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> Are they also aware that the exact same technology is used to protect their online banking? Yes they are -- that's why it's not a matter of passing a one-pag

> Are they also aware that the exact same technology is used to protect their online banking? Yes they are -- that's why it's not a matter of passing a one-page bill overnight, but rather a more complex piece of legislation that in order to be done right, need time and bi-partisan involvement. And I found it hard to believe you don't see a difference between encrypting your bank transaction, and encrypting your online conversation. Disclosure: I'm against all type of bans on any encryption.

Retra 11y ago
You don't think it is feasible develop a messaging system that employs bank transactions?
Swizec 11y ago
> don't see a difference between encrypting your bank transaction, and encrypting your online conversation. How is my online conversation with the bank any different than my other online conversations? Sure the content is different, but it's all the same medium, using the same sort of technology.
- joering2 11y ago
  > How is my online conversation with the bank any different than my other online conversations? It happened between you and your legitimate bank. Its definitely not like 2 terrorist exchanging information online. Unless of course your are HSBC bank.
tadfisher 11y ago
Banking doesn't strike me as a use-case that the government needs to worry about, since a mandate already exists to report financial information and suspicious banking activity to law enforcement. A backdoor would be more convenient for them, but encryption of your communications between you and the bank does not mean the bank is encrypting your financial and demographic information in such a way that they themselves will not be able to retrieve it. What's being discussed here is the Apple strategy, where the service provider can provide a service to the public without the ability to retrieve information generated by the service. The desire for companies to provide such services was likely spurred by the government's insistence that they provide private encryption keys, even in the event that they provide access to encrypted information not limited to the direct subject of a warrant, and the federal courts' repeated confirmation of the government's power to enforce such requests. See the demise of Lavabit [1]. There are numerous technical workarounds to this problem; for example, a private-key infrastructure that generates one key pair per message, or per customer. However, none of those workarounds allow a service provider to market products that are end-to-end secure from eavesdropping or the later revelation of the customer's information to empowered third parties. So in essence, the argument I'm making is that it doesn't matter if there is a fundamental difference between banking and a chat application, because in either case the government either already has or is actively seeking the power to obtain the information you generate. As it's hard to imagine a world where malicious parties would not be able to obtain encrypted communication mechanisms (unless you ban open-source, computers, pens, and the human brain), it's difficult to reconcile the above with the proposed effect this law would have, and it's very difficult to imagine the government restricting the application of these new powers to terrorist organizations only. See the history of the Patriot Act, for example [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/29/surprise-controversial-patriot-act-power-now-overwhelmingly-used-in-drug-investigations/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/29/...
TeMPOraL 11y ago
It shouldn't be hard to believe because there is no difference whatsoever. You could do bank transactions over chat, you could run chat over bank transactions. Both are fundamentally the same thing. The mathematical model that says that Alice exchanges information with Bob is not a simplification, it's fundamentally how it works. Content is arbitrary and doesn't matter.
- techdragon 11y ago
  Put more simply. If the terrorist wants to stay safe they would exploit any loophole. If conversation is backdoored but banking is not, they could use online banking and code word type messages in transaction descriptions that move trivial amounts of money back and forth between multiple accounts.
  - plonh 11y ago
    You are ignoring the bandwidth differences between protocols.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      You don't need much bandwidth. The Internet is creating a false sense of data size because nowadays even a simple hello world seems to require a multi-megabyte download. But actual communication for practical purposes can be done in just bytes. There's more than enough space in transfer title to communicate a lot of stuff, even without a pre-arranged set of shortcuts, and in planning stages, you don't need real-time communication anyway. (Note, this comment would fit in one or two bank tranfers).

Retra 11y ago

You don't think it is feasible develop a messaging system that employs bank transactions?

Swizec 11y ago

> don't see a difference between encrypting your bank transaction, and encrypting your online conversation. How is my online conversation with the bank any different than my other online conversations? Sure the content is different, but it's all the same medium, using the same sort of technology.

joering2 11y ago
> How is my online conversation with the bank any different than my other online conversations? It happened between you and your legitimate bank. Its definitely not like 2 terrorist exchanging information online. Unless of course your are HSBC bank.

tadfisher 11y ago

Banking doesn't strike me as a use-case that the government needs to worry about, since a mandate already exists to report financial information and suspicious banking activity to law enforcement. A backdoor would be more convenient for them, but encryption of your communications between you and the bank does not mean the bank is encrypting your financial and demographic information in such a way that they themselves will not be able to retrieve it. What's being discussed here is the Apple strategy, where the service provider can provide a service to the public without the ability to retrieve information generated by the service. The desire for companies to provide such services was likely spurred by the government's insistence that they provide private encryption keys, even in the event that they provide access to encrypted information not limited to the direct subject of a warrant, and the federal courts' repeated confirmation of the government's power to enforce such requests. See the demise of Lavabit [1]. There are numerous technical workarounds to this problem; for example, a private-key infrastructure that generates one key pair per message, or per customer. However, none of those workarounds allow a service provider to market products that are end-to-end secure from eavesdropping or the later revelation of the customer's information to empowered third parties. So in essence, the argument I'm making is that it doesn't matter if there is a fundamental difference between banking and a chat application, because in either case the government either already has or is actively seeking the power to obtain the information you generate. As it's hard to imagine a world where malicious parties would not be able to obtain encrypted communication mechanisms (unless you ban open-source, computers, pens, and the human brain), it's difficult to reconcile the above with the proposed effect this law would have, and it's very difficult to imagine the government restricting the application of these new powers to terrorist organizations only. See the history of the Patriot Act, for example [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/29/surprise-controversial-patriot-act-power-now-overwhelmingly-used-in-drug-investigations/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/29/...

TeMPOraL 11y ago

It shouldn't be hard to believe because there is no difference whatsoever. You could do bank transactions over chat, you could run chat over bank transactions. Both are fundamentally the same thing. The mathematical model that says that Alice exchanges information with Bob is not a simplification, it's fundamentally how it works. Content is arbitrary and doesn't matter.

techdragon 11y ago
Put more simply. If the terrorist wants to stay safe they would exploit any loophole. If conversation is backdoored but banking is not, they could use online banking and code word type messages in transaction descriptions that move trivial amounts of money back and forth between multiple accounts.
- plonh 11y ago
  You are ignoring the bandwidth differences between protocols.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    You don't need much bandwidth. The Internet is creating a false sense of data size because nowadays even a simple hello world seems to require a multi-megabyte download. But actual communication for practical purposes can be done in just bytes. There's more than enough space in transfer title to communicate a lot of stuff, even without a pre-arranged set of shortcuts, and in planning stages, you don't need real-time communication anyway. (Note, this comment would fit in one or two bank tranfers).