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Somehow the US survived in a world where everyone was dark 100% of the time for over 200 years. Maybe the FBI should just go back to relying on actual criminal

Somehow the US survived in a world where everyone was dark 100% of the time for over 200 years. Maybe the FBI should just go back to relying on actual criminal research techniques and remember part of their job is protecting constitutional rights such as the right to privacy.

stevew20 9y ago
Maybe they fired all the good investigators and hired data analysts, and are having serious buyers remorse!
josefresco 9y ago
I knew my comment would be unpopular however I'm genuinely curious how you feel about law enforcements ability to wiretap, or perform surveillance suspects given a court order. This capability has existed in the period you referenced, and to me it would seem ... similar(?) to law enforcement being granted permission (by a court) now to surveil a suspect's digital devices. Why does the switch to digital change things? Similarly, If I lock my home/car/object, commit a crime - are you okay with law enforcement breaking into my property to gather evidence? I'm honestly asking, not trying to snark - please help me work through how encryption differs from other "analog" tools meant to ensure privacy.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Think back even before technology. The police weren’t allowed to sneak on your property and search it, or hide on it to surreptitiously listen to your conversations, without a court order. This was to protect your privacy rights, as well as restrain over-reaching government agents. Now let’s assume 200 years ago all of your property was exposed so that any potentially dangerous people (robbers, horse thiefs, politicians) approaching your house could be easily seen. But this also means that federal agents coming to serve warrants could be seen with enough warning to allow you to destroy evidence, and anytime they’d try to surveil your house, you’d know they were there. Should it be illegal for your property to be so exposed? Should the government force property owners to plant shrubbery on approaches to their homes to make them easier to secretly surveil, and so surprise searches can be more successful? The difference between this and wiretapping is that wiretapping didn’t require you to change your property to allow it. The police merely tapped into existing infrastructure. I say “didn’t” because that stopped being true years ago. The feds were successful at forcing telecoms to alter their systems and equipment to make survellience easier, especially mass survellience. Now the FBI thinks that since they can force telecoms to put backdoors in their own equipment, they can also force companies to put backdoors in customers equipment. Let’s go back 200 years again where encryption was a popular way to assure the privacy of important messages and papers. Let’s assume public/private key encryption was discovered, and companies spring up where they create unbreakable private/public combos for citizens to use to encrypt their messages and letters. The companies agree to protect their customers by never recording the private keys they generate for them. Federal agents are outraged, and demand the companies record citizens private keys and store them permanently so whenever a court ruled federal agents could have them those agents could read any citizens private papers and letters. And that the citizens aren’t allowed to know when their keys have been compromised. Can you imagine the theft, blackmail and other possibilities? That’s exactly what the FBI wants now.
  - josefresco 9y ago
    Thanks for your thoughtful response. This thread is getting a little old, but I'm going to read this later, and might respond - however I wanted to thank you, in case I forget and move on - cheers!

stevew20 9y ago

Maybe they fired all the good investigators and hired data analysts, and are having serious buyers remorse!

josefresco 9y ago

I knew my comment would be unpopular however I'm genuinely curious how you feel about law enforcements ability to wiretap, or perform surveillance suspects given a court order. This capability has existed in the period you referenced, and to me it would seem ... similar(?) to law enforcement being granted permission (by a court) now to surveil a suspect's digital devices. Why does the switch to digital change things? Similarly, If I lock my home/car/object, commit a crime - are you okay with law enforcement breaking into my property to gather evidence? I'm honestly asking, not trying to snark - please help me work through how encryption differs from other "analog" tools meant to ensure privacy.

valuearb 9y ago
Think back even before technology. The police weren’t allowed to sneak on your property and search it, or hide on it to surreptitiously listen to your conversations, without a court order. This was to protect your privacy rights, as well as restrain over-reaching government agents. Now let’s assume 200 years ago all of your property was exposed so that any potentially dangerous people (robbers, horse thiefs, politicians) approaching your house could be easily seen. But this also means that federal agents coming to serve warrants could be seen with enough warning to allow you to destroy evidence, and anytime they’d try to surveil your house, you’d know they were there. Should it be illegal for your property to be so exposed? Should the government force property owners to plant shrubbery on approaches to their homes to make them easier to secretly surveil, and so surprise searches can be more successful? The difference between this and wiretapping is that wiretapping didn’t require you to change your property to allow it. The police merely tapped into existing infrastructure. I say “didn’t” because that stopped being true years ago. The feds were successful at forcing telecoms to alter their systems and equipment to make survellience easier, especially mass survellience. Now the FBI thinks that since they can force telecoms to put backdoors in their own equipment, they can also force companies to put backdoors in customers equipment. Let’s go back 200 years again where encryption was a popular way to assure the privacy of important messages and papers. Let’s assume public/private key encryption was discovered, and companies spring up where they create unbreakable private/public combos for citizens to use to encrypt their messages and letters. The companies agree to protect their customers by never recording the private keys they generate for them. Federal agents are outraged, and demand the companies record citizens private keys and store them permanently so whenever a court ruled federal agents could have them those agents could read any citizens private papers and letters. And that the citizens aren’t allowed to know when their keys have been compromised. Can you imagine the theft, blackmail and other possibilities? That’s exactly what the FBI wants now.
- josefresco 9y ago
  Thanks for your thoughtful response. This thread is getting a little old, but I'm going to read this later, and might respond - however I wanted to thank you, in case I forget and move on - cheers!