4 ms·

This reduces to "no-one should restrict the right of anyone to do anything". Why draw the line where you've done? Why shouldn't we also allow explicit torture o

This reduces to "no-one should restrict the right of anyone to do anything". Why draw the line where you've done? Why shouldn't we also allow explicit torture of animals? Why shouldn't we legalize the making of death threats? Etc.

CamperBob2 9y ago
A good place to draw the line is one that places responsibility on the tool-wielders, and not on the mere existence or possession of the tools themselves. Many of us object to gun control on that basis, and the same reasoning can be applied to encryption. In fact, there's really not a lot you can say about one that you can't say about the other. No private citizen "needs" access to encryption so strong that even intelligence agencies can't break it, any more than any private citizen "needs" to own a weapon whose only purpose is killing. Right?
- yomly 9y ago
  I can see your point, but I think you are glossing over nuance that is specific to tech. The Internet is pervasive and technology is ubiquitous. With a single gun, a man can only kill as many people as he can see with the number of bullets on his person. With a computer and a connection to the internet, his reach and potential scale is much greater. That is why such powerful encryption is required for your average citizen.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    With a computer and a connection to the internet, his reach and potential scale is much greater. That is why such powerful encryption is required for your average citizen. I wonder if the encryption dilemma will ultimately be resolved with blockchain-like techniques. Cryptocurrencies work because their underlying trust processes are deliberately designed to require ever-increasing amounts of CPU time. They can be attacked, but only by spending enough resources to out-mine the other nodes. While possible in theory, it's simply not worthwhile for an attacker to marshal the kinds of resources that would be required to attack Bitcoin or similar blockchains. So, while back doors for government access are stupid and unworkable for all of the reasons that people have stated, what about requiring a hypothetical encryption standard with no known backdoors or attack surfaces, but that is just strong enough to be broken by agencies like the GCHQ or NSA who can throw gigawatt-hours of computer time at the problem? Basically, if the government really wants to read my mail, they can, but it will cost them. It might take them hours to discover a given key, while nobody with a room full of GPUs or even a botnet could do it in less than several years. In such a scenario, we'd be sufficiently safe from attack by cybercriminals, and most of the time, from our governments as well. Governments would still be able to target anybody, but unlike the case where a back door is mandated, they wouldn't be able to target everybody. That could limit the amount of harm that bad actors in the government could do. It would be similar to the rationale of banning ownership of high-capacity magazines, except unlike that sort of feel-good measure, it might actually work.
    - yomly 9y ago
      I could live with this reality. As citizens, we will more or less be at the mercy of government to some extent, if only due to the scale of their operations. I see this as the equivalent to governments having access to tanks, artillery, airforce and nukes while civilians have mere access to guns and knives. Whether civilians should have access to guns is a discussion I would like to remain not a part of.
    - int_19h 9y ago
      The immediate problem that I can see with this is that any government can target you, not just your own. Which means that, 1) you might not have any recourse, nor even demand any accountability, from your attacker, and 2) a foreign government might attack crucial private entities, or even public infrastructure that is below the "unbreakable" protection level. But ultimately, the real question is - how do you enforce this, short of a massive censorship effort (and even then)? We already know how to make strong crypto. You can make it illegal, but unless you have a specific plan as to how to prevent me from coding, say, AES from scratch, I don't see how this would actually help prevent secure communications between terrorists and other high-risk criminals (and I would argue that criminal activity that is not severe enough that its perpetrators wouldn't invest into crypto even if it's banned, is not the kind that can be reasonably used to justify banning crypto in the first place). So it is actually a lot like the high-cap mag bans - it's so simple to make them, that someone who would really derive benefit from having one would just do so. Same thing here.
- avar 9y ago
  > A good place to draw the line is one that places > responsibility on the tool-wielders [...] many of us > object to gun control on that basis. I've yet to see someone make this argument who doesn't acknowledge that the mere posession of certain weaponry should be banned because it's too powerful, the difference is just whether you think guns should fall under that umbrella. Or do you think private people should be allowed to buy hydrogen bombs?
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    Or do you think private people should be allowed to buy hydrogen bombs? On what planet do you anticipate gun control laws having any effect whatsoever on the plans of someone who is inclined to acquire a hydrogen bomb?
    - avar 9y ago
      On a planet that follows your advice that the line shouldn't be drawn at outlawing tools, and instead certain usage should be made illegal, "not [..] the mere existence or possession of the tools themselves". I'm just taking your argument to its logical conclusion. I think that argument makes no sense, since it clearly leads to absurd outcomes, such as being able to purchase nukes, armed fighter jets, tanks, MRAPs, mines, chemical weapons etc.
      - CamperBob2 9y ago
        For the most part, the examples you cite aren't "militia"-class weapons. They fall under the purview of multinational agreements like ITAR, not the Second Amendment. The argument is ridiculous because if you possess things like nukes, you're either a sovereign state or a non-state actor at the international level. You're not playing the role of a US citizen subject to Constitutional laws and protections. Absolutely no enlightenment can be had on the subject of gun control by bringing up thermonuclear weapons and saying, "So there!" You're in good company, though, because the ACLU does the same thing in attempting to wriggle out of supporting Second Amendment rights.

CamperBob2 9y ago

A good place to draw the line is one that places responsibility on the tool-wielders, and not on the mere existence or possession of the tools themselves. Many of us object to gun control on that basis, and the same reasoning can be applied to encryption. In fact, there's really not a lot you can say about one that you can't say about the other. No private citizen "needs" access to encryption so strong that even intelligence agencies can't break it, any more than any private citizen "needs" to own a weapon whose only purpose is killing. Right?

yomly 9y ago
I can see your point, but I think you are glossing over nuance that is specific to tech. The Internet is pervasive and technology is ubiquitous. With a single gun, a man can only kill as many people as he can see with the number of bullets on his person. With a computer and a connection to the internet, his reach and potential scale is much greater. That is why such powerful encryption is required for your average citizen.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  With a computer and a connection to the internet, his reach and potential scale is much greater. That is why such powerful encryption is required for your average citizen. I wonder if the encryption dilemma will ultimately be resolved with blockchain-like techniques. Cryptocurrencies work because their underlying trust processes are deliberately designed to require ever-increasing amounts of CPU time. They can be attacked, but only by spending enough resources to out-mine the other nodes. While possible in theory, it's simply not worthwhile for an attacker to marshal the kinds of resources that would be required to attack Bitcoin or similar blockchains. So, while back doors for government access are stupid and unworkable for all of the reasons that people have stated, what about requiring a hypothetical encryption standard with no known backdoors or attack surfaces, but that is just strong enough to be broken by agencies like the GCHQ or NSA who can throw gigawatt-hours of computer time at the problem? Basically, if the government really wants to read my mail, they can, but it will cost them. It might take them hours to discover a given key, while nobody with a room full of GPUs or even a botnet could do it in less than several years. In such a scenario, we'd be sufficiently safe from attack by cybercriminals, and most of the time, from our governments as well. Governments would still be able to target anybody, but unlike the case where a back door is mandated, they wouldn't be able to target everybody. That could limit the amount of harm that bad actors in the government could do. It would be similar to the rationale of banning ownership of high-capacity magazines, except unlike that sort of feel-good measure, it might actually work.
  - yomly 9y ago
    I could live with this reality. As citizens, we will more or less be at the mercy of government to some extent, if only due to the scale of their operations. I see this as the equivalent to governments having access to tanks, artillery, airforce and nukes while civilians have mere access to guns and knives. Whether civilians should have access to guns is a discussion I would like to remain not a part of.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    The immediate problem that I can see with this is that any government can target you, not just your own. Which means that, 1) you might not have any recourse, nor even demand any accountability, from your attacker, and 2) a foreign government might attack crucial private entities, or even public infrastructure that is below the "unbreakable" protection level. But ultimately, the real question is - how do you enforce this, short of a massive censorship effort (and even then)? We already know how to make strong crypto. You can make it illegal, but unless you have a specific plan as to how to prevent me from coding, say, AES from scratch, I don't see how this would actually help prevent secure communications between terrorists and other high-risk criminals (and I would argue that criminal activity that is not severe enough that its perpetrators wouldn't invest into crypto even if it's banned, is not the kind that can be reasonably used to justify banning crypto in the first place). So it is actually a lot like the high-cap mag bans - it's so simple to make them, that someone who would really derive benefit from having one would just do so. Same thing here.
avar 9y ago
> A good place to draw the line is one that places > responsibility on the tool-wielders [...] many of us > object to gun control on that basis. I've yet to see someone make this argument who doesn't acknowledge that the mere posession of certain weaponry should be banned because it's too powerful, the difference is just whether you think guns should fall under that umbrella. Or do you think private people should be allowed to buy hydrogen bombs?
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Or do you think private people should be allowed to buy hydrogen bombs? On what planet do you anticipate gun control laws having any effect whatsoever on the plans of someone who is inclined to acquire a hydrogen bomb?
  - avar 9y ago
    On a planet that follows your advice that the line shouldn't be drawn at outlawing tools, and instead certain usage should be made illegal, "not [..] the mere existence or possession of the tools themselves". I'm just taking your argument to its logical conclusion. I think that argument makes no sense, since it clearly leads to absurd outcomes, such as being able to purchase nukes, armed fighter jets, tanks, MRAPs, mines, chemical weapons etc.
    - CamperBob2 9y ago
      For the most part, the examples you cite aren't "militia"-class weapons. They fall under the purview of multinational agreements like ITAR, not the Second Amendment. The argument is ridiculous because if you possess things like nukes, you're either a sovereign state or a non-state actor at the international level. You're not playing the role of a US citizen subject to Constitutional laws and protections. Absolutely no enlightenment can be had on the subject of gun control by bringing up thermonuclear weapons and saying, "So there!" You're in good company, though, because the ACLU does the same thing in attempting to wriggle out of supporting Second Amendment rights.