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A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

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Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#141

Post by serge2k »

jacquesm wrote: post #91
lholden wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best backdoor to encryption has always been social. Talk the right way to the right people... and it doesn't matter what type of security you have. Isn't that the entire purpose of agencies like the CIA? It just bothers me when privacy is treated as a negative thing, for the greater good or not. Encryption is a tool to create privacy. The ability to create privacy should be a point of pride as not everyone has th…

> It should be a human right. It actually is a human right. The right to privacy is one of the most fundamental ones that we have.

Not in the constitution, and the founding fathers clearly envisioned the modern world in perfect clarity so we'll just go with their words verbatim.

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#142

Post by serge2k »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #36
russnewcomer wrote: post #8

Encryption backdoors are a lightning-rod topic on HN, but instead of repeating all the common-talking points, I'd suggest the following: Think through something like this, outside of your expertise, that you think the powers-that-be should just do. Maybe it's something with your local municipality's approach to road resurfacing, maybe it's the quarterback on your favorite football team, maybe it's your local zoning b…

>So politicians and intelligence services calling for encryption want, institutionally, to keep people safe. Why are they knowingly allowing people who fought for ISIS to return to Europe?

Because stripping a person's right to citizenship is monstrous and shouldn't be done?

Toss them in jail when they get home, but they still get to come back.

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#143

Post by nickpsecurity »

mangeletti wrote: post #14
pera wrote: post #4

> but debates about whether the technology should have a "back door" for intelligence services are heating up again What "debates"? there is absolutely nothing they can do to enforce terrorists to use backdoored encryption, any debate is just a waste of time, money, and maybe even lives. What are they thinking??

Exactly. This is the same as gun control. If a technology exists, you cannot tell people to not use it; otherwise, all you've done is put law-abiding citizens at a competitive disadvantage while arming the bad guys. To argue otherwise is absolute ignorance.

It's not the same as gun control. A gun is a physical thing that cost money, has reliable detection mechanisms, has risk to ship, and so on. A message is just bits or timing that can be coded into anything with little skill or cost by anyone. Free tools all over the Internet to do it, too. Controlling the flow of guns is nowhere near as hard as controlling the flow of information.

Just ask all the gun control states also attempting to prevent crime and track dissidents via mass surveillance. Their failure rate is through the roof except for the most incompetent or uneducated targets. And even some of them slip through.

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#144

Post by serge2k »

woah wrote: post #97
russnewcomer wrote: post #8

Encryption backdoors are a lightning-rod topic on HN, but instead of repeating all the common-talking points, I'd suggest the following: Think through something like this, outside of your expertise, that you think the powers-that-be should just do. Maybe it's something with your local municipality's approach to road resurfacing, maybe it's the quarterback on your favorite football team, maybe it's your local zoning b…

The problem with what you are saying is that even if a backdoor could work technically, and it was actually used effectively by the authorities (the Paris attackers communicated over unencrypted media), it STILL would not do anything to "keep people safe". 130 people were killed in those attacks. 361 people died in automobile accidents in Minnesota in 2014, to find a random statistic. Terrorism is simply not a real t…

While not a "we should live in fear" level threat (or even a "take off your shoes at the airport" level threat) terrorism is certainly a real threat. I do want the government investigating and dealing with that threat. That being said, the threat is not immediate enough to warrant the infringement of our basic rights.

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#145

Post by nickpsecurity »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #35
helicon wrote: post #25

The IRA were known to recruit top stem students from universities in Ireland during their campaign to make bombs. Surely an entity as large and as well financed and ISIS would have little trouble finding bright young engineers & technologists sympathetic to their cause to simply build their own encrypted services? And then so much for the spooks 'backdoors'

> Surely an entity as large and as well financed and ISIS would have little trouble finding bright young engineers & technologists sympathetic to their cause to simply build their own encrypted services? You wouldn't even need the brightest engineers. In fact so many encryption algorithms have been opened sourced and / or in library form for so long that it's easy for practically any developer to do.

That statement shows you haven't spent any time researching the security of secure messaging solutions. Or security software in general. Virtually all of them had protocol or implementation flaws with most having flaws so severe that cryptographers and top programmers saw fit to write books detailing how to do it right.

Books most people making "private" apps still haven't read. ;)

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#146

Post by nickpsecurity »

l0stb0y wrote: post #76

I always assume these types of stories are red herrings and intelligence agencies already have back doors or decryption methods that they want to keep hush. Make a big song and dance about how encryption is secure and push criminals towards it, meanwhile its a trap. Look at all the Tor takedowns as evidence. It's all fine by me really.

Like they did with iPhone, etc before Snowden showed they had compromised it all? ;)

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#147

Post by hyperliner »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #133
hyperliner wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to attack you because you are an infidel and therefore not a human. It's just rational in their caveman minds.

If that was it, why are these terrorists not attacking Armenia? Or Zambia? Or Mexico? Or pretty much anywhere in Central and South America? All those have a higher percentage of Christians in their populations than the US or anywhere in Western Europe, and they don't have the same level of anti-terrorism focus so are presumably easier targets. Could it simply be that those countries haven't been bombing and invading…

It could be because those countries are not letting them in.

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#148

Post by gukov »

lholden wrote: post #17
russnewcomer wrote: post #8

Encryption backdoors are a lightning-rod topic on HN, but instead of repeating all the common-talking points, I'd suggest the following: Think through something like this, outside of your expertise, that you think the powers-that-be should just do. Maybe it's something with your local municipality's approach to road resurfacing, maybe it's the quarterback on your favorite football team, maybe it's your local zoning b…

The best backdoor to encryption has always been social. Talk the right way to the right people... and it doesn't matter what type of security you have. Isn't that the entire purpose of agencies like the CIA? It just bothers me when privacy is treated as a negative thing, for the greater good or not. Encryption is a tool to create privacy. The ability to create privacy should be a point of pride as not everyone has th…

So, like the Tel Aviv airport where the main security measure for departing flights is a short chat with every passenger. The agents are trained to recognize red flags.

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#149

Post by jiantastic »

As with most things, I think that it is a trade off. There is a very delicate balance between security and privacy.

Too much surveillance

- General public feels incredibly uncomfortable due to lack of privacy

- An incredibly scary amount of power in the hands of whoever has access to that information ( and who knows what they will do with it )

- Reduced risk of terrorism and security concerns

Too little

- Increased risk of terrorism + massive security concerns due to lack of intelligence ( it's like trying to find a needle in a huge haystack )

- Public feels safe due to perceived increased privacy and yet feels unsafe due to ( potentially ) increased number of terrorist incidents.

It's a rather difficult problem to solve. How can we extract critical security information without invading people's privacy?

Re: A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

#150

Post by slg »

dplgk wrote: post #127
slg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair counter, but I feel like we already have examples of how the government would respond there. We might have to switch analogies, but wouldn't encryption then be like a weapon. The goal would then shift to being about deproliferation. The fact that nuclear weapons or AK47s already exist doesn't prevent the government from preventing regular people from acquiring or using them. Maybe preventing new produc…

The terrorists will use encrypted, unbreakable methods no matter that Google or Apple use is their OS. That's really the only point that matters.

And I might be able to get my hands on an AK47 if I really wanted and had enough money to dedicate to it. That is the truth of the world. But do you believe that making it harder to acquire a weapon like that doesn't have some benefit?

Back to HN's world, one of the basic principles of human factors is "make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard." You might not be able to prevent people from doing the wrong thing, but there is still value in making it harder to do.

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