5 ms·

You can hide meaning in plain English just by making it hard to read your intentions or the context that the sentence is given in. Take double entendres for exa

You can hide meaning in plain English just by making it hard to read your intentions or the context that the sentence is given in. Take double entendres for example. Should we ban any grammatical construction that could possibly hide some second meaning?

dTal 9y ago
It won't be necessary to ban ambiguity directly - the effect will be accomplished by harshly policing any problematic potential hidden meaning as "subversive" or "hate speech". It will then be wiser to avoid such constructions. Of course it raises the question of what constitutes forbidden speech. To answer that I would look towards the opinions you are already frightened to voice publicly.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Isn't hate speech more of a different matter? I can't really see how it relates except under the umbrella of restricting speech, and I'd argue that there are various good reasons for restricting some speech, for example assault and shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre.
  - schoen 9y ago
    I'd like to encourage people who mention the "shouting 'fire'" thing to have a look at Ken White's comments on this: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha... (brief excerpt from a much longer piece: "Holmes' famous quote comes in the context of a series of early 1919 Supreme Court decisions in which he endorsed government censorship of wartime dissent — dissent that is now clearly protected by subsequent First Amendment authority. The three cases in question arose from socialist criticism of conscription during World War One. The criticism at issue, to modern tastes, was a clearly protected and rather mild expression of opinion.")
avaer 9y ago
Non-technical person's reply: Don't be silly! I understand the interpretation of information in a conversation; if someone were doing this I could tell. But I don't understand cryptography mathematical mumbo-jumbo. Therefore these two situations are nothing alike. Let's ban crypto.
lovemenot 9y ago
The end-game of BigSister is probably for ISPs to drop any encrypted packets. This seems doable. She's not as naive as the article makes out and undoubtedly takes advice from very smart people at GCHQ. I agree that steganography can be a solution to sustain open communication. It's less brittle than crypto but offers weaker guarantees. I know of a suitable system design. Not plain English, rather plain bitfield.
- JetSpiegel 9y ago
  Oh yes, drop all HTTPS traffic, and bankrupt the City after every fraud insurance is activated at once in the entire UK. What could possibly go wrong?
  - lovemenot 9y ago
    You're right, not universally dropped packets. Opt-in MITM with dropped packets as default?
  - kwhitefoot 9y ago
    Just write the law so that it exempts really big businesses. After all the financial sector is already effectively an arm of the state. If they were genuinely independent businesses they would be allowed to go bankrupt when they make bad decisions, after all that is what limited liability was created for.
    - tetha 9y ago
      Ah, so we don't just have a fast internet lane, we also have a secure internet lane. And of course, a fast and secure internet lane costs more than double!
simooooo 9y ago
Like pizza gate - yeah these are the BEST hot dogs

dTal 9y ago

It won't be necessary to ban ambiguity directly - the effect will be accomplished by harshly policing any problematic potential hidden meaning as "subversive" or "hate speech". It will then be wiser to avoid such constructions. Of course it raises the question of what constitutes forbidden speech. To answer that I would look towards the opinions you are already frightened to voice publicly.

ue_ 9y ago
Isn't hate speech more of a different matter? I can't really see how it relates except under the umbrella of restricting speech, and I'd argue that there are various good reasons for restricting some speech, for example assault and shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre.
- schoen 9y ago
  I'd like to encourage people who mention the "shouting 'fire'" thing to have a look at Ken White's comments on this: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha... (brief excerpt from a much longer piece: "Holmes' famous quote comes in the context of a series of early 1919 Supreme Court decisions in which he endorsed government censorship of wartime dissent — dissent that is now clearly protected by subsequent First Amendment authority. The three cases in question arose from socialist criticism of conscription during World War One. The criticism at issue, to modern tastes, was a clearly protected and rather mild expression of opinion.")

avaer 9y ago

Non-technical person's reply: Don't be silly! I understand the interpretation of information in a conversation; if someone were doing this I could tell. But I don't understand cryptography mathematical mumbo-jumbo. Therefore these two situations are nothing alike. Let's ban crypto.

lovemenot 9y ago

The end-game of BigSister is probably for ISPs to drop any encrypted packets. This seems doable. She's not as naive as the article makes out and undoubtedly takes advice from very smart people at GCHQ. I agree that steganography can be a solution to sustain open communication. It's less brittle than crypto but offers weaker guarantees. I know of a suitable system design. Not plain English, rather plain bitfield.

JetSpiegel 9y ago
Oh yes, drop all HTTPS traffic, and bankrupt the City after every fraud insurance is activated at once in the entire UK. What could possibly go wrong?
- lovemenot 9y ago
  You're right, not universally dropped packets. Opt-in MITM with dropped packets as default?
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  Just write the law so that it exempts really big businesses. After all the financial sector is already effectively an arm of the state. If they were genuinely independent businesses they would be allowed to go bankrupt when they make bad decisions, after all that is what limited liability was created for.
  - tetha 9y ago
    Ah, so we don't just have a fast internet lane, we also have a secure internet lane. And of course, a fast and secure internet lane costs more than double!

simooooo 9y ago

Like pizza gate - yeah these are the BEST hot dogs