4 ms·

To defend this user's point, I think could be a case made for a key escrow that requires an unlock from different organizations. RSA solved this years ago. We c

To defend this user's point, I think could be a case made for a key escrow that requires an unlock from different organizations. RSA solved this years ago. We could establish a key escrow that adds a key to your personal key. This extra key would allow unsealing in cases where it would be needed within the law. The extra key could be set up so that it requires X out of Y keys. Each key could be owned by different organizations, like the state govt, FBI, Courts, Nonprofit oversight committees, citizens oversight of police, and such. This could provide a balance of security and privacy, and allow in extreme circumstances a forced break of encryption. (Ideally, it would require many orgs that are normally in opposition to agree. It would not be "state govt", "FBI", "CIA" like the old Clipper Chip.)

bhhaskin 9y ago
I as a private citizen do not want the government to have access to my files. Period. End of story. They have zero right to have access to every aspect of my life. Any "solution" that involves any government the ability to access encrypted files is not encryption, but a lie.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  And that's where I have to disagree. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." 4th Amendment, Bill of Rights, US Constitution That's a balance, of between "Get off my lawn", and "I affirm I saw X illegal thing and I swear it in front of a judge, and the judge agreed." Now, I don't trust some bureaucratic department to honor the constitution. And from the sounds of it, neither do you. Which is why I was keeping in mind of having an antagonist based key-holding scheme which would require a multitude of people to unlock before the data would be unsealed. To me, that does re-enable the balance set forth in the Constitution, namely the 4th Amendment to the Bill of Rights.
  - matwood 9y ago
    I actually think for objects like phones, the 5th amendment should apply. Phones contain way more information about a person than any other medium in history. It contains so much information that I think we should consider it an extension of the person. At some point we will have devices actually embedded in our bodies collecting every thought. Should those not be considered part of us and thus protected under the 5th amendment?
  - loup-vaillant 9y ago
    I personally consider parts of the contents of my computer to actually be an extension of my mind. A daily diary for instance. Once we get to the point where we have computer chips embedded in our skull, this will be literally true. What should be considered part of one's mind is not clear, but what is clear is that whatever the mind is, no one should be able to pry without consent. Not commenting on what the constitution actually means, just saying what I think it should mean.
SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
We can also require that the hardware issuer (eg, Apple) stores an encrypted copy of the key (throwing away the key used to encrypt the original key), such that it costs $1M (or other amount) to break the encryption and reveal the key. There's no reason it shouldn't require expense and physical breaking to gain entry, just because it's digital (and I think that this scheme gains legal protection because of such features). By actually discussing it, instead of hiding behind lies like "there are no security gradients", we can talk about systems where it would require X amount of compute effort to break an encrypted key held in escrow for Y years at Z expense to reveal the key. (I was actually thinking about using a hash chain to timelock the key, since we have a pretty good idea of how hard it is to sequentially hash.) I don't think most of us are against the government being able to see individual, targeted encrypted drives -- I think we object to the ability to transparently compromise all systems.
- olliej 9y ago
  Apple never has your keys to store. That's kind of the point of end to end encryption. Note that on osx/ios that same e2e encryption protects credit card and password data. Saying company X should store their keys is the same as saying "Company X should paint a giant target on their servers that have to be weakly protected to appease requests from agency Y". The solution to unending breaches of user data is to not be able to decrypt it, that only way to achieve that is to never have the keys.
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  To be honest, I'm against the "moneyball" solution. Hardware's going to only get: cheaper, faster, better. That $1m price will inexorably come down to the point that skiddie could do it on their phone with AWS. I still stand by the point of having a consortium of opposing interests as a combined group (or supermajority) to override an encryption. I think of it as a strong version of checks and balances. In that case, if members are also hidden, it doesn't matter how many dollars are thrown at the problem. Unless you have peoples' willful intent, the escrow doesn't work.
  - cvwright 9y ago

bhhaskin 9y ago

I as a private citizen do not want the government to have access to my files. Period. End of story. They have zero right to have access to every aspect of my life. Any "solution" that involves any government the ability to access encrypted files is not encryption, but a lie.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
And that's where I have to disagree. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." 4th Amendment, Bill of Rights, US Constitution That's a balance, of between "Get off my lawn", and "I affirm I saw X illegal thing and I swear it in front of a judge, and the judge agreed." Now, I don't trust some bureaucratic department to honor the constitution. And from the sounds of it, neither do you. Which is why I was keeping in mind of having an antagonist based key-holding scheme which would require a multitude of people to unlock before the data would be unsealed. To me, that does re-enable the balance set forth in the Constitution, namely the 4th Amendment to the Bill of Rights.
- matwood 9y ago
  I actually think for objects like phones, the 5th amendment should apply. Phones contain way more information about a person than any other medium in history. It contains so much information that I think we should consider it an extension of the person. At some point we will have devices actually embedded in our bodies collecting every thought. Should those not be considered part of us and thus protected under the 5th amendment?
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  I personally consider parts of the contents of my computer to actually be an extension of my mind. A daily diary for instance. Once we get to the point where we have computer chips embedded in our skull, this will be literally true. What should be considered part of one's mind is not clear, but what is clear is that whatever the mind is, no one should be able to pry without consent. Not commenting on what the constitution actually means, just saying what I think it should mean.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

We can also require that the hardware issuer (eg, Apple) stores an encrypted copy of the key (throwing away the key used to encrypt the original key), such that it costs $1M (or other amount) to break the encryption and reveal the key. There's no reason it shouldn't require expense and physical breaking to gain entry, just because it's digital (and I think that this scheme gains legal protection because of such features). By actually discussing it, instead of hiding behind lies like "there are no security gradients", we can talk about systems where it would require X amount of compute effort to break an encrypted key held in escrow for Y years at Z expense to reveal the key. (I was actually thinking about using a hash chain to timelock the key, since we have a pretty good idea of how hard it is to sequentially hash.) I don't think most of us are against the government being able to see individual, targeted encrypted drives -- I think we object to the ability to transparently compromise all systems.

olliej 9y ago
Apple never has your keys to store. That's kind of the point of end to end encryption. Note that on osx/ios that same e2e encryption protects credit card and password data. Saying company X should store their keys is the same as saying "Company X should paint a giant target on their servers that have to be weakly protected to appease requests from agency Y". The solution to unending breaches of user data is to not be able to decrypt it, that only way to achieve that is to never have the keys.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
To be honest, I'm against the "moneyball" solution. Hardware's going to only get: cheaper, faster, better. That $1m price will inexorably come down to the point that skiddie could do it on their phone with AWS. I still stand by the point of having a consortium of opposing interests as a combined group (or supermajority) to override an encryption. I think of it as a strong version of checks and balances. In that case, if members are also hidden, it doesn't matter how many dollars are thrown at the problem. Unless you have peoples' willful intent, the escrow doesn't work.
- cvwright 9y ago