4 ms·

This was briefly confusing, as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion. But I

This was briefly confusing, as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion. But I'm interested in what the constructive path forward is on the rather more important issue of ubiquitous encryption. I think most people generally accept that well-regulated wiretapping (and other forms of interception of communication) are a useful and important law enforcement tool. Easy-to-use, commodity encryption makes this tool mostly useless. But obviously any "back door" would be immediately leaked/abused, and more to the point would just be circumvented by anybody who really did still want privacy. You can't shut the stable door etc. We do sometimes choose to outlaw useful and entirely legitimate technology because of the potential for abuse. Is there a reasonable argument for doing so with mass-market encryption? In reality, it seems that the public benefit of having encryption in place is so overwhelming that this is a total non-starter. Or is it simply the case that we now have to accept that this tool is no longer one which can be used? I think we'd have to accept that ubiquitous encryption is here to stay and stop trying to fight it.

skybrian 7y ago
Note that a lot can be learned from "metadata" (keeping track of who is talking to who) and it's also hard to prevent without adding a lot of inefficiency via something like onion routing. So that would be the logical place for some kind of law enforcement compromise while still encrypting the messages themselves.
the_watcher 7y ago
> as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion. An irreverent marketer could generate a ton of earned media out of this.
helen___keller 7y ago
I don't agree that encryption should be illegal, but also I don't think it's feasible to try and make it illegal without going all the way with our own version of the great firewall
abecedarius 7y ago
Imagine the worst case ("worst" from this PoV): end-to-end encryption is widely adopted and effective. How hard is a cop's legitimate job, compared to before telephone wiretaps? They can get to ubiquitous (and always increasing) surveillance footage and cell-phone tracking, just for a start. It seems really phony to frame this scenario as "going dark".
benj111 7y ago
"This was briefly confusing, as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion" Me too. I would have thought they would have been in favour of very strong encryption.... Made from girders. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PxuFQCDis https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PxuFQCDis
Spooky23 7y ago
The problem is the United States is that the 4th Amendment provides gives US persons the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". The legal reality today is that while legally we broadly interpret things like "companies are people", we very narrowly look at "papers, and effects" as literal, physical objects. Equating backdoors with wiretapping is only similar on the surface. A traditional wiretap allows the police to hear a series of conversations. A backdoor in an iPhone or your Dropbox/OneDrive/iCloud account potentially allows the police access to the entirety of your "papers, and effects". I would be willing soften my opinion on the issue, but only if there was a meaningful change in how the law protects digital documents.

skybrian 7y ago

Note that a lot can be learned from "metadata" (keeping track of who is talking to who) and it's also hard to prevent without adding a lot of inefficiency via something like onion routing. So that would be the logical place for some kind of law enforcement compromise while still encrypting the messages themselves.

the_watcher 7y ago

> as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion. An irreverent marketer could generate a ton of earned media out of this.

helen___keller 7y ago

I don't agree that encryption should be illegal, but also I don't think it's feasible to try and make it illegal without going all the way with our own version of the great firewall

abecedarius 7y ago

Imagine the worst case ("worst" from this PoV): end-to-end encryption is widely adopted and effective. How hard is a cop's legitimate job, compared to before telephone wiretaps? They can get to ubiquitous (and always increasing) surveillance footage and cell-phone tracking, just for a start. It seems really phony to frame this scenario as "going dark".

benj111 7y ago

"This was briefly confusing, as AG Barr is the soft drinks company which manufactures Irn Bru in Scotland, and I was surprised to see they had an opinion" Me too. I would have thought they would have been in favour of very strong encryption.... Made from girders. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PxuFQCDis https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PxuFQCDis

Spooky23 7y ago

The problem is the United States is that the 4th Amendment provides gives US persons the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". The legal reality today is that while legally we broadly interpret things like "companies are people", we very narrowly look at "papers, and effects" as literal, physical objects. Equating backdoors with wiretapping is only similar on the surface. A traditional wiretap allows the police to hear a series of conversations. A backdoor in an iPhone or your Dropbox/OneDrive/iCloud account potentially allows the police access to the entirety of your "papers, and effects". I would be willing soften my opinion on the issue, but only if there was a meaningful change in how the law protects digital documents.