3 ms·

I mean that's all fine and dandy but there's a couple problems. 1. The public key of the judge will be compromised. Not might, not won't. It will. End of story

I mean that's all fine and dandy but there's a couple problems. 1. The public key of the judge will be compromised. Not might, not won't. It will. End of story. This opens my device to a bunch of non-authorized individuals exfiltrating data without my knowledge. This is completely unreasonable at every level. To draw a parallel, this would like all locks in your house having a "police" keying. 2. Computers are not papers. Papers is a well defined term. 3. These ports would be taken advantage of by three-letter agencies without your knowledge and without a warrant. The only thing your approach allows is that the police officer won't snag your laptop so the office gets a new one. But really, that won't stop them from stealing your stuff so not even that works. The police cant even be trusted to not shoot an innocent person. What makes you think they can be trusted with a golden key? This approach completely undermines the entire reason we have encryption and AIDS the police in parallel construction. Not the other way around. Read on skipjack and the clipper chip. This kind of tech has been discussed and it DOES NOT work.

Retra 11y ago
You can't just say "Computers are not papers. Papers is a well defined term" following a suggestion that this definition may be wrong. The whole point of being 'secure in your papers' is to enable diplomacy and discussion that has a reasonable expectation of being inaccessible to those in power. It's not a place to lawyer the law into irrelevance.
pjc50 11y ago
Oh indeed, I don't trust them either. This is more a proposal of "if an even-handed compromise could be reached for allowing the pursuit of legitimate investigations only, here is what it might look like". The point was to allow only access to "documents" that are (a) on a device physically in the possession of the police (ie NOT remote access) and (b) in a tamper-evident fashion. Making it impossible to do without your knowledge, and partially addressing both (1) and (3). (1) can be further addressed by keeping the key in a hardware module. Computers have clearly replaced paper and are somewhat analogous. If we can change the construal of "marriage" we can change the construal of "papers". The LEAF system was for intercepting communications in transit, which is different and I agree with preventing.
granos 11y ago
For #1) If a judge's private key were compromised there are solutions. Treat the judge as an intermediary CA cert (I'm assuming there would be an actual root somewhere) that issues individual certs per warrant. The software on the phone (which holds the ability to decrypt the data) then verifies the entire chain of trust. If the signature appears correct and everything validates, but the certificate revocation list is too old/can't be updated, maybe it enters some kind of lock mode that only the carrier/manufacturer can unlock. But it gives the LEO nothing and prevents the user from deleting data. All accesses must be logged. This way we can see what warrants have been executed and can track to see if they match what the judge has issued. Any discrepancy can lead to cert revocation.
- belovedeagle 11y ago
  And the phone knows what time it is because...? All an attacker has to do is put the phone in a Faraday cage and spoof the cell time while the cert is stolen. trivial.

Retra 11y ago

You can't just say "Computers are not papers. Papers is a well defined term" following a suggestion that this definition may be wrong. The whole point of being 'secure in your papers' is to enable diplomacy and discussion that has a reasonable expectation of being inaccessible to those in power. It's not a place to lawyer the law into irrelevance.

pjc50 11y ago

Oh indeed, I don't trust them either. This is more a proposal of "if an even-handed compromise could be reached for allowing the pursuit of legitimate investigations only, here is what it might look like". The point was to allow only access to "documents" that are (a) on a device physically in the possession of the police (ie NOT remote access) and (b) in a tamper-evident fashion. Making it impossible to do without your knowledge, and partially addressing both (1) and (3). (1) can be further addressed by keeping the key in a hardware module. Computers have clearly replaced paper and are somewhat analogous. If we can change the construal of "marriage" we can change the construal of "papers". The LEAF system was for intercepting communications in transit, which is different and I agree with preventing.

granos 11y ago

For #1) If a judge's private key were compromised there are solutions. Treat the judge as an intermediary CA cert (I'm assuming there would be an actual root somewhere) that issues individual certs per warrant. The software on the phone (which holds the ability to decrypt the data) then verifies the entire chain of trust. If the signature appears correct and everything validates, but the certificate revocation list is too old/can't be updated, maybe it enters some kind of lock mode that only the carrier/manufacturer can unlock. But it gives the LEO nothing and prevents the user from deleting data. All accesses must be logged. This way we can see what warrants have been executed and can track to see if they match what the judge has issued. Any discrepancy can lead to cert revocation.

belovedeagle 11y ago
And the phone knows what time it is because...? All an attacker has to do is put the phone in a Faraday cage and spoof the cell time while the cert is stolen. trivial.