The Moral Failure of Computer Scientists

There's a corollary to Betteridge's Law: when someone posts an article with a question mark in the headline to Hacker News, someone will inevitably post a comment to the article that mentions Betteridge's Law.

Part of my overall claims here is that the police state aspect of our government only kicks in on priority targets. Average person or project in crypto doesn't matter. A good case would be solid protection that applies to high-value target. Might support those like Wikileaks, Snowden, or terrorist cell that happens to use a specific product.

So, we saw LEO's and payment processors largely kill Wikileaks by cutting its donations off. Wikileaks supporter and Tor evangelist Jacob Appelbaum does plenty OPSEC to avoid problems they aim at him. Lavabit, Snowden's email provider, was shutdown after receiving a secret order to compromise all its users and lie to them about it (see records if you doubt that part). Surespot allegedly pulled its warrant canary after ISIS used its tech. Apple and other companies doing end-to-end messaging are getting hit hundreds of millions at a time via Virnetx: a shell company for patents from NSA, CIA, and SAIC.

Seems to be a number of actions and reactions against anyone that becomes a problem. Most never see it. Hence, would doubt it's a concern. That they do enforcement part with "legitimate" organizations and courts makes that more so. That's be beauty of the modern, Dual State: invisible to most means odds of questioning or getting rid of it are lower than prior surveillance and police state models.

You said I create an encryption system to protect email. It gets large uptake to point NSA and FBI are pissed by it. With current laws, they will feel free to

Lavabit shut down because they got a court order! Related to Snowden (who clearly violated the letter of the law, he isn't just some rabble rouser that they decided to hassle). It would also be more interesting if Lavabit was forced to shut down because it did not have the ability to access users communications, rather than the refusal of Levison of provide the FBI with access (a capability he did have).

You directly state that Appelbaum manages to avoid problems (remember where I started? How would he just avoid them shooting his dog?).

"Lavabit shut down because they got a court order!"

Love how you word it in a way that throws it under the rug. You could similarly say all of America deserves to be under surveillance because they got a [FISA] court order for certain parameters. Most court orders involve invading the privacy of the accused or some people connected. Lavabit was ordered to compromise all users and to lie about it. The only reason we know the order exists is because the owner fought for that. Before that, people like you would've argued that individual accounts info are turned over per warrants or court orders but not all users. And certainly not secret, black boxes added to companies' networks to do whatever the government wanted with that data.

"It would also be more interesting if Lavabit was forced to shut down because it did not have the ability to access users communications, rather than the refusal of Levison of provide the FBI with access (a capability he did have)."

Hence the warrant canaries, including what I gave you. Unfortunately, they're threatened with prison if they give details up to that they've been compelled to compromise their users. "End-to-end," but proprietary, schemes can be compromised with the update mechanism. It's all we have because that's what kind of pseudo-police state we live in.

"How would he just avoid them shooting his dog?"

You have no arguments against my claims so you make up other ones I never said? People's dogs getting shot is something that happens in my city but I never said it would happen to U.S. government opponents. I've said they would use whatever legal pressure they could against whoever mattered. This includes FBI FISA warrants, NSL's, and court orders. This might also include harassment via other agencies. There's precedent for these things. They don't shoot peoples' dogs and they rarely assassinate them if that's your next move.

Going to prison with what dirt NSA can give FBI is already bad enough for most. Lifelong surveillance, risk, and/or harassment is the common reaction. Financial troubles for businesses. Most just go along with whatever they're doing.

First, the Constitution as a whole is "addressed" to the government, not the people. That is, the Constitution tells the government what it may do. In the case of the IVth, it tells the government search powers are limited to those allowed by the Constitution.

If the Constitution is amended to say "Government officials may levitate" it does not confer the power to make gravity illegal.

Similarly, if encryption can build an uncrackable "safe" for your documents - moreover one that can be made invisible and deniable - government search powers are as limited by mathematics as they are by gravity. The only difference is that government officials don't actually expect to levitate.

That means when the people invent something that thwarts government power, there is nothing in the Constitution that says anything about that. Even less does it say "No, the people can't have that."