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I actually appreciate Barr's point. Honestly given the cost of not saving lives that could have been saved, abducted children, potential active shooters, terror

I actually appreciate Barr's point. Honestly given the cost of not saving lives that could have been saved, abducted children, potential active shooters, terrorist threats all surrendered for the benefit of me getting end to end encryption to ask my wife what kind of drink she wants me to buy from Starbucks. I, speaking only for myself, find lawful access to such personal messaging, given probable cause of a crime being committed and a warrant signed by a judge, tolerable and reasonable. I also get the sentiment that people have more of a problem with the idea of government access to private communications than with weakening the encryption to allow it. I see a lot of the conversation being all about privacy, and not about encryption. In discussion of the latter I don't have a lot to add, but in the former, the courts have decided many times over that law enforcement and the state can access information about you if they have probable cause that you're committing a crime. If you enjoy living in a society governed by laws and don't tend towards libertarian extremes of personal freedom it's something worth accepting and the discussion on the highest level of whether we should or shouldn't do this doesn't even consider this side of the argument, despite it filling up 90% of the user generated discussion about this topic whenever it comes up.

self-reference 7y ago
This perspective really bothers me— I’m sure I’m not the only one. It seems to presume that the current state of affairs, where the police lack some ability to access some of the evidence which is in principle available, is a novel situation demanding of a novel response. But, like, it’s not like the original ratifiers of the Bill of Rights didn’t understand what they were doing. They _knew_ that by outlawing common law enforcement practices like arbitrary searches and coerced confessions, they would be giving up some of their ability to “punish” certain types of “criminals”. They got that it meant they couldn’t listen in on a man’s conversation with God. That’s the deal they struck to try to form a country governed by laws, not by men. It really seems like it’s not such a new situation, after all; we just have new values.
- rosybox 7y ago
  This response is exactly what I'm talking about. The conversation about allowing government access to private conversations is already addressed by court precedence. The weakening of encryption, which may allow bad actors to exploit what the government has access to, is the actual discussion that lawmakers are considering. People have a real hard time with coming to terms with the powers that police have. Those are not in question though. You can get mad about it, downvote me, but powerful law enforcement is a fact of modern life and it's not going away. In the US, you'd need a constitutional amendment, and there's no one calling for it, it's not an issue on any of the major parties platforms.
  - okmokmz 7y ago
    >You can get mad about it, downvote me, but powerful law enforcement is a fact of modern life and it's not going away You're right. The US, China, Russia, and many other authoritarian regimes and politicians are working on further militarizing law enforcement and chipping away at the protections of citizens, such as supporting backdoors in encryption. Not a world I want to live in
- masscrypteria 7y ago
  Founding fathers had no way of knowing of the current state of affairs, technologically speaking. Imagine billions of unbreakable safes containing secret messages to and from anyone globally, instantly transported to anywhere in the world. Like, dude, anyone with the appropriate security clearance that is aware of the implications of the encryption status quo isn’t spending time posting here.
  - okmokmz 7y ago
    No wonder you're using a throwaway to post this
    - masscrypteria 7y ago
      I can’t downvote you but your response doesn’t add any value to the conversation.
      - okmokmz 7y ago
        I was going to respond, but there is no point arguing with trolls posting pro-authoritarian opinions from a fake account because they're too scared to have their thoughts tied to their identity in any way
  - Buttons840 7y ago
    People being able to communicate securely while leaving no trace behind is not new. Granted, it is new that we can communicate world wide this way, but I don't see how that changes much. "The world" to an individual has always been, and still is mostly, filled with people they could easily meet with for a secret conversation. Also, are not our minds like an unbreakable safe? Human minds have been around for a long time.
masscrypteria 7y ago
The techies who agree tend to frequent circles other than hacker news.
- sterkekoffie 7y ago
  Such as?
wonderwonder 7y ago
If we allow this we have now given control of all future politicians over to the party in power. If the admin. in power does not like what you are saying or that you are running against them, without encryption it would be trivial for them to leak to the world what type of pornography you like or the fact that you are a closeted homosexual etc. This becomes especially dangerous in countries where your sexual preferences can be a death sentence. Imagine China's social credit score policy expanded in the US to factor in every text message you send or website you visit. It does not end well.
brandmeyer 7y ago
History teaches us that methods used for access with a warrant will be abused to get access without a warrant. It teaches us that warrants will be obtained fraudulently. It teaches us that law enforcement personnel are no more trustworthy than any other person. The instincts of these organizations is to vacuum up every bit of communication that they can, and figure out how to justify access to it later. In such a world, there is no true privacy. The only method we have to combat this instinct is widely-available and widely-used strong encryption.

self-reference 7y ago

This perspective really bothers me— I’m sure I’m not the only one. It seems to presume that the current state of affairs, where the police lack some ability to access some of the evidence which is in principle available, is a novel situation demanding of a novel response. But, like, it’s not like the original ratifiers of the Bill of Rights didn’t understand what they were doing. They _knew_ that by outlawing common law enforcement practices like arbitrary searches and coerced confessions, they would be giving up some of their ability to “punish” certain types of “criminals”. They got that it meant they couldn’t listen in on a man’s conversation with God. That’s the deal they struck to try to form a country governed by laws, not by men. It really seems like it’s not such a new situation, after all; we just have new values.

rosybox 7y ago
This response is exactly what I'm talking about. The conversation about allowing government access to private conversations is already addressed by court precedence. The weakening of encryption, which may allow bad actors to exploit what the government has access to, is the actual discussion that lawmakers are considering. People have a real hard time with coming to terms with the powers that police have. Those are not in question though. You can get mad about it, downvote me, but powerful law enforcement is a fact of modern life and it's not going away. In the US, you'd need a constitutional amendment, and there's no one calling for it, it's not an issue on any of the major parties platforms.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  >You can get mad about it, downvote me, but powerful law enforcement is a fact of modern life and it's not going away You're right. The US, China, Russia, and many other authoritarian regimes and politicians are working on further militarizing law enforcement and chipping away at the protections of citizens, such as supporting backdoors in encryption. Not a world I want to live in
masscrypteria 7y ago
Founding fathers had no way of knowing of the current state of affairs, technologically speaking. Imagine billions of unbreakable safes containing secret messages to and from anyone globally, instantly transported to anywhere in the world. Like, dude, anyone with the appropriate security clearance that is aware of the implications of the encryption status quo isn’t spending time posting here.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  No wonder you're using a throwaway to post this
  - masscrypteria 7y ago
    I can’t downvote you but your response doesn’t add any value to the conversation.
    - okmokmz 7y ago
      I was going to respond, but there is no point arguing with trolls posting pro-authoritarian opinions from a fake account because they're too scared to have their thoughts tied to their identity in any way
- Buttons840 7y ago
  People being able to communicate securely while leaving no trace behind is not new. Granted, it is new that we can communicate world wide this way, but I don't see how that changes much. "The world" to an individual has always been, and still is mostly, filled with people they could easily meet with for a secret conversation. Also, are not our minds like an unbreakable safe? Human minds have been around for a long time.

masscrypteria 7y ago

The techies who agree tend to frequent circles other than hacker news.

sterkekoffie 7y ago
Such as?

wonderwonder 7y ago

If we allow this we have now given control of all future politicians over to the party in power. If the admin. in power does not like what you are saying or that you are running against them, without encryption it would be trivial for them to leak to the world what type of pornography you like or the fact that you are a closeted homosexual etc. This becomes especially dangerous in countries where your sexual preferences can be a death sentence. Imagine China's social credit score policy expanded in the US to factor in every text message you send or website you visit. It does not end well.

brandmeyer 7y ago

History teaches us that methods used for access with a warrant will be abused to get access without a warrant. It teaches us that warrants will be obtained fraudulently. It teaches us that law enforcement personnel are no more trustworthy than any other person. The instincts of these organizations is to vacuum up every bit of communication that they can, and figure out how to justify access to it later. In such a world, there is no true privacy. The only method we have to combat this instinct is widely-available and widely-used strong encryption.