4 ms·

That's like saying that, by letting the bank hold your money, you're implicitly giving bank robbers the access to the money, by virtue of imperfect security. A

by joesb 11y ago

That's like saying that, by letting the bank hold your money, you're implicitly giving bank robbers the access to the money, by virtue of imperfect security. And since your own house's security is also imperfect, you are also giving everyone access to your house and properties.

lotyrin 11y ago
Not that I agree with them, but this analogy doesn't hold. What if the bank in question is in a nation where criminals vastly outnumber and over-power public and private security? The matter really is quite a bit different when dealing with information than with tangibles (or mutable information representing scarce quantities) because of how easily information can be copied and how you can't recover privacy. (e.g. how silly it is to say that "Our legal counsel is working to ensure that all copies of these photos are deleted from the internet.") If you start with the reasonable premises of "Information can be copied" "I cannot trust the information security of a third party to be perfect" you only need to add a dash of absolutism ("imperfect security may as well be no security") to get to "Information I cannot risk certain third parties having is information I cannot risk any third parties having". I don't think you're advocating for swapping that with "imperfect security is all that can possibly exist so is by definition good enough" but in the case you are, that's equally absolute and incorrect. Absolutism with information-theoretical assessment of security risk is pretty common (for good reason) in corners of industry so it should be expected as guaranteed that in discussions people will express that kind of position (on top of the human tendency for absolutism in general). The difference is simply that when making practical choices about behavior, you must employ cost benefit analysis with expected values. Will I avoid using services that track my usage? No. Would I while I'm doing something illegal? Probably, if its not very inconvenient. Will I encrypt a private key before I upload it to my backup host? Yes. Will I revoke that key if I find out my backup hosting is breached? Probably. I'd have to do the math on how likely I think it is attackers have the key, will expend effort to brute force it, will succeed vs the pain it'll be to rotate that key.

by joesb 11y ago

lotyrin 11y ago

Not that I agree with them, but this analogy doesn't hold. What if the bank in question is in a nation where criminals vastly outnumber and over-power public and private security? The matter really is quite a bit different when dealing with information than with tangibles (or mutable information representing scarce quantities) because of how easily information can be copied and how you can't recover privacy. (e.g. how silly it is to say that "Our legal counsel is working to ensure that all copies of these photos are deleted from the internet.") If you start with the reasonable premises of "Information can be copied" "I cannot trust the information security of a third party to be perfect" you only need to add a dash of absolutism ("imperfect security may as well be no security") to get to "Information I cannot risk certain third parties having is information I cannot risk any third parties having". I don't think you're advocating for swapping that with "imperfect security is all that can possibly exist so is by definition good enough" but in the case you are, that's equally absolute and incorrect. Absolutism with information-theoretical assessment of security risk is pretty common (for good reason) in corners of industry so it should be expected as guaranteed that in discussions people will express that kind of position (on top of the human tendency for absolutism in general). The difference is simply that when making practical choices about behavior, you must employ cost benefit analysis with expected values. Will I avoid using services that track my usage? No. Would I while I'm doing something illegal? Probably, if its not very inconvenient. Will I encrypt a private key before I upload it to my backup host? Yes. Will I revoke that key if I find out my backup hosting is breached? Probably. I'd have to do the math on how likely I think it is attackers have the key, will expend effort to brute force it, will succeed vs the pain it'll be to rotate that key.