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They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a communit

They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into encrypted communications. Or to restate, "Please, Apple, think of the children!" Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Part of the argument is in convincing your opponent that your morality is superior to theirs. Or, perhaps, that their stance violates their own sense of morality.

DennisP 11y ago
Part three of the paper contains his justification for opposing mass surveillance.
policestate101 11y ago
When your opponent condones torture, indefinite imprisonment of innocents, war crimes, and genocide, there is little point in having anbopen dialog or argument with them.
- hueving 11y ago
  There are many people that don't condone those things but still think law enforcement should be able to get into people's computers or read communications with a warrant. It's more nuanced than you would like to believe.
  - policestate101 11y ago
    Nauance is really serving all those blacks in jail for fabricated evidence. Nauance has done wonders for the people of Syria. Nauanc as in "disposition matrix" instead of targeted assassinations. Sometimes things are so nauanced hospitals filled with doctors without borders get bombed, so nuanced we may not even consider it a war crime! But do on about how much more nuanced the world really is, how incredibly morally bankrupt, what weak moral fiber to defend torture through the weasel words of nauace, the millions of dead surely are glad for such a reasonable and nauceced view you present. Again, debating people who condone torture and mass murder is a waste of time.
cscheid 11y ago
Yes, that is certainly a tension here. I think it's easier to think of the paper as two broadly different subparts. The first part is: "regardless of what you think, if something you do rearranges power, then it will become political". This is more a statement of fact than anything else. The second part is: "now that I hope to have convinced you that crypto is necessarily political, here's the moral stance I would prefer for you to follow."
Zigurd 11y ago
Are you implying that "law enforcement officials" have moral standing, especially in the US? Torture, racism, fraud, corruption, brutality, are what springs to mind, along with a total lack of will to reform. To hell with that.
- dvanduzer 11y ago
  > Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. So no, that implication really isn't there. The lack of will to reform is not total amongst LEOs. The lack of political will to do many seemingly sensible things in this country is a moral failure that every citizen shares.
  - bigiain 11y ago
    Would you agree that well over 99% of LEOs either actively or passively ignore abuses by their colleagues? As evidenced by things like this: http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-documents-reveal-dothan-police-department-planted-drugs-on-young-black-men-for-years-district-attorney-doug-valeska-complicit/ http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-document... I suspect that you're right that it is a minority of LEOs that actually abuse their power (possibly a 49% minority, but possibly even as low as 10% or even 1%), but it's clear that there are many more - an overwhelming majority, who actively defend or passively ignore those who do. (I'm sure I only ever see the bad ones, but just about every statement by the Fraternal Order of Police makes me seethe with rage...)
- andreyf 11y ago
  Torture, racism, fraud, corruption: yes. Total lack of will to reform: no.
  - bigiain 11y ago
    OK, take "Total" out and see if you're still happy with that answer: http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-documents-reveal-dothan-police-department-planted-drugs-on-young-black-men-for-years-district-attorney-doug-valeska-complicit/ http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-document... It seems to me there's a tremendous lack of will to reform abuses and criminal acts by LEO. Perhaps not "Total", but so marginally less than "Total" as to be functionally equivalent (in that "not all men" kind of failure to acknowledge reality...).
erikpukinskis 11y ago
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Part of the argument is in convincing your opponent that your morality is superior to theirs. Or, perhaps, that their stance violates their own sense of morality. Why? I can't just live morally and let my "opponent" do what they think is right? I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I feel no need to convince other people that my morality is superior to theirs.
- jpmec 11y ago
  > I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    > I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly I suspect ISIS would not agree with that statement, but with one that is slightly different: "I feel very strongly that people should decide that what I think is right and fight for it."
- darawk 11y ago
  > I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. > I feel no need to convince other people that my morality is superior to theirs. Those two statements are in direct contradiction. Fighting for your morality is convincing others of its superiority. Those two things are the same thing.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    > Fighting for your morality is convincing others of its superiority. Unless your morality includes letting others come to their own conclusions about what is right. In that case, trying to convince others that they should let others pick their own morals would be self-contradictory.
    - 11y ago
woodman 11y ago
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. That is only true if there are no universal preferences: things like self ownership, all things being equal, is always preferable to slavery.
- shkkmo 11y ago
  Universality doesn't necessarily have anything to do with morality. If I want to kill all other people and I successfully kill everyone but myself, my preference has become universal but fulfilling that preference has not become any more moral. Personally, I don't think morality is all that subjective, but more an emergent property of community identity. (Thus is inherently shared rather than inherently personal). I would way that Morality is, fortunately, relative.
  - woodman 11y ago
    As a foundation for morality it does, violation of a universal principle being an immoral act. Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time, I'd say that universality has no such constraint: the concept of a perfect circle exists regardless of a physical example ever having existed.
    - shkkmo 11y ago
      > Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time So do you include the future and the past? If you include the future it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine the universality of a principle. If you don't include the future, that means that it is possible for the universality of a principle to change. Then As soon as one person is born who doesn't share a principle, the moral character of that principle vanishes? I'm not what point you are trying to make by bringing in the concept of the perfect circle. I don't see at all how this relates to morality. The concept of a perfect circle is not universally shared currently, and certainly isn't historically shared universally. Even if that concept were universal, it would not make imperfect circles immoral.
      - 11y ago
afarrell 11y ago
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Genuine question: What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? I understand that simple intuitive preferences against seeing others suffer will often work, but what do you do about instances where either the rewards of screwing someone over are very great or where your intuition tells you that you would get a lot of pleasure from seeing someone in pain? I know that I don't really have anything to support my belief that there exists an objective morality which is hard-to-determine.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Beauty is subjective, but that doesn't stop people in society from coalescing around norms.
- andrew-lucker 11y ago
  Recognizing that other people have different opinions than you doesn't stop you from preferring or advocating your own. Objective morality is nice to the extent that you can have an intellectual discussion and come to a resolution. More often you just fight it out.
- username223 11y ago
  "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." The Categorical Imperative and its weaker brethren like the Golden Rule are remarkably widespread.
- dmfdmf 11y ago
  Genuine answer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Virtue-Selfishness-Centennial-Edition/dp/0451163931 http://www.amazon.com/The-Virtue-Selfishness-Centennial-Edit...
- dahart 11y ago
  > What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? This is an interesting and deep question! The game theory of life. I don't know the answer or if there is a clear answer, but I imagine there's generally a lot of risk involved in harming others for personal gain, and basic fear of individual or group retaliation (either mob or police) is a significant deterrent.
Spooky23 11y ago
I disagree. People are good about segmenting their lives. Few people have value commitments that are stronger than their ability to pay the mortgage. I've worked with police who privately express feelings and take actions diametrically opposed to how they behave in a professional context.
falcolas 11y ago
> What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into encrypted communications. There were also any number of people who justified the use of the Atomic Bomb because it lessened the predicted number of losses incurred in the Pacific theater of war. This didn't stop the creators of the bomb from believing it was still better to opt for peace instead of it's continued use to lessen the total number of casualties in future wars.
jvdh 11y ago
Morality is subjective at the edges. We all share a common morality, otherwise our society would not function. Most of the common morality is captured by laws. I completely agree with you that law enforcement officers will see it that way. I posit that that is a matter of limited perspective. They see backdoors as a means to catch criminals, and do not consider the implications for surveillance, democracy and freedom at all. This paper is not aimed at them, it is aimed at the cryptographers, who could hopefully more easily understand that perspective.
- brbsix 11y ago
  I agree. The opinion of law enforcement is irrelevant in the sense that we should not defer authority on the matter to them. Law enforcement might similarly have thoughts on how to run the judicial branch or alter the Constitution so as to better "catch criminals" (or some other excuse), yet that is no reason to grant them it. Law enforcement will naturally seek to expand their power by any means available to them, in the same way that various branches of government or political parties will. Hence we have separation of powers.

DennisP 11y ago

Part three of the paper contains his justification for opposing mass surveillance.

policestate101 11y ago

When your opponent condones torture, indefinite imprisonment of innocents, war crimes, and genocide, there is little point in having anbopen dialog or argument with them.

hueving 11y ago
There are many people that don't condone those things but still think law enforcement should be able to get into people's computers or read communications with a warrant. It's more nuanced than you would like to believe.
- policestate101 11y ago
  Nauance is really serving all those blacks in jail for fabricated evidence. Nauance has done wonders for the people of Syria. Nauanc as in "disposition matrix" instead of targeted assassinations. Sometimes things are so nauanced hospitals filled with doctors without borders get bombed, so nuanced we may not even consider it a war crime! But do on about how much more nuanced the world really is, how incredibly morally bankrupt, what weak moral fiber to defend torture through the weasel words of nauace, the millions of dead surely are glad for such a reasonable and nauceced view you present. Again, debating people who condone torture and mass murder is a waste of time.

cscheid 11y ago

Yes, that is certainly a tension here. I think it's easier to think of the paper as two broadly different subparts. The first part is: "regardless of what you think, if something you do rearranges power, then it will become political". This is more a statement of fact than anything else. The second part is: "now that I hope to have convinced you that crypto is necessarily political, here's the moral stance I would prefer for you to follow."

Zigurd 11y ago

Are you implying that "law enforcement officials" have moral standing, especially in the US? Torture, racism, fraud, corruption, brutality, are what springs to mind, along with a total lack of will to reform. To hell with that.

dvanduzer 11y ago
> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. So no, that implication really isn't there. The lack of will to reform is not total amongst LEOs. The lack of political will to do many seemingly sensible things in this country is a moral failure that every citizen shares.
- bigiain 11y ago
  Would you agree that well over 99% of LEOs either actively or passively ignore abuses by their colleagues? As evidenced by things like this: http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-documents-reveal-dothan-police-department-planted-drugs-on-young-black-men-for-years-district-attorney-doug-valeska-complicit/ http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-document... I suspect that you're right that it is a minority of LEOs that actually abuse their power (possibly a 49% minority, but possibly even as low as 10% or even 1%), but it's clear that there are many more - an overwhelming majority, who actively defend or passively ignore those who do. (I'm sure I only ever see the bad ones, but just about every statement by the Fraternal Order of Police makes me seethe with rage...)
andreyf 11y ago
Torture, racism, fraud, corruption: yes. Total lack of will to reform: no.
- bigiain 11y ago
  OK, take "Total" out and see if you're still happy with that answer: http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-documents-reveal-dothan-police-department-planted-drugs-on-young-black-men-for-years-district-attorney-doug-valeska-complicit/ http://henrycountyreport.com/blog/2015/12/01/leaked-document... It seems to me there's a tremendous lack of will to reform abuses and criminal acts by LEO. Perhaps not "Total", but so marginally less than "Total" as to be functionally equivalent (in that "not all men" kind of failure to acknowledge reality...).

erikpukinskis 11y ago

> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Part of the argument is in convincing your opponent that your morality is superior to theirs. Or, perhaps, that their stance violates their own sense of morality. Why? I can't just live morally and let my "opponent" do what they think is right? I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I feel no need to convince other people that my morality is superior to theirs.

jpmec 11y ago
> I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly
- shkkmo 11y ago
  > I believe ISIS would agree with you whole-heartedly I suspect ISIS would not agree with that statement, but with one that is slightly different: "I feel very strongly that people should decide that what I think is right and fight for it."
darawk 11y ago
> I feel very strongly that people should decide what they think is right and fight for it. > I feel no need to convince other people that my morality is superior to theirs. Those two statements are in direct contradiction. Fighting for your morality is convincing others of its superiority. Those two things are the same thing.
- shkkmo 11y ago
  > Fighting for your morality is convincing others of its superiority. Unless your morality includes letting others come to their own conclusions about what is right. In that case, trying to convince others that they should let others pick their own morals would be self-contradictory.
  - 11y ago

woodman 11y ago

> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. That is only true if there are no universal preferences: things like self ownership, all things being equal, is always preferable to slavery.

shkkmo 11y ago
Universality doesn't necessarily have anything to do with morality. If I want to kill all other people and I successfully kill everyone but myself, my preference has become universal but fulfilling that preference has not become any more moral. Personally, I don't think morality is all that subjective, but more an emergent property of community identity. (Thus is inherently shared rather than inherently personal). I would way that Morality is, fortunately, relative.
- woodman 11y ago
  As a foundation for morality it does, violation of a universal principle being an immoral act. Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time, I'd say that universality has no such constraint: the concept of a perfect circle exists regardless of a physical example ever having existed.
  - shkkmo 11y ago
    > Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time So do you include the future and the past? If you include the future it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine the universality of a principle. If you don't include the future, that means that it is possible for the universality of a principle to change. Then As soon as one person is born who doesn't share a principle, the moral character of that principle vanishes? I'm not what point you are trying to make by bringing in the concept of the perfect circle. I don't see at all how this relates to morality. The concept of a perfect circle is not universally shared currently, and certainly isn't historically shared universally. Even if that concept were universal, it would not make imperfect circles immoral.
    - 11y ago

afarrell 11y ago

> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Genuine question: What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? I understand that simple intuitive preferences against seeing others suffer will often work, but what do you do about instances where either the rewards of screwing someone over are very great or where your intuition tells you that you would get a lot of pleasure from seeing someone in pain? I know that I don't really have anything to support my belief that there exists an objective morality which is hard-to-determine.

rayiner 11y ago
Beauty is subjective, but that doesn't stop people in society from coalescing around norms.
andrew-lucker 11y ago
Recognizing that other people have different opinions than you doesn't stop you from preferring or advocating your own. Objective morality is nice to the extent that you can have an intellectual discussion and come to a resolution. More often you just fight it out.
username223 11y ago
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." The Categorical Imperative and its weaker brethren like the Golden Rule are remarkably widespread.
dmfdmf 11y ago
Genuine answer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Virtue-Selfishness-Centennial-Edition/dp/0451163931 http://www.amazon.com/The-Virtue-Selfishness-Centennial-Edit...
dahart 11y ago
> What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? This is an interesting and deep question! The game theory of life. I don't know the answer or if there is a clear answer, but I imagine there's generally a lot of risk involved in harming others for personal gain, and basic fear of individual or group retaliation (either mob or police) is a significant deterrent.

Spooky23 11y ago

I disagree. People are good about segmenting their lives. Few people have value commitments that are stronger than their ability to pay the mortgage. I've worked with police who privately express feelings and take actions diametrically opposed to how they behave in a professional context.

falcolas 11y ago

> What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into encrypted communications. There were also any number of people who justified the use of the Atomic Bomb because it lessened the predicted number of losses incurred in the Pacific theater of war. This didn't stop the creators of the bomb from believing it was still better to opt for peace instead of it's continued use to lessen the total number of casualties in future wars.

jvdh 11y ago

Morality is subjective at the edges. We all share a common morality, otherwise our society would not function. Most of the common morality is captured by laws. I completely agree with you that law enforcement officers will see it that way. I posit that that is a matter of limited perspective. They see backdoors as a means to catch criminals, and do not consider the implications for surveillance, democracy and freedom at all. This paper is not aimed at them, it is aimed at the cryptographers, who could hopefully more easily understand that perspective.

brbsix 11y ago
I agree. The opinion of law enforcement is irrelevant in the sense that we should not defer authority on the matter to them. Law enforcement might similarly have thoughts on how to run the judicial branch or alter the Constitution so as to better "catch criminals" (or some other excuse), yet that is no reason to grant them it. Law enforcement will naturally seek to expand their power by any means available to them, in the same way that various branches of government or political parties will. Hence we have separation of powers.