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Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

reuters.com

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Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#251

Post by cr0sh »

LeftHandPath wrote: post #190

Banning encryption is like requiring that all your walls be made of glass and that the police can search your home at any time, for any reason, without warrant. A personal electronic device, and the connections made with it, are extensions of the person and their respective home. A literal ban on encryption is probably the single largest step any government could take towards becoming a dystopic, tyrannic, borderline…

Note that the politicians and the law enforcement people (and the government by extension) will have walls built you can't see thru...

...gee, where do you think all the criminality will be occurring then?

In a way, they'd be figuratively shooting themselves in the foot. Right now, they can somewhat get away with their criminality, because they are more or less noise in the signal - since everyone has "walls" that can't be seen thru.

If they get their way with this kind of legislation, you know there will be an exception for them.

Once the people realize that the criminality continues, they will look around and say "well how's that possible? if only criminals use encryption..." - and then they become the targets of the people.

Of course, the people should have realized this NOW - not later...

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#252

Post by SkyBelow »

matz1 wrote: post #201
outime wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That’s what the govs always try to imply. The reality is, the minimally sophisticated “bad guys” will still use encrypted means and now we can imagine who’s really affected by this condemnation.

This like saying, what good of having a law against murder if there is still going to be murder.

Direct wrongs vs indirect wrongs.

Banning direct wrongs are done because the thing being banned is wrong. The effectiveness of the ban doesn't matter (unless maybe one can show that banning the wrong actually increases the rate at it happens, but that is different from failing to significantly enough decrease the rate).

Indirect wrongs are things that aren't wrong but which we ban in order to stop something that is wrong. If there is no effect banning it, then it isn't justified to have a ban. If I want to ban cheese to reduce murder, is it justified? No, because banning cheese will no effect on the murder rate.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#253

Post by tehjoker »

We need to solve child porn, but law enforcement always uses this example when talking about encryption to help us forget that the state is the enemy. When people start demanding concessions from the state in the midst of an economic crisis, the state will use its powers to suppress protests and ensure wealth continues to concentrate in the upper strata.

We see this in revolutions all over the world at this very moment. The state is dangerous and the police are not to be trusted in this way. The police stand against a democratic and equitable society. We must never forget this.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#254

Post by SkyBelow »

schwede wrote: post #202
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #177

You know what else protects criminals? Walls. Seriously, wouldn't it all be much easier if the police could just look into your home from the outside without those pesky walls around it? This constant war on encryption is getting so absurd lately. The kind of people who are pushing this should just be fired if not thrown into prison. It's just a blatant attack against human rights and the public should finally start…

What about warrants? The police can get a warrant to look inside your walls. You can’t do that with encryption.

Only if they think something is already happening. A world where every room in every house is covered by cameras results in less child abuse than a world where warrants are required to search a house.

How many children is privacy worth?

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#255

Post by ianleeclark »

leftyted wrote: post #200

I disagree with the tone of the comments here. Encryption is scary. Of course law enforcement is dismayed by the possibility that certain kinds of crimes could leave behind no trace at all. What these people, who want to regulate encryption, don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free society. In a free society, people can commit crimes, and sometimes they can get away with them. We've m…

> In a free society, people can commit crimes, and sometimes they can get away with them. We've made a deliberate choice to structure our society this way rather than optimizing for preventing crimes or punishing criminals.

If we're talking about the United States, then we're talking about a society of control. When you go to the store, you may pay with a debit card, thus making you trackable. Alternatively, you will be caught on a camera entering, shopping, checking-out, and then leaving the store. Maybe your smartphone was tracking your location, you had your partner email you a shopping list, or you were in a group chat discussing what to buy for your nephews Christmas present and their aunt suggested a book. Maybe your mother got a little too into genealogy and did 23andme or some other service allowing police to look for criminals. If you walk your dog through your neighborhood, how many doorbell cameras are you caught on? How many times have you seen here on HN where people said they felt compelled to check email after work to put forth the image that they fully committed to their company?

Everyone knows this is happening and everyone marches on because we still feel free despite the decentralized panopticon we've fallen into. All of the previous examples shape behavior, yet allow the facade of freedom. There's no more likely occurrence than for encryption to be subsumed to further exert control, but it will be in a way that doesn't seem to hamper freedom.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#256

Post by SkyBelow »

Gatsky wrote: post #29

Lots of criticism here, fair enough, it’s very worrying to give non-transparent institutions this kind of power, not to mention the technical feasibility. But... what should be done about child pornography, then? The ability to disseminate it with impunity is a problem we can’t just pretend doesn’t exist. Using online platforms pedophiles can monetize and go full time professional in countries where children are easi…

Find a way to cure the actual problem in society. Even if you set up a magic filter that stops every single such image from being sent, you don't end up saving children. Instead, we should focus on solving that problem.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#257

Post by carlosdp »

leftyted wrote: post #237
commandlinefan wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free society No, what they don’t understand is that the cryptography that protects your bank account is the exact same cryptography that (supposedly) makes law enforcement difficult. There’s no way to separate the two, any more than you can separate the arithmetic that is responsible for updating your bank account from the arithmetic that is respo…

Of course there's a way to separate them. Let banks do what they like and obstruct everyone else in some way. As another poster phrased the argument: "Corporations should have access to strong encryption, just not little people."

Sure except that's like trying to ban alcohol, and we all know how that worked out. It's far too easy to get your hands on, especially for criminals who are sufficiently motivated.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#258

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

commandlinefan wrote: post #222
leftyted wrote: post #200

I disagree with the tone of the comments here. Encryption is scary. Of course law enforcement is dismayed by the possibility that certain kinds of crimes could leave behind no trace at all. What these people, who want to regulate encryption, don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free society. In a free society, people can commit crimes, and sometimes they can get away with them. We've m…

> don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free society No, what they don’t understand is that the cryptography that protects your bank account is the exact same cryptography that (supposedly) makes law enforcement difficult. There’s no way to separate the two, any more than you can separate the arithmetic that is responsible for updating your bank account from the arithmetic that is respo…

> (supposedly) makes law enforcement difficult

You don't need that parenthesized qualifier, and putting it there seems unfair. If we are to have a fair, honest discussion focusing on the merits we need to recognize when the opposing side makes a valid point, and it is pretty obvious that secure & encrypted communications does make law enforcement materially more difficult.

Once this point is accepted we can focus the discussion on whether the trade off is worth it.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#259

Post by KingMachiavelli »

wruza wrote: post #43
protomyth wrote: post #17

Encryption is math, and not even hard math at that. You have as much chance of stopping evil people from using encryption as you have of stopping them from doing multiplication. Make every politician who opposes encryption feel like an idiot for thinking they can stop people from adding and multiplying.

Sadly, courts will laugh and proceed. The same argument could be done for firearms – it’s just physics, and not even space/quantum physics. Really, a device pushing a small body to some direction via expansion of another body. It’s all bodies, you can’t stop people from surrounding them with these. If adopted, a law will state “the piece of information for which format and representation cannot be detected in a consi…

Luckily speech (math, algorithms, etc) are protected in the US and many other developed countries so even when the PGP code was considered a 'munition', at the end of the day they couldn't/wouldn't bother charging the creator of PGP with exporting munitions[0]. Currently the same shame 'investigation' is occurring with 3D blueprints to print firearms[1] but it's almost certainly going to fall under protected speech as well.

The difference between the two is that encrypted data can also be considered speech while the actual manufacture/printing of a gun can be regulated. The big IF at least in the US IMHO is whether the government can force private companies to not offer E2EE but there is 0% chance that encryption in general could be criminalized. i.e it will always be legal to send PGP encrypted text through WhatsApp or a private Chanel (self-hosting IRC, email, etc.)

So the hypothetical law you proposed wouldn't be legal in the US. On the other hand, if major companies are forced to break their E2EE, it will make the rest of us stand out like a really sore thumb.

Re: Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators

#260

Post by NohatCoder »

neiman wrote: post #56

So in the same time they should condemn democracy and freedom, as they're having exactly the same effect. It is much easier for police in authoritarian countries to prevent crimes and find perpetrators. But if they don't condemn democracy and freedom, they should also not condemn encryption. The ability to communicate privately, or saying things outside the consensus anonymously, is an important tool for citizens to…

Most so-called democratic governments are running the same game. They support the word democracy, but when it comes to all the parts that actually make democracy work they often take the authoritarian stance.
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