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I want what you say to be true, but what happens when governments simply say that encryption is illegal (e.g. "It's the only way to fight the terrorists!", "To

by ytinas 17y ago

I want what you say to be true, but what happens when governments simply say that encryption is illegal (e.g. "It's the only way to fight the terrorists!", "To support encryption is to support child porn!")? If any ISP would drop your connection immediately if it saw anything it even thought was encryption what would you do? Personally I think the only solution will be peer-to-peer devices [1], but we couldn't do that with software only as the phone companies have already shown they couldn't be trusted for something like this [2]. [1] If you're familiar with the "one laptop per child" project then you can see what I mean. Every device will peer up with any devices it can see, so your network is simply all your peers plus all their peers (recursive). This can be attacked too, but it lacks the single point of failure that our current ISP oriented networks have. [2] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/wsj-nokia-and-siemens-help-iran-spy-on-internet-users/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/wsj-nokia-and-sieme...

jrockway 17y ago
It's easy, you hide your crypto in innocent-looking communication. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography Will governments ban photo-sharing sites? Probably not. So your encrypted messages can still be distributed. Also, banning cryptography will mean that online banking, VPN access, ssh, remote desktop, etc., etc. will no longer be possible. So I doubt this will ever happen.
- ytinas 17y ago
  >Will governments ban photo-sharing sites? No, but that's a horrible way of communicating. I can't image a future where people have complex programs to decode pictures and re-encode them to post to innocent looking sites. Plus, how are average people going to get these programs in the first place without being busted? I think a better method might be to create a big complex MMO that everyone plays that happens to have a news forum inside it somewhere. Then the data doesn't have to be encrypted per se, but it would be harder to see from outside and wouldn't be complex for users to participate in. >Also, banning cryptography will mean that online banking, VPN access, ssh, remote desktop, etc., etc. will no longer be possible. So I doubt this will ever happen. I wouldn't have to become impossible, it would simply have to be changed in such a way that the government can always see all communications. As I say, I hope you're right, but as a programmer with a background in network engineering I don't see anything (outside of P2P) that couldn't easily be stopped.

by ytinas 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

It's easy, you hide your crypto in innocent-looking communication. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography Will governments ban photo-sharing sites? Probably not. So your encrypted messages can still be distributed. Also, banning cryptography will mean that online banking, VPN access, ssh, remote desktop, etc., etc. will no longer be possible. So I doubt this will ever happen.

ytinas 17y ago
>Will governments ban photo-sharing sites? No, but that's a horrible way of communicating. I can't image a future where people have complex programs to decode pictures and re-encode them to post to innocent looking sites. Plus, how are average people going to get these programs in the first place without being busted? I think a better method might be to create a big complex MMO that everyone plays that happens to have a news forum inside it somewhere. Then the data doesn't have to be encrypted per se, but it would be harder to see from outside and wouldn't be complex for users to participate in. >Also, banning cryptography will mean that online banking, VPN access, ssh, remote desktop, etc., etc. will no longer be possible. So I doubt this will ever happen. I wouldn't have to become impossible, it would simply have to be changed in such a way that the government can always see all communications. As I say, I hope you're right, but as a programmer with a background in network engineering I don't see anything (outside of P2P) that couldn't easily be stopped.