5 ms·

Hey we banned liquor once too, which I am thinking was somewhat global at the time. Don't underestimate the US! USA! USA!

NietTim 11y ago
That wasn't even somewhat global by any stretch of the imagination.....
- 2close4comfort 11y ago
  It wasn't you mean we tried temperance it and didn't take over the globe are use sure? Hum maybe that is why we gave up on it we are such quitters here in the US.
Shivetya 11y ago
People vastly underestimate the power of the US government to ban encryption within its borders. It simply can stop the sale of all offending devices, confiscate said devices, and even go after the profits from sale of the devices both new and old. If pushed they could theoretically go after those who run the companies. It really depends on who is behind it and how much political power they have relative to their next election prospects.
- 2close4comfort 11y ago
  The only thing that is as dangerous as ignorance is greed.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  You're talking like encryption is hardware. It's software. You can confiscate eight billion copies but miss one and tomorrow there will be nine billion more. And it doesn't come from companies. Originally it comes from academics, but nobody actually gets their copy of AES from Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen. It's software on the internet. You can get it from Mozilla or Google. If you can't get it from them then you can get it from anyone at CCC or Debian servers in France or Brazil or your cousin in Russia or the Venezuelan government that loves any excuse to stick it to the US. But let's pretend they're willing to cut all the fiber and close all the borders to keep encryption from crossing in from other countries. Your proposal is that they're going to go house to house and search your attic for the last of those t-shirts the EFF printed the last time this happened? Now mind you, that doesn't mean banning encryption would have no effect. It would mean that your bank and your doctor couldn't use it to protect your finances and medical records, and they're the type of organization that could be compelled to comply with such a thing.
  - chopin 11y ago
    >Your proposal is that they're going to go house to house and search your attic for the last of those t-shirts the EFF printed the last time this happened? As every comms is under surveillance its vastly easier than that. You just need to look for traffic you can't read. And then go after the sender. If you make encrypted communication a criminal offense, that's an easy task.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      > You just need to look for traffic you can't read. And what precisely is that supposed to mean? If I send you a spreadsheet purporting to be "the latest numbers for the current period" but the low bits of each field (which would reasonably be statistically random) are really encrypted data, how do you propose an observer can figure that out?
    - mirimir 11y ago
      It's not that simple. There may also be covert channel traffic that you don't see, encoded in packet timing. You can only use maybe 1% of "carrier" throughput. But that's easily enough for text messages hidden in HD video streams.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Then people resort to stenography. And activists start throwing binary chaf into emails and webpages. Or they do weird things like setup a weak encryption channel that encapsulates a stronger encrypted tunnel. The amount of ways around this is kind of silly.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - the8472 11y ago
    All you need to do is ban general purpose computing first. And smartphones are pretty close to that. If vendors enforced their walled gardens a bit more and disallowed cryptography apps you would already have a crypto-free zone on billions of devices.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  Cryptography is mostly done by software, not hardware. How successful has been the war on movie and music piracy? And the war on leaked documents? A government can certainly make most if its residents give up on cryptography. But it takes more severe measures than banning a device or another.
Zigurd 11y ago
Prohibition is a good analogy. Brewing, vinting, and distilling in commercial quality requires capital equipment and a continuing source of supplies. A lot of money changes hands in the real world to make that happen. And yet, Prohibition enforcement failed. A strong encryption ban would make math into contraband. That's going to be a lot harder to stop at the borders than a rum runner's boat. But, then again, the government could be looking for an opprtunity to wage an unending war against a phantom. There's a lot of money to be made from that, starting with a thick slice of that $19 billion for computer "security." The "security" business has always been good at selling purported protection out one door and surveillance out the other.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  A strong encryption ban would not make math into contraband. It might make implementations of some small subset of math into something that's illegal under some constraints. SFAIK, you can encrypt away all you want so long as nobody needs it to comply with a court order or summons. "Computer security" embraces that ELINT now includes hacking type activities. The most "Dude, epic" version is the STUXNET story.
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    You are minimizing the problem. Just as the drug War has brought with it absurdities like making "fake drugs" such a bag of powdered sugar illegal, it's a lead pipe cinch that files full of random numbers will become illegal because they might be making it more difficult to spot encrypted content. This, along with the ham fisted tactics to blackmail people into becoming informants will lead to the same toxic enforcement environment found in the Drug War being imposed on software.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      I think you're projecting the present state of affairs forward. Honestly? I don't know enough to think that's likely. The WOD happened, by one story, because Nixon figured out that some of the heroin the CIA was transporting with Air America was finding its way to troops in the field. That met with general approval so they generalized it. For the Greatest and Silent Generations, the sheer lack of adequate information about drugs was impossible to explain. It's not clear to me that a mechanism related to encryption is in the wind. Sure, there's overreach. And then there isn't. just being an encryptyor isn't enough - you have to also be affiliated with something they consider Nasty. After all, look how the blacklisting thing worked out. It was all hell for people like Dalton Trumbo. But in a reasonably non-ideological way of looking at it, Trumbo was an actual Stalinist.

NietTim 11y ago

That wasn't even somewhat global by any stretch of the imagination.....

2close4comfort 11y ago
It wasn't you mean we tried temperance it and didn't take over the globe are use sure? Hum maybe that is why we gave up on it we are such quitters here in the US.

Shivetya 11y ago

People vastly underestimate the power of the US government to ban encryption within its borders. It simply can stop the sale of all offending devices, confiscate said devices, and even go after the profits from sale of the devices both new and old. If pushed they could theoretically go after those who run the companies. It really depends on who is behind it and how much political power they have relative to their next election prospects.

2close4comfort 11y ago
The only thing that is as dangerous as ignorance is greed.
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
You're talking like encryption is hardware. It's software. You can confiscate eight billion copies but miss one and tomorrow there will be nine billion more. And it doesn't come from companies. Originally it comes from academics, but nobody actually gets their copy of AES from Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen. It's software on the internet. You can get it from Mozilla or Google. If you can't get it from them then you can get it from anyone at CCC or Debian servers in France or Brazil or your cousin in Russia or the Venezuelan government that loves any excuse to stick it to the US. But let's pretend they're willing to cut all the fiber and close all the borders to keep encryption from crossing in from other countries. Your proposal is that they're going to go house to house and search your attic for the last of those t-shirts the EFF printed the last time this happened? Now mind you, that doesn't mean banning encryption would have no effect. It would mean that your bank and your doctor couldn't use it to protect your finances and medical records, and they're the type of organization that could be compelled to comply with such a thing.
- chopin 11y ago
  >Your proposal is that they're going to go house to house and search your attic for the last of those t-shirts the EFF printed the last time this happened? As every comms is under surveillance its vastly easier than that. You just need to look for traffic you can't read. And then go after the sender. If you make encrypted communication a criminal offense, that's an easy task.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > You just need to look for traffic you can't read. And what precisely is that supposed to mean? If I send you a spreadsheet purporting to be "the latest numbers for the current period" but the low bits of each field (which would reasonably be statistically random) are really encrypted data, how do you propose an observer can figure that out?
  - mirimir 11y ago
    It's not that simple. There may also be covert channel traffic that you don't see, encoded in packet timing. You can only use maybe 1% of "carrier" throughput. But that's easily enough for text messages hidden in HD video streams.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Then people resort to stenography. And activists start throwing binary chaf into emails and webpages. Or they do weird things like setup a weak encryption channel that encapsulates a stronger encrypted tunnel. The amount of ways around this is kind of silly.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- the8472 11y ago
  All you need to do is ban general purpose computing first. And smartphones are pretty close to that. If vendors enforced their walled gardens a bit more and disallowed cryptography apps you would already have a crypto-free zone on billions of devices.
marcosdumay 11y ago
Cryptography is mostly done by software, not hardware. How successful has been the war on movie and music piracy? And the war on leaked documents? A government can certainly make most if its residents give up on cryptography. But it takes more severe measures than banning a device or another.

Zigurd 11y ago

Prohibition is a good analogy. Brewing, vinting, and distilling in commercial quality requires capital equipment and a continuing source of supplies. A lot of money changes hands in the real world to make that happen. And yet, Prohibition enforcement failed. A strong encryption ban would make math into contraband. That's going to be a lot harder to stop at the borders than a rum runner's boat. But, then again, the government could be looking for an opprtunity to wage an unending war against a phantom. There's a lot of money to be made from that, starting with a thick slice of that $19 billion for computer "security." The "security" business has always been good at selling purported protection out one door and surveillance out the other.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
A strong encryption ban would not make math into contraband. It might make implementations of some small subset of math into something that's illegal under some constraints. SFAIK, you can encrypt away all you want so long as nobody needs it to comply with a court order or summons. "Computer security" embraces that ELINT now includes hacking type activities. The most "Dude, epic" version is the STUXNET story.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  You are minimizing the problem. Just as the drug War has brought with it absurdities like making "fake drugs" such a bag of powdered sugar illegal, it's a lead pipe cinch that files full of random numbers will become illegal because they might be making it more difficult to spot encrypted content. This, along with the ham fisted tactics to blackmail people into becoming informants will lead to the same toxic enforcement environment found in the Drug War being imposed on software.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    I think you're projecting the present state of affairs forward. Honestly? I don't know enough to think that's likely. The WOD happened, by one story, because Nixon figured out that some of the heroin the CIA was transporting with Air America was finding its way to troops in the field. That met with general approval so they generalized it. For the Greatest and Silent Generations, the sheer lack of adequate information about drugs was impossible to explain. It's not clear to me that a mechanism related to encryption is in the wind. Sure, there's overreach. And then there isn't. just being an encryptyor isn't enough - you have to also be affiliated with something they consider Nasty. After all, look how the blacklisting thing worked out. It was all hell for people like Dalton Trumbo. But in a reasonably non-ideological way of looking at it, Trumbo was an actual Stalinist.