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>Wouldn't it be better if we adopt the position that unbreakable crypto is a basic human right? Is the right to have the ability to pay to have anyone in the w

>Wouldn't it be better if we adopt the position that unbreakable crypto is a basic human right? Is the right to have the ability to pay to have anyone in the world you don't like murdered, without it getting back to you, a basic human right? If so and people start getting murdered for hire, and law enforcement has no way to stop it, would you be okay with opening in certain cases a previously undisclosed back door, for example as part of tracing payments in the dark net? What if normally cryptography were secure and uses of the backdoor only happened like this: >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. Would you be okay with the back door existing if it were used under such a court-ordered scenario? Why did I just quote this text, in your opinion? Why does this text not end with a period after the word violated? Then it would read: >The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. Don't you agree that as a "basic human right" this version appears much stronger than the first version I quoted? So, would you prefer if the second, abbreviated version replaced the first version?

vec 9y ago
You've still got the word "unreasonable" to contend with. This is, I think, the place where the metaphor shear between technical limits and legal limits actually happens. Legally, we treat reasonableness as the salient divider. To a first approximation, everyone agrees that some searches and seizures are reasonable and some are not, and we've developed a well-defined social technology (warrants, judges, courts, etc.) to distinguish the two cases. But technically the dividing line is possession of the backdoor. Third parties without a backdoor cannot perform a search, no matter how reasonable it may be, and third parties with a backdoor can perform even the most unreasonable search. There is no mechanical way to introduce a hole for reasonable cases but not unreasonable ones, no matter how well we formalize the decision making process. Software does kinda work like a form of law, but one without recourse to human judgment. There's no judge, no jury, no prosecutorial discretion. It appears that, without a bit of hands on experience with technology, legally minded folks have a hard time really internalizing how constraining that fact is on what's actually possible.
- mjevans 9y ago
  A better way of wording this is: If there is a way of bypassing technology then it should be assumed it will be bypassed, most particularly by those whom that technology's presence would be used to defend against. Golden keys will be stolen or otherwise recovered (eventually). Only by making the cost of that effort more than any possible reward will security be maintained. Just the same as physically defending a physical location.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    > Only by making the cost of that effort more than any possible reward will security be maintained. And for golden keys, the reward is enormous.
specialist 9y ago
I can't follow your tortured reasoning well enough to match it up to the applicable logical fallacies. But I cheerfully point out that US Intel's focus on SIGINT at the expense of HUMINT is just so, um, myopic. Instead of using "24" inspired fever dreams to dictate policy, electrocuting noobs while demanding to know where they hid the nukes, we'd all do better to actually listen to what spy masters and police chiefs are asking for. As a start.
s73ver_ 9y ago
"Would you be okay with the back door existing if it were used under such a court-ordered scenario?" No, because it would not stay that way. The problem is, that backdoor would get out, and all of the bad guys would know how to use it, and be able to use it. Now I have no protection anymore. Most of the time, when we're arguing against back doors, it's not because we're worried that the government is going to collect evidence to use against us in court. It's because we don't want our payment transfers to be intercepted by bad guys. We don't want our computers hacked.

vec 9y ago

You've still got the word "unreasonable" to contend with. This is, I think, the place where the metaphor shear between technical limits and legal limits actually happens. Legally, we treat reasonableness as the salient divider. To a first approximation, everyone agrees that some searches and seizures are reasonable and some are not, and we've developed a well-defined social technology (warrants, judges, courts, etc.) to distinguish the two cases. But technically the dividing line is possession of the backdoor. Third parties without a backdoor cannot perform a search, no matter how reasonable it may be, and third parties with a backdoor can perform even the most unreasonable search. There is no mechanical way to introduce a hole for reasonable cases but not unreasonable ones, no matter how well we formalize the decision making process. Software does kinda work like a form of law, but one without recourse to human judgment. There's no judge, no jury, no prosecutorial discretion. It appears that, without a bit of hands on experience with technology, legally minded folks have a hard time really internalizing how constraining that fact is on what's actually possible.

mjevans 9y ago
A better way of wording this is: If there is a way of bypassing technology then it should be assumed it will be bypassed, most particularly by those whom that technology's presence would be used to defend against. Golden keys will be stolen or otherwise recovered (eventually). Only by making the cost of that effort more than any possible reward will security be maintained. Just the same as physically defending a physical location.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > Only by making the cost of that effort more than any possible reward will security be maintained. And for golden keys, the reward is enormous.

specialist 9y ago

I can't follow your tortured reasoning well enough to match it up to the applicable logical fallacies. But I cheerfully point out that US Intel's focus on SIGINT at the expense of HUMINT is just so, um, myopic. Instead of using "24" inspired fever dreams to dictate policy, electrocuting noobs while demanding to know where they hid the nukes, we'd all do better to actually listen to what spy masters and police chiefs are asking for. As a start.

s73ver_ 9y ago

"Would you be okay with the back door existing if it were used under such a court-ordered scenario?" No, because it would not stay that way. The problem is, that backdoor would get out, and all of the bad guys would know how to use it, and be able to use it. Now I have no protection anymore. Most of the time, when we're arguing against back doors, it's not because we're worried that the government is going to collect evidence to use against us in court. It's because we don't want our payment transfers to be intercepted by bad guys. We don't want our computers hacked.