paris attackers did makes them bad people. It's not up for debate.
They carried out a successful military action that furthered their goals. And they killed far fewer people than many of the military operations we have engaged in. They are only bad because they didn't follow our rules of war and weren't us. (We often defend our own who don't follow our rules of war; see all those defending torture of detainees.)
They are bad, we are bad. The only not bad involved in all of this is the little children who we both have hurt, and even then those children will grow up and become what the other side considers bad.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it doesn't make them not-bad. I disagree. I've never found a coherent absolute ethical framework. Not even "Don't kill people." When anyone is arguing that something is bad, that person has to appeal an authority or belief. Often the reasoning leads to utilitarianism: "If we want society to continue, we should ban murder." But that's still an if/then statement. Beneath the if/then is an appeal that society is g…
> I'll change it to "randomness"; i.e. in a society of nondeterministic people, some will try to kill the others. I think "randomness" is even worse, because it makes it sound like these actions could be expected from anyone at anytime. Statistically, a small portion of the population is responsible for most of the violence, through repeat offenses. Also, in many situations there are clear warning signs (e.g. mentall…
Depending on what you mean by premeditation a large percentage of US murders are more or less random.
#Pollution #Cars
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#138Increasingly we're seeing 'encryption' discussed in mainstream media as a tool that can only be used for nefarious ends. Kind of like how they talked about "cookies" in the late 90s and early 00s. It's unfortunate that there's no way [without a lot of money] to launch a campaign that highlights the fact that most sensitive online transactions rely on encryption - banking, purchasing, etc - to protect you from The Bad…
The EU is still losing its mind over cookies. Every Euro site now has a big disclaimer about cookies. The hysteria, at least for Europeans, never ended. Which is amusing considering how much local storage HTML5 can do and how easily it is to track people via their unique browser fingerprints, even with cookies and no plugins enabled. The reality is, of course, encryption was used in these attacks. These terrorists ar…
I know, it's hilarious and annoying to be honest. It shows how behind the EU really is.
Pretty much all the British digital policies are silly. I think the simple thing they seem to not understand is that the Internet is smarter and moves fast than policy.
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, it's without a hint of irony, as the same media companies deploy SSL/TLS on their websites for - at least - login and signup, taking payments, and more. I'm not sure if it's simply that no one has explained that SSL/TLS is encryption, and the nefarious things that could be done (stealing identity, credit cards) if certain communications aren't encrypted. In the end, it's more education, isn't it? Most…
I'm pretty sure they are trying to push for encryption with government backdoor access. SSL certificates are issued by centralized authorities that can easily provide access to governments (if they don't do so already). Not that I agree with what they're trying to do.
CAs do not have backdoor access. The most a rogue CA can do is possibly enable a MITM against a website that has taken no protections.
Google pins their public key fingerprints right into Chrome, and this feature is open:
Re: Times Pulls Article Blaming Encryption in Paris Terror Attack
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'll change it to "randomness"; i.e. in a society of nondeterministic people, some will try to kill the others. I think "randomness" is even worse, because it makes it sound like these actions could be expected from anyone at anytime. Statistically, a small portion of the population is responsible for most of the violence, through repeat offenses. Also, in many situations there are clear warning signs (e.g. mentall…
Depending on what you mean by premeditation a large percentage of US murders are more or less random. #Pollution #Cars
GP's point was that human's thoughts and intents are a lot different from randomness. It isn't likely that most people intend on running into pedestrians whenever they get in their car.