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Convenience really does play a part here though. The easier it is to be secure the more people will take advantage of it. Good for the most part - but bad fro

Convenience really does play a part here though. The easier it is to be secure the more people will take advantage of it. Good for the most part - but bad from the FBI's perspective when a criminal uses it to hide their misdeeds. The likelihood for a criminal to use a one time pad is extremely low. The likelihood of them having an encrypted cell phone with useful information is much higher. It would be tough to argue that a law against cell phone encryption wouldn't be effective for this purpose. More valid criticism is its disproportionate impact on lawful uses.

Cyph0n 10y ago
> The likelihood for a criminal to use a one time pad is extremely low. The likelihood of them having an encrypted cell phone with useful information is much higher. Maybe that's the case right now, but how can you be so confident that these actors won't switch to OTP if such a law is enacted?
- slededit 10y ago
  Because prior to cell phone total encryption (less than 10 years ago) we did not have a pandemic of criminals using one time pads.
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    That's a terrible example. Encryption wasn't mainstream at all back then and, more crucially, digital surveillance was still in its infancy. The most popular chat app in the world right now implements full E2E encryption. Go back 10 years and having a "chat" consisted of sending your friends SMS messages.
    - slededit 10y ago
      Exactly - and yet most criminals were happy to use that insecure and broken SMS. I'd love to see a study on the proportion of criminals that even know what encryption is. I expect it to be extremely low.
      - Cyph0n 10y ago
        Exactly what? My point is that encryption is fairly common right now, even for average consumers. If political activists use Tor and Signal quite regularly, why wouldn't criminals do the same? I still don't quite understand why you're comparing what criminals did back then to what they could do right now.
        rocqua 10y ago
        I'd expect that currently, most criminal use of encryption is accidental. That is, everyone switched from SMS to whatsapp, criminals just did what everyone did. Sure, there might be exceptions for high-level criminal conspiracies. But most crime isn't of that kind. For terrorist, I imagine there is a large spectrum of covert abilities.
        Cyph0n 10y ago
        > That is, everyone switched from SMS to whatsapp, criminals just did what everyone did. How are you so confident that this was what happened? Do you have some concrete data and/or stats to back this statement? What if most criminals are using something like Signal? Besides, I personally wouldn't trust WhatsApp if I were partaking in illicit activities.
      - jungletek 10y ago
        So you're expecting criminals to self-identify? I think you're gravely underestimating the intelligence range and tech knowledge of 'criminals'.
Nomentatus 10y ago
Building the software that automates it all isn't hard, including the random number generation - and such an app could go on airgapped computers. It wouldn't be harder to use than a faucet. After the random part (not hard) it's just XOR, some of the simplest programming imaginable.

Cyph0n 10y ago

> The likelihood for a criminal to use a one time pad is extremely low. The likelihood of them having an encrypted cell phone with useful information is much higher. Maybe that's the case right now, but how can you be so confident that these actors won't switch to OTP if such a law is enacted?

slededit 10y ago
Because prior to cell phone total encryption (less than 10 years ago) we did not have a pandemic of criminals using one time pads.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  That's a terrible example. Encryption wasn't mainstream at all back then and, more crucially, digital surveillance was still in its infancy. The most popular chat app in the world right now implements full E2E encryption. Go back 10 years and having a "chat" consisted of sending your friends SMS messages.
  - slededit 10y ago
    Exactly - and yet most criminals were happy to use that insecure and broken SMS. I'd love to see a study on the proportion of criminals that even know what encryption is. I expect it to be extremely low.
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
      Exactly what? My point is that encryption is fairly common right now, even for average consumers. If political activists use Tor and Signal quite regularly, why wouldn't criminals do the same? I still don't quite understand why you're comparing what criminals did back then to what they could do right now.
      - rocqua 10y ago
        I'd expect that currently, most criminal use of encryption is accidental. That is, everyone switched from SMS to whatsapp, criminals just did what everyone did. Sure, there might be exceptions for high-level criminal conspiracies. But most crime isn't of that kind. For terrorist, I imagine there is a large spectrum of covert abilities.
        Cyph0n 10y ago
        > That is, everyone switched from SMS to whatsapp, criminals just did what everyone did. How are you so confident that this was what happened? Do you have some concrete data and/or stats to back this statement? What if most criminals are using something like Signal? Besides, I personally wouldn't trust WhatsApp if I were partaking in illicit activities.
    - jungletek 10y ago
      So you're expecting criminals to self-identify? I think you're gravely underestimating the intelligence range and tech knowledge of 'criminals'.

Nomentatus 10y ago

Building the software that automates it all isn't hard, including the random number generation - and such an app could go on airgapped computers. It wouldn't be harder to use than a faucet. After the random part (not hard) it's just XOR, some of the simplest programming imaginable.