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To be fair, whatsapp makes it super easy - far easier than it's ever really been - to communicate so easily and securely with so many people. It's never black a

To be fair, whatsapp makes it super easy - far easier than it's ever really been - to communicate so easily and securely with so many people. It's never black and white - you cant ban crypto and you also cant give criminals carte blanche for uncrackable crypto. The middle ground is the very difficult thing.

Tepix 9y ago
Whatsapp, Signal et al. make it easy for everyone to use end-to-end encryption. Not just for criminals. Why should only criminals be entitled to privacy?
- StavrosK 9y ago
  I mean, the argument is "only non-criminals should be entitled to privacy". The problem is that, if you knew who the criminals were, you could just lock them up and be done with it, so all the governments err on the side of "nobody should have privacy, just in case they're a criminal". Everyone here wants "everyone should have privacy, and if criminals get it too, then so be it; after all, criminals could get privacy some other way anyway".
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I really don't care if the contents of my Whatsapp/Messenger/SMS/etc. comments/posts are made public, FWIW. Nor do I mind that GCHQ can probably listen to all my calls and certainly not that they use meta-data to look for links with organised crime (eg terrorism). My impression would be that in the UK outside of fora like HN that position would be pretty common.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      Of course you don't, you're a middle-class straight white male. A society with perfect surveillance is a society with perfect law enforcement, which is a society that never has enough dissidence to evolve. Tell homosexuals in the 60s that they shouldn't care if GCHQ can read their messages. But who cares about poofs, right? They're mentally ill anyway.
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        FWIW I've been racially abused in the street multiple times, am often shunned due to my appearance, was always searched at security checkpoints through my twenties; have been stopped by the police for "random checks", etc.. If you're US American you wouldn't consider me middle-class. Did we return to the 60s? Your parent comment said "Everyone here wants [...]", which may or may not be true, my sole point was that in the UK I doubt that's a majority viewpoint in all sectors of society. But thanks for laying in to me with your sexist, racist prejudice, and attempts to smear me by putting words in my mouth, it surely adds a lot to the conversation. /s
        StavrosK 9y ago
        Ah, alright, I'm sorry, I misread your point. By "everyone here" I meant HN, and if your point is "factually, most people don't care about privacy", that's probably right. But that's also the "first they came for the Socialists" viewpoint. It may be statistically true that many people hold that view, but they shouldn't.
    - Tepix 9y ago
      Edward Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." [¹] "When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights."[²] -- ¹ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left... ² https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/edward-snowden-new-yorker-festival/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/edward-snowden-new-yorker-...
adrianN 9y ago
It's impossible to ban crypto only for criminals. Either strong cryptography is generally available or nobody can communicate privately.
- gambiting 9y ago
  One-time-pad is so easy to use that a child could figure it out and is literally unbreakable. Even if you outlaw "hard encryption" this extremely easy encryption method will always be available and will always offer 100% secrecy for anyone needing it. This is just a smokescreen, as always.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    OTP requires a meeting, dead drop, or other open communication though. That's a massive vulnerability over purely virtual communications.
- akuji1993 9y ago
  Which is exactly what they want. Britain seems to be pushing to open up every communication channel their citizens use, it's ridiculous. They are on the best way to build "V for Vendetta"'s political system, it's a joke.

Tepix 9y ago

Whatsapp, Signal et al. make it easy for everyone to use end-to-end encryption. Not just for criminals. Why should only criminals be entitled to privacy?

StavrosK 9y ago
I mean, the argument is "only non-criminals should be entitled to privacy". The problem is that, if you knew who the criminals were, you could just lock them up and be done with it, so all the governments err on the side of "nobody should have privacy, just in case they're a criminal". Everyone here wants "everyone should have privacy, and if criminals get it too, then so be it; after all, criminals could get privacy some other way anyway".
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I really don't care if the contents of my Whatsapp/Messenger/SMS/etc. comments/posts are made public, FWIW. Nor do I mind that GCHQ can probably listen to all my calls and certainly not that they use meta-data to look for links with organised crime (eg terrorism). My impression would be that in the UK outside of fora like HN that position would be pretty common.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    Of course you don't, you're a middle-class straight white male. A society with perfect surveillance is a society with perfect law enforcement, which is a society that never has enough dissidence to evolve. Tell homosexuals in the 60s that they shouldn't care if GCHQ can read their messages. But who cares about poofs, right? They're mentally ill anyway.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      FWIW I've been racially abused in the street multiple times, am often shunned due to my appearance, was always searched at security checkpoints through my twenties; have been stopped by the police for "random checks", etc.. If you're US American you wouldn't consider me middle-class. Did we return to the 60s? Your parent comment said "Everyone here wants [...]", which may or may not be true, my sole point was that in the UK I doubt that's a majority viewpoint in all sectors of society. But thanks for laying in to me with your sexist, racist prejudice, and attempts to smear me by putting words in my mouth, it surely adds a lot to the conversation. /s
      - StavrosK 9y ago
        Ah, alright, I'm sorry, I misread your point. By "everyone here" I meant HN, and if your point is "factually, most people don't care about privacy", that's probably right. But that's also the "first they came for the Socialists" viewpoint. It may be statistically true that many people hold that view, but they shouldn't.
  - Tepix 9y ago
    Edward Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." [¹] "When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights."[²] -- ¹ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left... ² https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/edward-snowden-new-yorker-festival/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/edward-snowden-new-yorker-...

adrianN 9y ago

It's impossible to ban crypto only for criminals. Either strong cryptography is generally available or nobody can communicate privately.

gambiting 9y ago
One-time-pad is so easy to use that a child could figure it out and is literally unbreakable. Even if you outlaw "hard encryption" this extremely easy encryption method will always be available and will always offer 100% secrecy for anyone needing it. This is just a smokescreen, as always.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  OTP requires a meeting, dead drop, or other open communication though. That's a massive vulnerability over purely virtual communications.
akuji1993 9y ago
Which is exactly what they want. Britain seems to be pushing to open up every communication channel their citizens use, it's ridiculous. They are on the best way to build "V for Vendetta"'s political system, it's a joke.