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Here's my biggest complaint with this debate - people are confusing literal with metaphorical. They make the analogy of the unbreakable safe. Encryption isn't t

Here's my biggest complaint with this debate - people are confusing literal with metaphorical. They make the analogy of the unbreakable safe. Encryption isn't that. You can still recover the physical phone and all of the storage chips on it. That the patterns of bits in the chips make up some unrecognizable utterance is seemingly immaterial. I could write gibberish in my journal at home if I wanted to, and I think we'd all agree it would be ridiculous for the FBI to run around screaming about unbreakable ink

tryingagainbro 9y ago
His comment makes sense to 99% on non-tech people, and if it was possible it would make sense to all. Would we want to open Bin Laden's iPhone? He wants you to have your home with 100 locks, guard dogs and armed guards. BUT if a court orders you, you have to let the police in to check x, y and z. Now I don't think that a secret key can be somewhere and stay safe for a long time. It will be leaked or hacked. This places hundreds of million innocent people at extreme danger of having everything personal revealed. So, IMO, giving the cops a master key opening all our doors "if needed" doesn't work. TSA does that, but presumably while cameras are running, and this is stuff we know it will be searched. So encryption is the best option.
- brian-armstrong 9y ago
  But again you've made the same error. The locks can be opened and the phone retrieved. iPhones are not indestructible, you can access any part of them if you want.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    And do what with an encrypted one? They want the contents, not the phone. Frankly, they might even return it after making a copy of it /fingerprints etc.. Spend $1m on a zero day for each case? What if they run out of zero-days?
    - JoshTriplett 9y ago
      Marvel at the encrypted data that they have full access to, and feel free to attempt to brute-force decrypt it, just like any other hostile attacker. The job of the encryption system is to prevent unauthorized access, from the perspective of the owner of the data. If it fails to do that job, it's broken and should be replaced by a system that isn't.
- matt4077 9y ago
  It's insane to see this comment downvoted. Hey HN: this guy/gal is agreeing with you! To punish them for not participating in your willful misunderstanding of this argument is intellectually bankrupt, and toxic to your cause.
- cvwright 9y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Well, actually I do know, and the answer sucks and it's frustrating. But you're right -- in an ideal world, pretty much nobody would design a future where the worst of humanity can hide behind encryption to avoid accountability. The problem is that, with the current set of technologies that we have right now, we either give the cops (effectively) the ability to get everything on everyone, limited only by their discretion (ha!), or we give them nothing, and we give guys like Osama Bin Laden and Richard Spencer a place to hide. One of my biggest fears is that, if we give the voting public only these two options, then eventually they're going to side with Officer Friendly over Bin Laden and Spencer. Ultimately, it's going to be up to us as technologists to figure out something better.
  - katastic 9y ago
    Unpopular but true comment warning: It's kind of alarming how easily you can throw Osama Bin Ladin (a guy who killed thousands of innocent Americans), with Richard Spencer who _says_ fucked up things. Richard Spencer (just like the Westboro Baptist Church) is probably a complete douchebag nutjob. But to so casually equate saying douchey things with the murder of thousands... that's exactly what leads to Officer Friendly getting more powers over every day, innocent citizens. Look at Russia and China. They're literally doing what you're suggesting by using thought crimes to justify massive surveillance and censorship of every forum and network to "protect society" from bad thoughts and damaging their "way of life". The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist, are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Daring to have an opinion the majority finds revolting. Freedom of Speech is literally a protection of minorities from the majority. Those in power don't need protection. [edit] 1 minute in, and yep, this is going down as I expected. Have a great day. =D
    - cvwright 9y ago
      You're right - I picked Spencer because he's an easy target, especially on a board that generally leans to the Left. If there's some incident of racial violence that somehow traces back to him, I doubt the typical HN reader would object to the FBI getting a warrant to search his house or his car. And I suspect that most here wouldn't mind them getting a warrant for his phone under the same circumstances, if they can just bring themselves to admit it. > The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist I think I see what you're saying here, but encryption wasn't really around in MLK's day. > are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Whoa there, please don't lump me in with the authoritarians, especially the new Leftist flavor that's so popular lately. The case that I'm trying to make in this thread is that we've got to find a better balance that protects minority voices (like MLK, or Ben Shapiro, or Milo Yanawhatshisname or whoever Berkeley is rioting about this week) in a cryptographically strong way, while still allowing for some sort of accountability in extreme cases. If we fail at this - or worse, if we can't be bothered to try - then I'm afraid we're going to wind up stuck with something crappy like key escrow, and then the thought police are really going to have a field day.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  > if it was possible it would make sense to all. That's not true; it doesn't make sense to me even if it were possible to guarantee proper handling. The risk of the government abusing it's power in a completely legal way is greater than some crimes going unsolved because documents remain secret. What matters to me is the power imbalance; with few exceptions whatever the government can do, normal people should be able to do to.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    100000000000000% wrong. Store a file from your offshore account--showing that you avoided $1.78b in taxes--at home and IRS can raid it at any time with a court order. The same applies to all your documents, papers. The 4th amendment doesn't mean you can do every illegal thing in the world and never fear the state...simply the state cannot engage in fishing expeditions. If 5 kids are reported missing from your neighborhood, and a day later you have a backhoe digging on your backyard, be ready to answer a few questions--that may lead to other questions and warrants. >>The risk of the government abusing it's power in a completely legal way No such thing in a western /democratic society. After you go all the levels, you must obey. Sometimes it sucks, but...
Spivak 9y ago
The other side of this is that enshrining encryption as something that police can't compel you to help with just creates a huge loophole for hiding incriminating documents. You can go to jail for destroying evidence, why would encrypting the data and refusing to provide the password or deleting the key be any different?
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  > You can go to jail for destroying evidence, why would encrypting the data and refusing to provide the password or deleting the key be any different? Specifically encrypting incriminating data after you have evidence of a crime in an effort to cover it up should be treated as the equivalent of shredding documents. (Assuming, of course, they can prove it, just as they have to prove that you had the documents in question prior to destroying them in order to prosecute you for destroying evidence.) That's not in any way the same thing as having your data encrypted and refusing to decrypt it.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    I don't really think the timeline is meaningful in this case. Having a rule where people cannot be made to decrypt files is just legalizing document shredding with an extra step. To avoid cases where people legitimately forgot their passwords just assume that the police have video evidence of you unlocking the files just before you were arrested. You know the passphrase and the police could prove it beyond reasonable doubt in court. You just start with your files encrypted with a strong passphrase and refuse to provide it when you get caught. This is different than routine shredding because the moment when they become inaccessible is when you refuse, not the moment you encrypted them. If they were instead physical documents buried somewhere hidden where the police could not possibly find them without your help the court still has the ability to hold you in contempt if you don't produce them. What makes the secret knowledge of their location any different than the secret knowledge of the password?
    - AlexCoventry 9y ago
      Encryption of the file should be treated as a separate step from deletion of the plain text. The latter is destruction of evidence in the case of a crime.
zodiac 9y ago
But it does make sense as an analogy? In this case the contents of the safe correspond to the plaintext, the key that opens the safe is the private key, and having the safe without the key is like having the ciphertext without the private key
- cesarb 9y ago
  It doesn't because a safe is just a wrapper for its contents, which are within the safe still in their original form, while with cryptography the contents no longer exist in their original form. A safe would be a good analogy for instance for a tamper-proof USB stick which required a password to make its contents visible to the operating system, but which stored its data unencrypted. A better analogy for cryptography is "a journal written in code". This better captures the property of encrypted data: the contents of the journal corresponds to the plaintext, the rules to encode the writings corresponds to the cipher plus the private key, and having the journal without the rules is like having the ciphertext without the private key. Like with cryptography but unlike with a safe, to get to the contents you have to know or guess the rules; you can't drill the door like you can with a safe.
matt4077 9y ago
I think you're the one confusing reality with matter. Nobody ever cared about anybody's diary as a physical artifact. What matters (pun intended) is the information. The way to fight for strong privacy isn't to run around screaming how "these people just don't GET it!". Because they will look at the framed Math PhD certificate on the wall and rightfully conclude that you're starting from wrong assumptions. Instead, start by imagine the most perfect FBI agents you can. Then, debate them. That debate must start with agreeing that your idealized agent does indeed have a harder job when all evidence moves from binders full of incriminating paper to an encrypted, impenetrable blob. Not accepting that truth makes you useless for your cause, because nobody who isn't already a convert will listen to you if you deny reality with ill-fitting analogies. Only then can you make your case, the two main arguments of which should be: - It is impossible to weaken encryption without running the risk of those weaknesses being exploited, or the keys to the backdoor, falling into the hands of bad actors. - The ability to automate electronic surveillance potentially increases the quantity of surveillance to a point where it also takes on a different quality. Even if judicial oversight remained (which is questionable, considering FISA et al), privacy invasion was previously limited by two informal, yet important, caveats: the costs and resources required to have agents physically search, and the public visibility of such searches.
- cvwright 9y ago
  > That debate must start with agreeing that your idealized agent does indeed have a harder job when all evidence moves from binders full of incriminating paper to an encrypted, impenetrable blob. Not accepting that truth makes you useless for your cause, because nobody who isn't already a convert will listen to you if you deny reality with ill-fitting analogies. This. 1000 times this. I'm actually really worried that, the harder our community pushes back against seemingly reasonable requests for access, and the louder we scream about stuff like the Texas shooter's phone, the less political capital we're going to have left to spend when we need it. And we're going to need a lot of it for this fight.

tryingagainbro 9y ago

His comment makes sense to 99% on non-tech people, and if it was possible it would make sense to all. Would we want to open Bin Laden's iPhone? He wants you to have your home with 100 locks, guard dogs and armed guards. BUT if a court orders you, you have to let the police in to check x, y and z. Now I don't think that a secret key can be somewhere and stay safe for a long time. It will be leaked or hacked. This places hundreds of million innocent people at extreme danger of having everything personal revealed. So, IMO, giving the cops a master key opening all our doors "if needed" doesn't work. TSA does that, but presumably while cameras are running, and this is stuff we know it will be searched. So encryption is the best option.

brian-armstrong 9y ago
But again you've made the same error. The locks can be opened and the phone retrieved. iPhones are not indestructible, you can access any part of them if you want.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  And do what with an encrypted one? They want the contents, not the phone. Frankly, they might even return it after making a copy of it /fingerprints etc.. Spend $1m on a zero day for each case? What if they run out of zero-days?
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    Marvel at the encrypted data that they have full access to, and feel free to attempt to brute-force decrypt it, just like any other hostile attacker. The job of the encryption system is to prevent unauthorized access, from the perspective of the owner of the data. If it fails to do that job, it's broken and should be replaced by a system that isn't.
matt4077 9y ago
It's insane to see this comment downvoted. Hey HN: this guy/gal is agreeing with you! To punish them for not participating in your willful misunderstanding of this argument is intellectually bankrupt, and toxic to your cause.
cvwright 9y ago
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Well, actually I do know, and the answer sucks and it's frustrating. But you're right -- in an ideal world, pretty much nobody would design a future where the worst of humanity can hide behind encryption to avoid accountability. The problem is that, with the current set of technologies that we have right now, we either give the cops (effectively) the ability to get everything on everyone, limited only by their discretion (ha!), or we give them nothing, and we give guys like Osama Bin Laden and Richard Spencer a place to hide. One of my biggest fears is that, if we give the voting public only these two options, then eventually they're going to side with Officer Friendly over Bin Laden and Spencer. Ultimately, it's going to be up to us as technologists to figure out something better.
- katastic 9y ago
  Unpopular but true comment warning: It's kind of alarming how easily you can throw Osama Bin Ladin (a guy who killed thousands of innocent Americans), with Richard Spencer who _says_ fucked up things. Richard Spencer (just like the Westboro Baptist Church) is probably a complete douchebag nutjob. But to so casually equate saying douchey things with the murder of thousands... that's exactly what leads to Officer Friendly getting more powers over every day, innocent citizens. Look at Russia and China. They're literally doing what you're suggesting by using thought crimes to justify massive surveillance and censorship of every forum and network to "protect society" from bad thoughts and damaging their "way of life". The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist, are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Daring to have an opinion the majority finds revolting. Freedom of Speech is literally a protection of minorities from the majority. Those in power don't need protection. [edit] 1 minute in, and yep, this is going down as I expected. Have a great day. =D
  - cvwright 9y ago
    You're right - I picked Spencer because he's an easy target, especially on a board that generally leans to the Left. If there's some incident of racial violence that somehow traces back to him, I doubt the typical HN reader would object to the FBI getting a warrant to search his house or his car. And I suspect that most here wouldn't mind them getting a warrant for his phone under the same circumstances, if they can just bring themselves to admit it. > The very rights that allowed the civil rights movement to exist I think I see what you're saying here, but encryption wasn't really around in MLK's day. > are the ones you guys are casually trying to destroy. Whoa there, please don't lump me in with the authoritarians, especially the new Leftist flavor that's so popular lately. The case that I'm trying to make in this thread is that we've got to find a better balance that protects minority voices (like MLK, or Ben Shapiro, or Milo Yanawhatshisname or whoever Berkeley is rioting about this week) in a cryptographically strong way, while still allowing for some sort of accountability in extreme cases. If we fail at this - or worse, if we can't be bothered to try - then I'm afraid we're going to wind up stuck with something crappy like key escrow, and then the thought police are really going to have a field day.
akvadrako 9y ago
> if it was possible it would make sense to all. That's not true; it doesn't make sense to me even if it were possible to guarantee proper handling. The risk of the government abusing it's power in a completely legal way is greater than some crimes going unsolved because documents remain secret. What matters to me is the power imbalance; with few exceptions whatever the government can do, normal people should be able to do to.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  100000000000000% wrong. Store a file from your offshore account--showing that you avoided $1.78b in taxes--at home and IRS can raid it at any time with a court order. The same applies to all your documents, papers. The 4th amendment doesn't mean you can do every illegal thing in the world and never fear the state...simply the state cannot engage in fishing expeditions. If 5 kids are reported missing from your neighborhood, and a day later you have a backhoe digging on your backyard, be ready to answer a few questions--that may lead to other questions and warrants. >>The risk of the government abusing it's power in a completely legal way No such thing in a western /democratic society. After you go all the levels, you must obey. Sometimes it sucks, but...

Spivak 9y ago

The other side of this is that enshrining encryption as something that police can't compel you to help with just creates a huge loophole for hiding incriminating documents. You can go to jail for destroying evidence, why would encrypting the data and refusing to provide the password or deleting the key be any different?

JoshTriplett 9y ago
> You can go to jail for destroying evidence, why would encrypting the data and refusing to provide the password or deleting the key be any different? Specifically encrypting incriminating data after you have evidence of a crime in an effort to cover it up should be treated as the equivalent of shredding documents. (Assuming, of course, they can prove it, just as they have to prove that you had the documents in question prior to destroying them in order to prosecute you for destroying evidence.) That's not in any way the same thing as having your data encrypted and refusing to decrypt it.
- Spivak 9y ago
  I don't really think the timeline is meaningful in this case. Having a rule where people cannot be made to decrypt files is just legalizing document shredding with an extra step. To avoid cases where people legitimately forgot their passwords just assume that the police have video evidence of you unlocking the files just before you were arrested. You know the passphrase and the police could prove it beyond reasonable doubt in court. You just start with your files encrypted with a strong passphrase and refuse to provide it when you get caught. This is different than routine shredding because the moment when they become inaccessible is when you refuse, not the moment you encrypted them. If they were instead physical documents buried somewhere hidden where the police could not possibly find them without your help the court still has the ability to hold you in contempt if you don't produce them. What makes the secret knowledge of their location any different than the secret knowledge of the password?
  - AlexCoventry 9y ago
    Encryption of the file should be treated as a separate step from deletion of the plain text. The latter is destruction of evidence in the case of a crime.

zodiac 9y ago

But it does make sense as an analogy? In this case the contents of the safe correspond to the plaintext, the key that opens the safe is the private key, and having the safe without the key is like having the ciphertext without the private key

cesarb 9y ago
It doesn't because a safe is just a wrapper for its contents, which are within the safe still in their original form, while with cryptography the contents no longer exist in their original form. A safe would be a good analogy for instance for a tamper-proof USB stick which required a password to make its contents visible to the operating system, but which stored its data unencrypted. A better analogy for cryptography is "a journal written in code". This better captures the property of encrypted data: the contents of the journal corresponds to the plaintext, the rules to encode the writings corresponds to the cipher plus the private key, and having the journal without the rules is like having the ciphertext without the private key. Like with cryptography but unlike with a safe, to get to the contents you have to know or guess the rules; you can't drill the door like you can with a safe.

matt4077 9y ago

I think you're the one confusing reality with matter. Nobody ever cared about anybody's diary as a physical artifact. What matters (pun intended) is the information. The way to fight for strong privacy isn't to run around screaming how "these people just don't GET it!". Because they will look at the framed Math PhD certificate on the wall and rightfully conclude that you're starting from wrong assumptions. Instead, start by imagine the most perfect FBI agents you can. Then, debate them. That debate must start with agreeing that your idealized agent does indeed have a harder job when all evidence moves from binders full of incriminating paper to an encrypted, impenetrable blob. Not accepting that truth makes you useless for your cause, because nobody who isn't already a convert will listen to you if you deny reality with ill-fitting analogies. Only then can you make your case, the two main arguments of which should be: - It is impossible to weaken encryption without running the risk of those weaknesses being exploited, or the keys to the backdoor, falling into the hands of bad actors. - The ability to automate electronic surveillance potentially increases the quantity of surveillance to a point where it also takes on a different quality. Even if judicial oversight remained (which is questionable, considering FISA et al), privacy invasion was previously limited by two informal, yet important, caveats: the costs and resources required to have agents physically search, and the public visibility of such searches.

cvwright 9y ago
> That debate must start with agreeing that your idealized agent does indeed have a harder job when all evidence moves from binders full of incriminating paper to an encrypted, impenetrable blob. Not accepting that truth makes you useless for your cause, because nobody who isn't already a convert will listen to you if you deny reality with ill-fitting analogies. This. 1000 times this. I'm actually really worried that, the harder our community pushes back against seemingly reasonable requests for access, and the louder we scream about stuff like the Texas shooter's phone, the less political capital we're going to have left to spend when we need it. And we're going to need a lot of it for this fight.