4 ms·

Crypto == Math. Full stop. All thoughts on civil liberties aside, it's sad that these officials don't even realize that what they're asking for is (or will hop

• wyldfire 11y ago
  It's very clear to me that civil liberties are at the core of this discussion. And while I think that crypto->math->speech is clear, others may not. Let's keep in mind that our legislators are responding to a genuine fear in the electorate. It's our job(s) as technophiles to educate the electorate and legislature as to why this isn't the right move. This is where SCOTUS really pays off as a check against Congress. They can be surprisingly practical (sometimes). This blog article by djb [1] really makes a good case for why encryption is speech (and the fact that it has utility is orthogonal). Recall that Bernstein v US was a driver for real progress in the government's understanding and treatment of encryption technology. [1] https://blog.cr.yp.to/20160315-jefferson.html https://blog.cr.yp.to/20160315-jefferson.html
  • curun1r 11y ago
    > And while I think that crypto->math->speech is clear While I agree with this, I don't think the most important part of crypto == math is the connection to speech. The most important part is that math doesn't compromise. You can't make math kinda work...it either does or it doesn't. You can't make math work for some people and not others. Math is absolute, so this debate is absolute. The result is either secure applications or fundamentally insecure applications. This is where the government's "we've got to find a compromise" rhetoric rings hollow, naive or disingenuous, depending on how much credit you're willing to give them when it comes to technical acumen. Compromise, when it comes to encryption, means compromised. When encryption is compromised, that encryption is fundamentally broken and dangerous. Crypto == math means there can be no compromise with the government's agenda. And it's not because we don't want to be reasonable, it's because math doesn't care about court orders, the law, the government's authority or good intentions.
    • wyldfire 11y ago
      > This is where the government's "we've got to find a compromise" rhetoric rings hollow, naive or disingenuous, depending on how much credit you're willing to give them when it comes to technical acumen. The government is not one uniform thing. I think there's elements of the government who feel like the compromise is appropriate and don't realize that Key Escrow is the only possible compromise and don't realize why it's already been reviewed and rejected. They might mistakenly think that the objections are somehow needlessly idealized or dogmatic. I don't think they're naive at all. They're just mistaken. On the other side, there's other elements of government who are totally aware and willing to exploit the fear of the electorate and legislators in order to achieve their goals. That group is definitely disingenuous.
      • Bluestrike2 11y ago
        To be fair, most of the loud political objections they deal with can be considered "needlessly idealized or dogmatic." That's largely the norm, and it's become even more so as the louder minorities within each party have been able to leverage new tech to increase their respective voices. This applies to almost every issue that they have to deal with, and every advocacy group argues that their issue is special and unique. So it is any surprise that a lot of our legislators (at least those who aren't leading the charge here) are grouping arguments against backdoors into the same category based on their past experiences? They don't have the background or theoretical grounding to realize that, this time, the realities of mathematics really do make this issue unique. It's a mess, with no clear path in sight. In addition to lobbying and supporting new candidates, any united effort to defend against these intrusions is going to have to include a massive education program meant to inform legislators on the dangers of what they're proposing. And it'll have to be tailored to how legislators actually think about policy. The arguments that work amongst the tech world aren't going to work in Congress. Not because they're idiots or anything like that, but because radically different backgrounds and experiences can affect how information is processed.
• grey-area 11y ago
  It's not impossible, it just really compromises security. For example all legal encryption could use a master key, or both hardware and software could be subverted to make truly secure processes impossible. These things are a Bad Thing but perfectly possible, they just preclude anything being reasonably secure. The drafters of the bill clearly don't fully understand or care about those issues though, and if they did they'd probably see it as an acceptable compromise to security in order to enable government to see all communications.
• danjoc 11y ago
  Classic door in the face technique.[1] Ask the impossible to get concessions you would otherwise be refused. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique I disagree with the conclusion that the DOJ needs to be offered anything. It's like giving a rude, angry, loud customer a discount to appease them. You're just training them to be more rude, angry, and loud in the future. They should lose as much face as possible. That's the only way to shut them up. If they look completely incompetent, they risk losing funding, because nobody likes wasteful government spending on incompetent agencies.
  • astockwell 11y ago
    I 1000% percent agree with you. But my fear is they've got the $$$ to wage this war of attrition longer than all the rest of us combined.
    • cmdrfred 11y ago
      It's worse then that, they've got your money.