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We've agreed as a country that the ability to get a warrant in the case of probable cause is a good thing. How is this not just maintaining that? I find it hil

We've agreed as a country that the ability to get a warrant in the case of probable cause is a good thing. How is this not just maintaining that? I find it hilarious how often privacy advocates manage to forget that we've had this conversation before, and while the government can and has overstepped in many ways, lets not throw out the ability to investigate at all along the way.

drcube 11y ago
Because breaking encryption breaks it for everyone. If the cops can get your data, so can a hacker. There is simply no way to compromise. You either are encrypted, in which case nobody but you can decrypt your data, or you're not encrypted at all. Remember the "TSA locks" we're all required to use on our luggage at the airport? Nobody but the government was supposed to be able to unlock them. But now anyone who wants to ruffle through your luggage can get universal keys for all TSA locks. What happens when that same scenario plays out with your bank account, your company emails, or any online store you've made purchases from?
- quaunaut 11y ago
  I'm not arguing to break encryption. And neither is the white house. They want ways around this stuff- ways that don't break encryption, but if the information is available, then the ability to get to it if necessary. Backdoors don't work because yeah, it breaks the whole system. But not everything is encrypted with these companies, that's just plain.
  - Zombieball 11y ago
    Perhaps I am not versed well enough in the subject, but I have a hard time envisioning any kind of system that allows government officials to get around the encryption and peer into the contents but not hackers. There will always be some sort of secret only the government has access to, and once that secret is leaked it's game over.
    - quaunaut 11y ago
      You don't give the government access to their own door. The company simply retains the right to access things- you know, the same way we have it now. All it's arguing, is to say "You don't have to encrypt literally every part of your system and delete the rest" a la what Snapchat suggests they're doing(though we don't have proof).
  - BlackFly 11y ago
    The White House is pressuring companies to not implement end to end encryption (see, for example, iMessage). Anything short of end to end encryption is considered broken by many people for communications between two parties. The only way the government can get the equivalent of a wire tap is if there is no end to end encryption. What police do not want is to need to go back to pre-telephone detective work where they need to determine the location at which the parties will communicate (with modern communications there are of course at least two locations) and compromise that location to spy on the supposed criminals.
- obastani 11y ago
  What if there was a way to give only the US government access to the data? For example, somehow have a shared encryption scheme where the user holds a decryption key to decrypt her data, but the government and the company can somehow use their keys in conjunction to decrypt the data as well. (This means company must be complicit in releasing the data, so they have the opportunity to verify/fight the warrant.) If someone came up with such a secure encryption scheme, would that be a palatable approach? I ask this because I'm curious whether you (and people in general) believe that hackability is the only obstacle to giving government access to personal data (with a warrant, of course), or if people would still be uncomfortable with such a system. Personally, I think such a scheme would be a good compromise, but I'm not a crypto expert so I don't know if it's in any way feasible.
  - fossuser 11y ago
    I think the general opinion from the 'cryptowars' in the 90s is that there is no such scheme that does't cripple the actual security of encryption. Key escrow came up back then though I don't think it included needing multiple keys in order to decrypt - not sure if that's mathematically possible or if there's another reason that never came up. I suppose to the government that's not much different than still needing to compel individuals for the key. Your point about companies is interesting since things like iMessage could be MITM currently anyway to get unencrypted content for government requests. I think most people don't necessarily trust the company behavior here though and given the government's recently revealed behavior with National Security Letters and secret, massive, unwarranted data collection I don't think they should get a pass. I'd rather side on the power structure unable to collect some of the information even if they're unable to investigate. I think fundamentally introducing multiple ways to get keys takes a secure system and makes it insecure - the access no longer rests on one individual's knowledge. In general I think that's a bad idea - it also doesn't prevent people who want to actually encrypt their information from doing so (it just harms the regular public and dumber criminals).
    - polymatter 11y ago
      > needing multiple keys in order to decrypt - not sure if that's mathematically possible As a matter of interest Shamirs Secret Sharing algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing) is quite nice in that respect. The "secret" would be the decryption key. Using Shamirs Secret Sharing algorithm you could split the key into two so you would need both parts in order to work out the decryption key. The government could have a part. The company could have another. Only when both were combined could anyone work out the decryption key. This would mean neither the company nor the government could decrypt messages until they work together - and therefore reduce the risk of hackers and rogue employees. It wouldn't break the encryption with dangerous backdoors but would allow the authorities to quickly gain access when needed for a specific investigation. I doubt anyone would ever implement anything like that since it would be (slightly more) complex and you would have to trust that the decryption parts are valid. But I thought I would just mention it in case anyone else might find that algorithm as interesting as I do.
- sdenton4 11y ago
  to obstani's sibling comment: It's not possible to make a secure encryption scheme only accessible by the government. That's the point.
- jimktrains2 11y ago
  I've always been curious, what's the rationale for opening luggage? If there is an issue, should the person be summoned before the plane is loaded and boarded? If they think it's explosive, shouldn't the NOT TOUCH IT?
  - pixl97 11y ago
    Not just bombs but every other type of contraband. Guns and drugs are the ones you commonly think of, but animals and plants can be a bigger problem, especially when you look at it in the international level.
    - jimktrains2 11y ago
      But again, why aren't I brought to be present?
baconner 11y ago
Sure, but there are many avenues of investigation that were previously available to law enforcement and still are. The question in my mind is does having effectively unbreakable ways to store data do more harm than good? I think it does more good. There are still tons of options available to law enforcement that worked in the past to catch criminals. The sheer quantity of data that is stored about each one of us opens up a lot of potential for harm (which has been massively abused). What we're talking about is simply a return to the state where if you want to gather data about a person you have to mostly start at the point when they become a real suspect not before. You also can't get a warrant to peer into the other unbreakable data store - a suspect's mind. If there were such a technology would it be ok for it to be warrantable or should some things just actually be private?
coldpie 11y ago
Crypto is all or nothing. You can't have "backdoors" into crypto algorithms that are secret only to the government. It is literally impossible. Someone will find those backdoors, and now all information that has been encrypted is wide open. So you are either advocating for the complete destruction of ecommerce and online privacy, or you are advocating for unfettered access to cryptography software. Which do you choose?
- tzs 11y ago
  > Crypto is all or nothing. You can't have "backdoors" into crypto algorithms that are secret only to the government. It is literally impossible. You don't backdoor the algorithm. You backdoor the use of the algorithm--except it is more of a front door than a back door. For instance, when the device encrypts data with a symmetric cipher, encrypt a copy of the symmetric key via a public key cipher using the FBI's public key. Variant: split the symmetric cipher key into N shares using a secret sharing algorithm, and save each share encrypted with a different public key. Include public keys from major law enforcement agencies (FBI, Interpol), and major civil rights or human rights organizations (ACLU, EFF). Design the secret sharing so that to recover the symmetric key, you need key shares from two major law enforcement agencies and from two of the civil rights organizations.
  - coldpie 11y ago
    What happens when (not if) the FBI/Interpol/whoever private keys leak?
    - tzs 11y ago
      Note: That kind of leak is extremely rare, so if that turns out to be the biggest weakness in this system then I think it has achieved my goal of showing that the only options are not completely secure and wide open. If we are using the secret sharing variant, then it means that during the time between the leak and the time the device manufacturers push out an update to replace that key and re-encrypt the appropriate shares with the new key someone who seizes a phone and wants to decrypt it only needs the approval of one major police agency and two civil rights organizations instead of two major police agencies and two civil rights organizations. If we are not using that variation, then it means that until a new key goes out in an update anyone who seizes your phone (and who has the leaked key) can decrypt it. One way to protect against this would be for the device to have a command that erases the saved encrypted symmetric keys. This command would require that you show it that you have a copy of the corresponding private key before it erases the encrypted keys.
chappi42 11y ago
I'd say: first throw out the ability for NSA to spy without letting the persons concerned speak about it. Then we can talk about 'warrants in the case of probable cause'. US as a country has lost a lot of goodwill and trust. And don't forget: - number of deaths from acts of domestic terrorism: 36 - number of deaths–homicide, suicide, and accidental–caused by firearms: 316,545 (in a decade, link: http://magazine.good.is/articles/president-obama-gun-deaths-terrorism-numbers http://magazine.good.is/articles/president-obama-gun-deaths-...) It's hilarious how some people forget what really counts (as in pain and sorrow) and where the priorities should be.
- wyager 11y ago
  And, for scale, the number of deaths caused by obesity in the same period is over 3,000,000.
- quaunaut 11y ago
  You think this stuff is just anti-terrorism? The whole reason I even MENTIONED the idea of a warrant is specifically for normal policework. It's the same as searching someone's house after a murder's taken place- just now, instead of reading their files, it's all in a secure place in their computer. Having a reasonable way to read that stuff(WITHOUT USING A BACKDOOR. I don't want weaker crypto just for this- but businesses hosting this stuff always have their proprietary ways of handling things) is just a continuation of previous law.
  - sloppycee 11y ago
    Why is it considered different from a physical safe? The government already has the ability and laws to compel citizens to provide access, why should it be any different with encryption?
    - cvwright 11y ago
      It shouldn't be any different. In fact there have been court cases in which individuals have been compelled to provide decryption keys for encrypted disks. The difference here is that the government wants vastly more access in the digital world than they have in the analog world. It's like asking all safe makers to include a secret combination, unknown to the safe's owner, that can also be used to unlock the safe.
subdane 11y ago
The ability to wiretap was a side effect of the POTS. But a side effect doesn't need to be a required feature of future technology. There's a good argument to be made that there's more rights in our constitution for protected and private speech by individuals than there are for the government to have access to it.
cryoshon 11y ago
They're investigating us, who are not suspected of any crime. Let's throw out their ability to investigate. Traditional policework goes a very, very long way, and it's time to admit that the terrorism angle is too overblown and intentionally abused to take seriously anymore. Ultra-narrowly targeted, ultra limited duration, warrant-required wiretaps which are disclosed as evidence in full during court trial are what is acceptable when exhaustion of traditional methods hasn't closed the case. That is the standard we should work from.
- quaunaut 11y ago
  But wiretaps over SSL are worthless unless you want to spend a year letting the computer run, which isn't possible thanks to that provision in the law requiring a speedy trial.
tedks 11y ago
I think what you're not understanding is that computers are literal extensions of brains and minds. We have outsourced our memories and our thought to these devices, and we must have the same assurances over them as we would over ourselves. This will become only more clear as the line between a biological memory storage device and a digital memory storage device blurs into nonexistence. And that is also a conversation we've had before. There is no warrant you can get to force a suspect to testify against himself. Though, it's cute that you think these "conversations" are meaningful. If the American government thinks you're too interesting to not know more about, they'll black-bag you and ship you off to a secret CIA dungeon where you'll be tortured for the rest of your life. Even if you end up being held without charge in a cushy place like Guantanamo, you'll never be released because you were held without charge and that makes you a terrorist. I find it hilarious how surveillance advocates manage to forget that your government does not respect rule of law, it rules by law. It is the law.

drcube 11y ago

Because breaking encryption breaks it for everyone. If the cops can get your data, so can a hacker. There is simply no way to compromise. You either are encrypted, in which case nobody but you can decrypt your data, or you're not encrypted at all. Remember the "TSA locks" we're all required to use on our luggage at the airport? Nobody but the government was supposed to be able to unlock them. But now anyone who wants to ruffle through your luggage can get universal keys for all TSA locks. What happens when that same scenario plays out with your bank account, your company emails, or any online store you've made purchases from?

quaunaut 11y ago
I'm not arguing to break encryption. And neither is the white house. They want ways around this stuff- ways that don't break encryption, but if the information is available, then the ability to get to it if necessary. Backdoors don't work because yeah, it breaks the whole system. But not everything is encrypted with these companies, that's just plain.
- Zombieball 11y ago
  Perhaps I am not versed well enough in the subject, but I have a hard time envisioning any kind of system that allows government officials to get around the encryption and peer into the contents but not hackers. There will always be some sort of secret only the government has access to, and once that secret is leaked it's game over.
  - quaunaut 11y ago
    You don't give the government access to their own door. The company simply retains the right to access things- you know, the same way we have it now. All it's arguing, is to say "You don't have to encrypt literally every part of your system and delete the rest" a la what Snapchat suggests they're doing(though we don't have proof).
- BlackFly 11y ago
  The White House is pressuring companies to not implement end to end encryption (see, for example, iMessage). Anything short of end to end encryption is considered broken by many people for communications between two parties. The only way the government can get the equivalent of a wire tap is if there is no end to end encryption. What police do not want is to need to go back to pre-telephone detective work where they need to determine the location at which the parties will communicate (with modern communications there are of course at least two locations) and compromise that location to spy on the supposed criminals.
obastani 11y ago
What if there was a way to give only the US government access to the data? For example, somehow have a shared encryption scheme where the user holds a decryption key to decrypt her data, but the government and the company can somehow use their keys in conjunction to decrypt the data as well. (This means company must be complicit in releasing the data, so they have the opportunity to verify/fight the warrant.) If someone came up with such a secure encryption scheme, would that be a palatable approach? I ask this because I'm curious whether you (and people in general) believe that hackability is the only obstacle to giving government access to personal data (with a warrant, of course), or if people would still be uncomfortable with such a system. Personally, I think such a scheme would be a good compromise, but I'm not a crypto expert so I don't know if it's in any way feasible.
- fossuser 11y ago
  I think the general opinion from the 'cryptowars' in the 90s is that there is no such scheme that does't cripple the actual security of encryption. Key escrow came up back then though I don't think it included needing multiple keys in order to decrypt - not sure if that's mathematically possible or if there's another reason that never came up. I suppose to the government that's not much different than still needing to compel individuals for the key. Your point about companies is interesting since things like iMessage could be MITM currently anyway to get unencrypted content for government requests. I think most people don't necessarily trust the company behavior here though and given the government's recently revealed behavior with National Security Letters and secret, massive, unwarranted data collection I don't think they should get a pass. I'd rather side on the power structure unable to collect some of the information even if they're unable to investigate. I think fundamentally introducing multiple ways to get keys takes a secure system and makes it insecure - the access no longer rests on one individual's knowledge. In general I think that's a bad idea - it also doesn't prevent people who want to actually encrypt their information from doing so (it just harms the regular public and dumber criminals).
  - polymatter 11y ago
    > needing multiple keys in order to decrypt - not sure if that's mathematically possible As a matter of interest Shamirs Secret Sharing algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing) is quite nice in that respect. The "secret" would be the decryption key. Using Shamirs Secret Sharing algorithm you could split the key into two so you would need both parts in order to work out the decryption key. The government could have a part. The company could have another. Only when both were combined could anyone work out the decryption key. This would mean neither the company nor the government could decrypt messages until they work together - and therefore reduce the risk of hackers and rogue employees. It wouldn't break the encryption with dangerous backdoors but would allow the authorities to quickly gain access when needed for a specific investigation. I doubt anyone would ever implement anything like that since it would be (slightly more) complex and you would have to trust that the decryption parts are valid. But I thought I would just mention it in case anyone else might find that algorithm as interesting as I do.
sdenton4 11y ago
to obstani's sibling comment: It's not possible to make a secure encryption scheme only accessible by the government. That's the point.
jimktrains2 11y ago
I've always been curious, what's the rationale for opening luggage? If there is an issue, should the person be summoned before the plane is loaded and boarded? If they think it's explosive, shouldn't the NOT TOUCH IT?
- pixl97 11y ago
  Not just bombs but every other type of contraband. Guns and drugs are the ones you commonly think of, but animals and plants can be a bigger problem, especially when you look at it in the international level.
  - jimktrains2 11y ago
    But again, why aren't I brought to be present?

baconner 11y ago

Sure, but there are many avenues of investigation that were previously available to law enforcement and still are. The question in my mind is does having effectively unbreakable ways to store data do more harm than good? I think it does more good. There are still tons of options available to law enforcement that worked in the past to catch criminals. The sheer quantity of data that is stored about each one of us opens up a lot of potential for harm (which has been massively abused). What we're talking about is simply a return to the state where if you want to gather data about a person you have to mostly start at the point when they become a real suspect not before. You also can't get a warrant to peer into the other unbreakable data store - a suspect's mind. If there were such a technology would it be ok for it to be warrantable or should some things just actually be private?

coldpie 11y ago

Crypto is all or nothing. You can't have "backdoors" into crypto algorithms that are secret only to the government. It is literally impossible. Someone will find those backdoors, and now all information that has been encrypted is wide open. So you are either advocating for the complete destruction of ecommerce and online privacy, or you are advocating for unfettered access to cryptography software. Which do you choose?

tzs 11y ago
> Crypto is all or nothing. You can't have "backdoors" into crypto algorithms that are secret only to the government. It is literally impossible. You don't backdoor the algorithm. You backdoor the use of the algorithm--except it is more of a front door than a back door. For instance, when the device encrypts data with a symmetric cipher, encrypt a copy of the symmetric key via a public key cipher using the FBI's public key. Variant: split the symmetric cipher key into N shares using a secret sharing algorithm, and save each share encrypted with a different public key. Include public keys from major law enforcement agencies (FBI, Interpol), and major civil rights or human rights organizations (ACLU, EFF). Design the secret sharing so that to recover the symmetric key, you need key shares from two major law enforcement agencies and from two of the civil rights organizations.
- coldpie 11y ago
  What happens when (not if) the FBI/Interpol/whoever private keys leak?
  - tzs 11y ago
    Note: That kind of leak is extremely rare, so if that turns out to be the biggest weakness in this system then I think it has achieved my goal of showing that the only options are not completely secure and wide open. If we are using the secret sharing variant, then it means that during the time between the leak and the time the device manufacturers push out an update to replace that key and re-encrypt the appropriate shares with the new key someone who seizes a phone and wants to decrypt it only needs the approval of one major police agency and two civil rights organizations instead of two major police agencies and two civil rights organizations. If we are not using that variation, then it means that until a new key goes out in an update anyone who seizes your phone (and who has the leaked key) can decrypt it. One way to protect against this would be for the device to have a command that erases the saved encrypted symmetric keys. This command would require that you show it that you have a copy of the corresponding private key before it erases the encrypted keys.

chappi42 11y ago

I'd say: first throw out the ability for NSA to spy without letting the persons concerned speak about it. Then we can talk about 'warrants in the case of probable cause'. US as a country has lost a lot of goodwill and trust. And don't forget: - number of deaths from acts of domestic terrorism: 36 - number of deaths–homicide, suicide, and accidental–caused by firearms: 316,545 (in a decade, link: http://magazine.good.is/articles/president-obama-gun-deaths-terrorism-numbers http://magazine.good.is/articles/president-obama-gun-deaths-...) It's hilarious how some people forget what really counts (as in pain and sorrow) and where the priorities should be.

wyager 11y ago
And, for scale, the number of deaths caused by obesity in the same period is over 3,000,000.
quaunaut 11y ago
You think this stuff is just anti-terrorism? The whole reason I even MENTIONED the idea of a warrant is specifically for normal policework. It's the same as searching someone's house after a murder's taken place- just now, instead of reading their files, it's all in a secure place in their computer. Having a reasonable way to read that stuff(WITHOUT USING A BACKDOOR. I don't want weaker crypto just for this- but businesses hosting this stuff always have their proprietary ways of handling things) is just a continuation of previous law.
- sloppycee 11y ago
  Why is it considered different from a physical safe? The government already has the ability and laws to compel citizens to provide access, why should it be any different with encryption?
  - cvwright 11y ago
    It shouldn't be any different. In fact there have been court cases in which individuals have been compelled to provide decryption keys for encrypted disks. The difference here is that the government wants vastly more access in the digital world than they have in the analog world. It's like asking all safe makers to include a secret combination, unknown to the safe's owner, that can also be used to unlock the safe.

subdane 11y ago

The ability to wiretap was a side effect of the POTS. But a side effect doesn't need to be a required feature of future technology. There's a good argument to be made that there's more rights in our constitution for protected and private speech by individuals than there are for the government to have access to it.

cryoshon 11y ago

They're investigating us, who are not suspected of any crime. Let's throw out their ability to investigate. Traditional policework goes a very, very long way, and it's time to admit that the terrorism angle is too overblown and intentionally abused to take seriously anymore. Ultra-narrowly targeted, ultra limited duration, warrant-required wiretaps which are disclosed as evidence in full during court trial are what is acceptable when exhaustion of traditional methods hasn't closed the case. That is the standard we should work from.

quaunaut 11y ago
But wiretaps over SSL are worthless unless you want to spend a year letting the computer run, which isn't possible thanks to that provision in the law requiring a speedy trial.

tedks 11y ago

I think what you're not understanding is that computers are literal extensions of brains and minds. We have outsourced our memories and our thought to these devices, and we must have the same assurances over them as we would over ourselves. This will become only more clear as the line between a biological memory storage device and a digital memory storage device blurs into nonexistence. And that is also a conversation we've had before. There is no warrant you can get to force a suspect to testify against himself. Though, it's cute that you think these "conversations" are meaningful. If the American government thinks you're too interesting to not know more about, they'll black-bag you and ship you off to a secret CIA dungeon where you'll be tortured for the rest of your life. Even if you end up being held without charge in a cushy place like Guantanamo, you'll never be released because you were held without charge and that makes you a terrorist. I find it hilarious how surveillance advocates manage to forget that your government does not respect rule of law, it rules by law. It is the law.