4 ms·

> Manufacturer key escrow services seem almost sensible in this light. I understand your position, but I could not disagree more strongly with your conclusion.

> Manufacturer key escrow services seem almost sensible in this light. I understand your position, but I could not disagree more strongly with your conclusion. Many of the techniques law enforcement is complaining about losing didn't exist before cell phones (and smart phones in particular). The challenges they face in a world with FDE-by-default are not new, their biggest frustration is in losing capabilities that they feel have been valuable. The problem with something like key escrow is that while there might be value in occasionally providing access to law enforcement, there is absolute certainty of damage in cases where the keys are lost, stolen, or compromised -- all of which happen with alarming regularity already. You can't un-ring the bell of a data loss due to compromised encryption - so the only real question is how many abuses we should be expected to endure in order to realize marginal benefits in some circumstances. It is understandably inconvenient & frustrating for law enforcement to lose access to the contents of smartphones, but that alone is not sufficient justification for universally compromising one of the layers responsible for protecting our data.

derefr 11y ago
Note that I said almost sensible. As in, "that motorcycle almost jumped that gorge." :) And the techniques didn't exist, certainly. I'm more interested in the information itself, though. Before computers existed, all of a person's personal information was likely held on paper somewhere, either on their person or in their car or home or bank. At worst, the papers of a dead person would be locked in a safe—and law enforcement could always get a subpoena to have a safe cracked open. Computers made the safe figurative, but FDE made the safe uncrackable, and put everything the person owns in there rather than just the stuff they think needs protecting. We really did lose something, and it's not just convenience for law enforcement; many people's entire life histories now evaporate upon their death, having been held entirely as digital artifacts on FDEed devices. I'm not sure what to do about that. Manufacturer key escrow is obviously not the solution. I have a feeling that having a culture of peer key escrow might be, though. Teaching children that having escrowed backup keys is important, in the same way that having an emergency contact number for hospitalization is important, might help quite a bit. (We could also teach them the value of good passwords, while we're wishing for a pony.)

derefr 11y ago

Note that I said almost sensible. As in, "that motorcycle almost jumped that gorge." :) And the techniques didn't exist, certainly. I'm more interested in the information itself, though. Before computers existed, all of a person's personal information was likely held on paper somewhere, either on their person or in their car or home or bank. At worst, the papers of a dead person would be locked in a safe—and law enforcement could always get a subpoena to have a safe cracked open. Computers made the safe figurative, but FDE made the safe uncrackable, and put everything the person owns in there rather than just the stuff they think needs protecting. We really did lose something, and it's not just convenience for law enforcement; many people's entire life histories now evaporate upon their death, having been held entirely as digital artifacts on FDEed devices. I'm not sure what to do about that. Manufacturer key escrow is obviously not the solution. I have a feeling that having a culture of peer key escrow might be, though. Teaching children that having escrowed backup keys is important, in the same way that having an emergency contact number for hospitalization is important, might help quite a bit. (We could also teach them the value of good passwords, while we're wishing for a pony.)