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Decrypting the Encryption Debate: A Framework for Decision Makers

62 points by wcunning 9y ago

nailer 9y ago
Edit: nevermind, thought it was paywalled as the CTA is to pay, but there's a second link on the side to download the PDF.
- vardump 9y ago
  I could download it just by providing an email address, no payment was required.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ancarda 9y ago
  Yes, as vardump says, I was able to download as a guest. I provided an email from https://www.guerrillamail.com/ https://www.guerrillamail.com/ No payment is required, or even a real email address.
wcunning 9y ago
OP here, I ran across this from the Cyberlaw Podcast notes[0]. Their brief description of it is why I thought it'd be interesting for the HN crowd: >The National Academy report on encryption access has demonstrated that access is well within the zone of plausible technology policy, with support from a group of prominent tech experts, such as Ray Ozzie, all of whom know math. I certainly don't agree with that statement, but I'm a long way from a cryptographer or security expert. I'm mostly looking forward to the EFF refutation, though I'm a little surprised it isn't already up... [0] http://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/02/keeper-loser-weeper http://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/02/keeper-loser-weeper
- michaelt 9y ago
  It's possible to design a system that lets the government decrypt (essentially) everything. The same technology that lets you send a PGP e-mail with two recipients allows you to send a message that can be decrypted by the NSA as well as your recipient. What's not possible is protecting against bad actors within government; preventing the oppressive governments from insisting on the same powers, allowing them to further oppress their citizens; and eliminating the backdoor-free encryption that evildoers will instantly move over to, which has to be eliminated if trained terrorists are the true targets of the back doors. But it's possible legislators don't care about these issues as much as freedom advocates do.
  - cesarb 9y ago
    > It's possible to design a system that lets the government decrypt (essentially) everything. The same technology that lets you send a PGP e-mail with two recipients allows you to send a message that can be decrypted by the NSA as well as your recipient. It's not that simple. That "solution" has the government key as a single point of failure: when it leaks, everything is compromised.
    - michaelt 9y ago
      So put it in a Hardware Security Module [1] and store it in Fort Knox. Competent certificate authorities manage to store their private keys and not leak them. And the security community loves SSL, even though it depends on that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module
- Arnt 9y ago
  You don't need crypto or security expertise, just rhetoric. What are they not mentioning? AFAICT "a backdoor" vs. "a backdoor that gives the FBI access while keeping both Putin and El Chapo out, and works on phones bought via mail order from China".
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  The debate about "technical plausibility" should not even be on the table. Nowhere under US law does the government have any right to mandate that individuals must communicate via mediums that allow for surveillance. The idea that such a government right exists is absurd. Maybe the NSA and CIA should figure out how to secure their own illegal digital operations first and then get back to this when they have less pressing matters on their hands.
mtgx 9y ago
Even when the whole San Bernardino thing happened, the FBI could already unlock the device. But they kept quiet so they can get their legal precedent. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4424780/Fbi-Iphone-IG.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4424780/Fbi-Iphon... Also, let's assume this "solution" gets implemented into every smartphone out there. And then we discover that it actually doesn't work as well as theorized, and it can now be abused by hackers. What then? Will the FBI agree to put that genie back in the bottle and have all OEMs remove support for this solution? Or will they go whine to the media and Congress that this solution can't be removed because "it's been so helpful in catching criminals and that odd kidnapper out of 1,000 cases", as they usually do when defending surveillance powers they've already had for a decade, whether illegally or legally, and then someone tries to rein in on those powers? Criminals are not "going dark". If anything, there's been an Enlightenment Age of Surveillance over the past two decades. They have more data and more tools than ever (including the recent FISA law that allows the FBI to see all raw data going through ISP cables). And perhaps that's the problem, and why they keep missing so many cases. Too much noise that's captured. It doesn't look like the FBI and the US government will ever be satisfied with anything other than complete surveillance of everything US citizens are doing - which is exactly what China is implementing right now. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/surveillance-03302018111415.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/surveillance-03302018... (By the way, in relation to that article, the FBI is already seeking access to whatever Alexa and other such devices are recording, which could be increasingly more data as the tech improves). Does anyone here actually believe that this is not actually FBI's goal? Or do they think that if this solution will be implemented, they won't find some other thing to complain about? Maybe open source encryption?
- rectang 9y ago
  > If anything, there's been an Enlightenment Age of Surveillance over the past two decades. For me, a watershed moment was the suppression of the Green Revolution in Iran. Organizing on social media got the world to notice, but it also provided the Iranian government with an indelible audit trail leading back to the dissidents.
schoen 9y ago
We at EFF didn't appreciate this report that much when it came out last month: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/new-national-academy-sciences-report-encryption-asks-wrong-questions https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/new-national-academy-s...
- anf 9y ago
  That sounds like a good endorsement. Those of use who are competent and honest have been pretty tired of the FUD and downright lies around the benefits of single-user encryption. Specifically, if admin master keys are so dangerous, why does Google, Microsoft, and every other tech company have one into the employee's hard drives?
  - Arubis 9y ago
    Because they own those hard drives. Their employees do not.
    - anf 9y ago
      That's totally irrelevant to the point that two-user encryption is fundamentally insecure, made insistently by even those who should really know better: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/tsa_master_keys.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/tsa_master_ke...
      - yarrel 9y ago
        It is fundamentally insecure, as that article establishes. Do you have an argument to the contrary?
        anf 9y ago
        If it is "fundamentally" insecure, why do Google and Apple and Microsoft and all the other tech companies use it on their employee laptops?
      - 9y ago
hapnin 9y ago
Almost 30 years later, it sounds like they're still arguing for the Clipper Chip in some manner: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
mindslight 9y ago
If "decision makers" don't already respect the framework of personal liberty and individual rights, then they have no business being "decision makers" in the first place.

62 points by wcunning 9y ago

Edit: nevermind, thought it was paywalled as the CTA is to pay, but there's a second link on the side to download the PDF.

vardump 9y ago
I could download it just by providing an email address, no payment was required.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ancarda 9y ago
Yes, as vardump says, I was able to download as a guest. I provided an email from https://www.guerrillamail.com/ https://www.guerrillamail.com/ No payment is required, or even a real email address.

wcunning 9y ago

OP here, I ran across this from the Cyberlaw Podcast notes[0]. Their brief description of it is why I thought it'd be interesting for the HN crowd: >The National Academy report on encryption access has demonstrated that access is well within the zone of plausible technology policy, with support from a group of prominent tech experts, such as Ray Ozzie, all of whom know math. I certainly don't agree with that statement, but I'm a long way from a cryptographer or security expert. I'm mostly looking forward to the EFF refutation, though I'm a little surprised it isn't already up... [0] http://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/02/keeper-loser-weeper http://reason.com/volokh/2018/04/02/keeper-loser-weeper

michaelt 9y ago
It's possible to design a system that lets the government decrypt (essentially) everything. The same technology that lets you send a PGP e-mail with two recipients allows you to send a message that can be decrypted by the NSA as well as your recipient. What's not possible is protecting against bad actors within government; preventing the oppressive governments from insisting on the same powers, allowing them to further oppress their citizens; and eliminating the backdoor-free encryption that evildoers will instantly move over to, which has to be eliminated if trained terrorists are the true targets of the back doors. But it's possible legislators don't care about these issues as much as freedom advocates do.
- cesarb 9y ago
  > It's possible to design a system that lets the government decrypt (essentially) everything. The same technology that lets you send a PGP e-mail with two recipients allows you to send a message that can be decrypted by the NSA as well as your recipient. It's not that simple. That "solution" has the government key as a single point of failure: when it leaks, everything is compromised.
  - michaelt 9y ago
    So put it in a Hardware Security Module [1] and store it in Fort Knox. Competent certificate authorities manage to store their private keys and not leak them. And the security community loves SSL, even though it depends on that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module
Arnt 9y ago
You don't need crypto or security expertise, just rhetoric. What are they not mentioning? AFAICT "a backdoor" vs. "a backdoor that gives the FBI access while keeping both Putin and El Chapo out, and works on phones bought via mail order from China".
saas_co_de 9y ago
The debate about "technical plausibility" should not even be on the table. Nowhere under US law does the government have any right to mandate that individuals must communicate via mediums that allow for surveillance. The idea that such a government right exists is absurd. Maybe the NSA and CIA should figure out how to secure their own illegal digital operations first and then get back to this when they have less pressing matters on their hands.

mtgx 9y ago

Even when the whole San Bernardino thing happened, the FBI could already unlock the device. But they kept quiet so they can get their legal precedent. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4424780/Fbi-Iphone-IG.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4424780/Fbi-Iphon... Also, let's assume this "solution" gets implemented into every smartphone out there. And then we discover that it actually doesn't work as well as theorized, and it can now be abused by hackers. What then? Will the FBI agree to put that genie back in the bottle and have all OEMs remove support for this solution? Or will they go whine to the media and Congress that this solution can't be removed because "it's been so helpful in catching criminals and that odd kidnapper out of 1,000 cases", as they usually do when defending surveillance powers they've already had for a decade, whether illegally or legally, and then someone tries to rein in on those powers? Criminals are not "going dark". If anything, there's been an Enlightenment Age of Surveillance over the past two decades. They have more data and more tools than ever (including the recent FISA law that allows the FBI to see all raw data going through ISP cables). And perhaps that's the problem, and why they keep missing so many cases. Too much noise that's captured. It doesn't look like the FBI and the US government will ever be satisfied with anything other than complete surveillance of everything US citizens are doing - which is exactly what China is implementing right now. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/surveillance-03302018111415.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/surveillance-03302018... (By the way, in relation to that article, the FBI is already seeking access to whatever Alexa and other such devices are recording, which could be increasingly more data as the tech improves). Does anyone here actually believe that this is not actually FBI's goal? Or do they think that if this solution will be implemented, they won't find some other thing to complain about? Maybe open source encryption?

rectang 9y ago
> If anything, there's been an Enlightenment Age of Surveillance over the past two decades. For me, a watershed moment was the suppression of the Green Revolution in Iran. Organizing on social media got the world to notice, but it also provided the Iranian government with an indelible audit trail leading back to the dissidents.

schoen 9y ago

We at EFF didn't appreciate this report that much when it came out last month: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/new-national-academy-sciences-report-encryption-asks-wrong-questions https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/new-national-academy-s...

anf 9y ago
That sounds like a good endorsement. Those of use who are competent and honest have been pretty tired of the FUD and downright lies around the benefits of single-user encryption. Specifically, if admin master keys are so dangerous, why does Google, Microsoft, and every other tech company have one into the employee's hard drives?
- Arubis 9y ago
  Because they own those hard drives. Their employees do not.
  - anf 9y ago
    That's totally irrelevant to the point that two-user encryption is fundamentally insecure, made insistently by even those who should really know better: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/tsa_master_keys.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/09/tsa_master_ke...
    - yarrel 9y ago
      It is fundamentally insecure, as that article establishes. Do you have an argument to the contrary?
      - anf 9y ago
        If it is "fundamentally" insecure, why do Google and Apple and Microsoft and all the other tech companies use it on their employee laptops?
    - 9y ago

hapnin 9y ago

Almost 30 years later, it sounds like they're still arguing for the Clipper Chip in some manner: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

mindslight 9y ago

If "decision makers" don't already respect the framework of personal liberty and individual rights, then they have no business being "decision makers" in the first place.