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Where do you draw the line? One terrorist attack that was enabled by Signal? Should Signal then be destroyed? Draw the line and we can debate that.

celim307 9y ago
You went full straw man real quick. Where in this chain is anyone advocating shutting anything down by force? And how did we go from dealing drugs to terrorism? Time out dude, time out.
- donatj 9y ago
  I wouldn't call asking you to clarify your position going strawman.
  - tomjakubowski 9y ago
    I would, when the question makes unjustified presumptions about the person's position. GP asked "where do you draw the line?" to a person who didn't make any normative claim at all.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- tertius 9y ago
  It's an analogy. Remove your objection of force here to stay on topic. A quote: > if not a majority, of the profits of his service came through being an enabler to criminal activity. He's being realistic on the subject In the same way Signal would be an enabler of terrorism. Let's call both equivalent. Crime = crime. Is encryption (or even the concept of privacy) then unethical because some benefit from it wrongly? Bottomline: Just because we realize that people commit crime with tools not intended for crime should we then outlaw those tools?
  - matt4077 9y ago
    To just repeat what others have said: nobody is advocating outlawing those tools. To add something: When you're running such a service and care about the right to privacy, you should try to minimise its use for illegal purposes whenever possible. It's quite counterproductive to glorify that criminal activity as some sort of heroic effort in defence of privacy rights, and gloating about it with a sort of haha-cant-stop-the-terrorist-inyourface. Because, yes, if your privacy tool becomes useful enough for that clientele to cause significant harm, people will start supporting its ban.
curun1r 9y ago
I don't know that there's one universally right "line" that can be drawn. Everyone has their personal line. For me, my personal line is to never compromise who I am, no matter the cost. I'd love it if my country were the same. If I die in a terrorist attack that could have been prevented through illegal surveillance, I'm okay with that (the dying, not the surveillance.) Law enforcement should do its best to prevent attacks within the framework of our laws and our values. Attacks that get through are not necessarily a failure in our intelligence or law enforcement personnel or processes. Some amount of failure is not only acceptable, it's also to be expected. We, as citizens, need to do our part to keep perspective in the wake of attacks. Yes, they're scary, but they're rare and we should be able to endure them without getting hysterical. But I agree with our founders that we have certain inalienable rights that don't go away just because someone might be a criminal. And while privacy isn't explicitly enshrined in our bill of rights, it's completely within the spirit of that document. Aviation engineers don't try to get the coefficient of gravity changed. It's an immutable constant that's part of the framework in which they do their work. Privacy should, likewise, be an immutable constant that's part of the framework in which law enforcement tries to prevent and solve crime.
- throwanem 9y ago
  I fail to see how being murdered in a terrorist attack, or indeed in any other fashion, cannot be said to curtail the exercise of those rights the Declaration characterizes as inalienable, and indeed the exercise of any other rights we may care to consider likewise. There are no immutable constants, gravitational or otherwise, in the world of human ideas. If you want me to agree with you that it's preferable to die than to be noninvasively and incidentally spied upon, it helps that cause not at all simply to say the truth of your perspective on the matter is as ineluctable as gravitation - this rather fails to convince.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    >noninvasively and incidentally spied upon, Noninvasively spied upon? Having your privacy violated is invasive, by definition. Having a situation where one centre of power has extensive information on the private details of practically the entire population is an extremely dangerous situation, because knowledge is power, and that level of asymmetry in knowledge can (and I would argue will) lead to the population at large being exploited by those within this centre of power.
lmm 9y ago
I'll go with Blackstone's ratio. I suspect that more than 1/11 of the use of Signal is legitimate, but more than 10/11 of the use of Bitcoin mixers is for crime.

celim307 9y ago

You went full straw man real quick. Where in this chain is anyone advocating shutting anything down by force? And how did we go from dealing drugs to terrorism? Time out dude, time out.

donatj 9y ago
I wouldn't call asking you to clarify your position going strawman.
- tomjakubowski 9y ago
  I would, when the question makes unjustified presumptions about the person's position. GP asked "where do you draw the line?" to a person who didn't make any normative claim at all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
tertius 9y ago
It's an analogy. Remove your objection of force here to stay on topic. A quote: > if not a majority, of the profits of his service came through being an enabler to criminal activity. He's being realistic on the subject In the same way Signal would be an enabler of terrorism. Let's call both equivalent. Crime = crime. Is encryption (or even the concept of privacy) then unethical because some benefit from it wrongly? Bottomline: Just because we realize that people commit crime with tools not intended for crime should we then outlaw those tools?
- matt4077 9y ago
  To just repeat what others have said: nobody is advocating outlawing those tools. To add something: When you're running such a service and care about the right to privacy, you should try to minimise its use for illegal purposes whenever possible. It's quite counterproductive to glorify that criminal activity as some sort of heroic effort in defence of privacy rights, and gloating about it with a sort of haha-cant-stop-the-terrorist-inyourface. Because, yes, if your privacy tool becomes useful enough for that clientele to cause significant harm, people will start supporting its ban.

curun1r 9y ago

I don't know that there's one universally right "line" that can be drawn. Everyone has their personal line. For me, my personal line is to never compromise who I am, no matter the cost. I'd love it if my country were the same. If I die in a terrorist attack that could have been prevented through illegal surveillance, I'm okay with that (the dying, not the surveillance.) Law enforcement should do its best to prevent attacks within the framework of our laws and our values. Attacks that get through are not necessarily a failure in our intelligence or law enforcement personnel or processes. Some amount of failure is not only acceptable, it's also to be expected. We, as citizens, need to do our part to keep perspective in the wake of attacks. Yes, they're scary, but they're rare and we should be able to endure them without getting hysterical. But I agree with our founders that we have certain inalienable rights that don't go away just because someone might be a criminal. And while privacy isn't explicitly enshrined in our bill of rights, it's completely within the spirit of that document. Aviation engineers don't try to get the coefficient of gravity changed. It's an immutable constant that's part of the framework in which they do their work. Privacy should, likewise, be an immutable constant that's part of the framework in which law enforcement tries to prevent and solve crime.

throwanem 9y ago
I fail to see how being murdered in a terrorist attack, or indeed in any other fashion, cannot be said to curtail the exercise of those rights the Declaration characterizes as inalienable, and indeed the exercise of any other rights we may care to consider likewise. There are no immutable constants, gravitational or otherwise, in the world of human ideas. If you want me to agree with you that it's preferable to die than to be noninvasively and incidentally spied upon, it helps that cause not at all simply to say the truth of your perspective on the matter is as ineluctable as gravitation - this rather fails to convince.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  >noninvasively and incidentally spied upon, Noninvasively spied upon? Having your privacy violated is invasive, by definition. Having a situation where one centre of power has extensive information on the private details of practically the entire population is an extremely dangerous situation, because knowledge is power, and that level of asymmetry in knowledge can (and I would argue will) lead to the population at large being exploited by those within this centre of power.

lmm 9y ago

I'll go with Blackstone's ratio. I suspect that more than 1/11 of the use of Signal is legitimate, but more than 10/11 of the use of Bitcoin mixers is for crime.