4 ms·

The writer of this is confused. The UK politicians don't care about whether something is trivial or not, all they want is to ban it. Sort of like making a fire

The writer of this is confused. The UK politicians don't care about whether something is trivial or not, all they want is to ban it. Sort of like making a fire is trivial, and it's illegal to do so in many places.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago
This isn't about the triviality of implementing rc4, it's about the absurdity of banning information in a general sense. Information can be copied at zero cost, transmitted instantly over vast distances, and stored permanently and undetectably in the human brain. Information spreads like a virus in a very literal sense - you overhear a scrap of plot and suddenly a whole film is spoiled. Trying to ban information is a futile as trying to arrest people for catching influenza. This isn't like banning campfires, or even like banning firemaking implements, it's like banning the very idea of fire.
- johansch 11y ago
  Again you are missing the point. We see it that way, they don't. We certainly won't win this battle by trying to teach them information theory (good luck! :) )
  - chaz72 11y ago
    I don't agree at all, I would even think that you are missing the point by saying "they don't see it that way". Well, they don't see it that way because they are ignorant. I agree with the author: Finding a way to communicate this, to educate the ignorant (politicians and voters both) is in fact the crucial battle right now. Whether this little technical demonstration does that or not... well, we'll see. But I absolutely can't fault the effort.
    - chaz72 11y ago
      Responding to your edit, "We certainly won't win this battle by trying to teach them information theory (good luck! :) )": I think your goalposts are shifting here. A simple example that is easy to spread and easy to demonstrate sounds at least plausible. It certainly doesn't sound to me like teaching them information theory, it sounds more like a challenge: "How will your laws prevent me doing this?" Perhaps they'll block Twitter too?
declan 11y ago
>Sort of like making a fire is trivial Yes, but demonstrating the practical difficulty in trying to regulate 102-byte sequences that can fit on a T-shirt (or in a tweet) has a utility of its own. It's what Prof. Dave Touretzky did in the case of DeCSS, which got shrunk down to 434 bytes when implemented in C: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/ https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
- johansch 11y ago
  Yeah, the same sorta utility it has to demonstrate that it is possible for anyone to create a fire in any publicly accessible location in London, for instance in some very valuable historic building. (No, I am not advocating you do so.) I'm just making the point that you didn't get my point. They don't care about how feasible or trivial something is as long as they can ban the usage of it. In legal terms: all you are doing is irrelevant technical wanking.
  - darkmighty 11y ago
    I think he understands it's possible to ban it, it just won't work for the cases that matter. There's a deeper problem with banning encryption of any form (e.g. "strong encryption") that an encrypted file can be made indistinguishable from random data. If the police or any prosecutor will never be able to tell that a chunk of that was strongly encrypted (technically feasible), the law will never work. And then there's the sheer absurdity of the idea, which the comparison banishing starting fires doesn't capture.
    - johansch 11y ago
      You are also missing the point. The law mostly cares about intent and the prosecutor (or whatever it is called where you live) being able to convince the jury or judge of what they thought happened. It's not like the sort of logical reasoning that happens when software engineers battle for the Right way to do something. :)
      - darkmighty 11y ago
lectrick 11y ago
They're basically banning a (long) number. Which is absurd. I thought we hashed this out when DeCSS was a thing.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago

This isn't about the triviality of implementing rc4, it's about the absurdity of banning information in a general sense. Information can be copied at zero cost, transmitted instantly over vast distances, and stored permanently and undetectably in the human brain. Information spreads like a virus in a very literal sense - you overhear a scrap of plot and suddenly a whole film is spoiled. Trying to ban information is a futile as trying to arrest people for catching influenza. This isn't like banning campfires, or even like banning firemaking implements, it's like banning the very idea of fire.

johansch 11y ago
Again you are missing the point. We see it that way, they don't. We certainly won't win this battle by trying to teach them information theory (good luck! :) )
- chaz72 11y ago
  I don't agree at all, I would even think that you are missing the point by saying "they don't see it that way". Well, they don't see it that way because they are ignorant. I agree with the author: Finding a way to communicate this, to educate the ignorant (politicians and voters both) is in fact the crucial battle right now. Whether this little technical demonstration does that or not... well, we'll see. But I absolutely can't fault the effort.
  - chaz72 11y ago
    Responding to your edit, "We certainly won't win this battle by trying to teach them information theory (good luck! :) )": I think your goalposts are shifting here. A simple example that is easy to spread and easy to demonstrate sounds at least plausible. It certainly doesn't sound to me like teaching them information theory, it sounds more like a challenge: "How will your laws prevent me doing this?" Perhaps they'll block Twitter too?

declan 11y ago

>Sort of like making a fire is trivial Yes, but demonstrating the practical difficulty in trying to regulate 102-byte sequences that can fit on a T-shirt (or in a tweet) has a utility of its own. It's what Prof. Dave Touretzky did in the case of DeCSS, which got shrunk down to 434 bytes when implemented in C: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/ https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

johansch 11y ago
Yeah, the same sorta utility it has to demonstrate that it is possible for anyone to create a fire in any publicly accessible location in London, for instance in some very valuable historic building. (No, I am not advocating you do so.) I'm just making the point that you didn't get my point. They don't care about how feasible or trivial something is as long as they can ban the usage of it. In legal terms: all you are doing is irrelevant technical wanking.
- darkmighty 11y ago
  I think he understands it's possible to ban it, it just won't work for the cases that matter. There's a deeper problem with banning encryption of any form (e.g. "strong encryption") that an encrypted file can be made indistinguishable from random data. If the police or any prosecutor will never be able to tell that a chunk of that was strongly encrypted (technically feasible), the law will never work. And then there's the sheer absurdity of the idea, which the comparison banishing starting fires doesn't capture.
  - johansch 11y ago
    You are also missing the point. The law mostly cares about intent and the prosecutor (or whatever it is called where you live) being able to convince the jury or judge of what they thought happened. It's not like the sort of logical reasoning that happens when software engineers battle for the Right way to do something. :)
    - darkmighty 11y ago

lectrick 11y ago

They're basically banning a (long) number. Which is absurd. I thought we hashed this out when DeCSS was a thing.