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The ones who are capable of compelling the phone company to obey over political pressure from other sources. This is a strict improvement over the current situ

The ones who are capable of compelling the phone company to obey over political pressure from other sources. This is a strict improvement over the current situation, where the answer is “anyone who has money”.

darkpuma 8y ago
Providing deliberate backdoors to the legal system does not preclude the discovery of other exploits, and the sale of those exploits to whoever has money.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  It does not, but it changes the set of people looking to buy them and the way in which they’re used, both of which impact the general market for vulnerability sales — and additionally, re-aligns some present attackers to defenders. Security researchers, strangely enough, seem to care who they sell to. If the NSA stopped buying and only the UAE was interested, I expect we’d see some firms move to other business models or targets for “research”.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    > "It does not, but it changes the set of people looking to buy them and the way in which they’re used, both of which impact the general market for vulnerability sales" There is no shortage of oppressive regimes with incredible amounts of money at their disposal. People who are in it for the money don't honestly give a shit who pays them. You cannot eliminate the market for this stuff. The only option is to create better software.
zaroth 8y ago
Are you forgetting that time that the spy agency collected call records on millions of Americans through a secret court? [1] As the other commenter points out, this only adds an attack vector and does not do anything to eliminate any. The same incentives exist on all sides to find exploits regardless of an additional “legal” channel to crack the encryption. Particularly because your political enemies use the same devices and you can’t get a court order to tap their phones (usually). [1] - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/...
- andrepd 8y ago
  De-AMPified link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-reco...

darkpuma 8y ago

Providing deliberate backdoors to the legal system does not preclude the discovery of other exploits, and the sale of those exploits to whoever has money.

FakeComments 8y ago
It does not, but it changes the set of people looking to buy them and the way in which they’re used, both of which impact the general market for vulnerability sales — and additionally, re-aligns some present attackers to defenders. Security researchers, strangely enough, seem to care who they sell to. If the NSA stopped buying and only the UAE was interested, I expect we’d see some firms move to other business models or targets for “research”.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "It does not, but it changes the set of people looking to buy them and the way in which they’re used, both of which impact the general market for vulnerability sales" There is no shortage of oppressive regimes with incredible amounts of money at their disposal. People who are in it for the money don't honestly give a shit who pays them. You cannot eliminate the market for this stuff. The only option is to create better software.

zaroth 8y ago

Are you forgetting that time that the spy agency collected call records on millions of Americans through a secret court? [1] As the other commenter points out, this only adds an attack vector and does not do anything to eliminate any. The same incentives exist on all sides to find exploits regardless of an additional “legal” channel to crack the encryption. Particularly because your political enemies use the same devices and you can’t get a court order to tap their phones (usually). [1] - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/...

andrepd 8y ago
De-AMPified link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-reco...