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The idea that moves like this will "keep us safe" is utterly preposterous; there are a multitude of other ways in which terrorists (or the boogeyman de jour) co

The idea that moves like this will "keep us safe" is utterly preposterous; there are a multitude of other ways in which terrorists (or the boogeyman de jour) could communicate - are the UK and US governments going to insist on backdooring IRC, Slack and face-to-face conversations? Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? I truely fear for the future that western governments, in particular the 5 eyes members, are hell-bent on creating. They denounce China and Russia for their human rights records in one breath, and seek to strip us of privacy and personal rights in the next - the hypocrisy is simply staggering. What's perhaps even more frightening is that so many people believe that moves like this are to keep us safe, will keep us safe. This can not end well...

shrimp_emoji 7y ago
>moves like this are to keep us safe From the government's perspective, they are to keep "us" safe. It's easier to do that if no one's safe from us. :) Granted, that's a little over-ominous because the government's mission statement is to keep its people safe, and it's also elected by its people. Either of these two facts changing is the way bigger danger; backdooring centralized services is stuff that happens in the meantime either way.
- philipov 7y ago
  If you look at the way elections work at a micro scale in the US, you will begin to lose confidence in the assumption that they are elected by the people. Political machines have huge influence in controlling who it's possible to vote for, and swaying low-information voters. That makes sure they have a lockdown on decision-making, even if they allow a few mavericks through the cracks for the sake of plausible deniability. Even if this or that individual politician gets voted out, or even ten of them, it won't stop the machine's influence. They're still the ones who decide who the replacements can be chosen from.
autokad 7y ago
From what I can tell, it seems like the US is not forcing a backdoor. is that correct? This sounds like UK is forcing the issue. However, I don't care if it "keeps us safe". It's just wrong in so many ways
- Spearchucker 7y ago
  No matter. Under 5 eyes if one has it they all have it.
jhh 7y ago
Still remember how one German Islamist terror group just used their web-email provider's draft feature. They never 'sent' anything. There are often quite simple ways to circumvent this kind of thing.
- fabiospampinato 7y ago
  Yeah only a stupid person can think that backdooring whatsapp will actually prevent the next 9/11. And that's in my opinion the core issue with most politicians, stupidity/tech illiteracy. I'd love to hear about either a possible alternative government structure in which there are no politicians or a way to attract the smartest people in governments.
  - cft 7y ago
    That structure is called Republic, as opposed to Democracy. https://youtu.be/rgUs5wtXgL4 https://youtu.be/rgUs5wtXgL4 (the video is a bit dated unfortunately)
  - hef19898 7y ago
    On the politicians side I agree, tech illiteracy seems to be largely correct. As far as the intelligence agencies are concerned, well I think they know exactly what they are doing. So they know that a WhatsApp backdoor doesn't help against the next 911, it still allows a lot of general surveillance so. And that is what the agencies are after. Terrorists are just an excuse IMHO.
  - gtycomb 7y ago
    Politicians are not at all stupid in general. The problem we have is in their selective listening after we elect them. If a legislator is not technically up to speed, considerable tax payer money goes towards hiring people in government to do the research and the explaining. Some high level advisers may come from organizations with a private agenda and after a few years of working within the goverment these experts pop right back to their industry jobs and we don't hear of them anymore. Ultimately its the same need in whatever form of government we want – we need people we can trust.
pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
The only reason we are allowed guns is to use them to overthrow such corrupt governments before they overrun the planet starting with cooking the jews. So... use them, pussies.
Simon_says 7y ago
> Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? Yes. Absolutely. That's the only logical endgame.
- verizonuser 7y ago
  What indication is there of this?
  - naniwaduni 7y ago
    There is no other endgame in which this is pointful.
    - andrewflnr 7y ago
      You're assuming the people making these rules actually understand encryption, which is doubtful at best.
      - molmalo 7y ago
        In many cases, (In my country for sure, and I bet this is common elsewhere) members of the legislative branch are approached by people from the intelligence community, who hand them the drafts for stuff they 'need'. And you can bet those people do understand encryption.
        justforyou 7y ago
        They might understand encryprion, but that does not mean they are trustworthy nor truthful...
- merpnderp 7y ago
  Not possible in the US unless the Supreme Court stops giving a crap about the first amendment. Incredibly unlikely no matter how unpopular free speech might become.
verizonuser 7y ago
Disagree on hypocrisy. US still affords significant freedoms and largely respects human rights. Whether your communications can be decrypted or intercepted on networks that are government regulated anyway is not hypocritical. Residents of the US are still free to use whatever mathematical algorithm they want to encrypt their comms. Transporting OTP's across physical borders is trivial, and not technically illegally if not mistaken. Strong encryption is open source as you've pointed out. There's no law against using those open source libraries, nor any discussion to try to censor/outlaw them, AFAIK. Policing the airwaves and internet pipes hardly qualifies as some major abuse of human rights, particularly when the best that the Intercept/Snowden crowd can come up with regarding things like "Parallel Reconstruction" is "abuse" of "surveillance power" to catch, e.g., methamphetamine traffickers [1]. [1] https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/ https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega... edit: Downvote due to disagreement? This seems to be the mantra of HN in recent years.
- thereare5lights 7y ago
  Disagree. The end goal has always been to make civilian use of encryption in a such a way as to prevent government from being able to intercept communication illegal. That’s where we will end up.
  - verizonuser 7y ago
    Four lights. Nice try, Madred.
- GordonS 7y ago
  > Policing the airwaves and internet pipes hardly qualifies as some major abuse of human rights The leaders of today are not the same as those of tomorrow - sweeping powers to invade anyone's privacy and communications could easily be used for nefarious purposes. I don't trust our current leaders with such powers, much less potentially worse ones. > Residents of the US are still free to use whatever mathematical algorithm they want to encrypt their comms. Transporting OTP's across physical borders is trivial, and not technically illegally if not mistaken. Strong encryption is open source as you've pointed out. There's no law against using those open source libraries, nor any discussion to try to censor/outlaw them, AFAIK. Do you really think things will stay this way? It seems to me that TFA is just the next step on a slow, but steady, march towards an authoritarian nightmare - once they've worn us down some more, there will be serious moves against encryption (it's happened before, and politicians have been bringing it up a lot in the past 10 years or so).
freeflight 7y ago
> Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? Funny story about that, those used to be considered controlled munitions [0]. [0] http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/crypto/tattoo.html http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/crypto/tattoo.html
- GordonS 7y ago
  TBH, I thought encryption was still subject to ITAR rules and considered "munitions" in the US?
  - freeflight 7y ago
    The current situation looks like it still has a whole ton of potential legal tripping points, from Wikipedia: As of 2009, non-military cryptography exports from the U.S. are controlled by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. Some restrictions still exist, even for mass market products, particularly with regard to export to "rogue states" and terrorist organizations. Militarized encryption equipment, TEMPEST-approved electronics, custom cryptographic software, and even cryptographic consulting services still require an export license. Furthermore, encryption registration with the BIS is required for the export of "mass market encryption commodities, software and components with encryption exceeding 64 bits" (75 FR 36494). In addition, other items require a one-time review by, or notification to, BIS prior to export to most countries. For instance, the BIS must be notified before open-source cryptographic software is made publicly available on the Internet, though no review is required. Export regulations have been relaxed from pre-1996 standards, but are still complex. Other countries, notably those participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement, have similar restrictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
- jeremy_wiebe 7y ago
  When you submit apps to Apple, you _still_ have to declare if your app uses encryption. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/complying_with_encryption_export_regulations https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/complying...
IAmGraydon 7y ago
The fight for power has this unavoidable conclusion. The saying that “knowledge is power” is more true than I think most people realize. He who knows the most holds all the power. It doesn’t matter who is in power or what their beliefs are - they would eventually have to resort to these tactics or risk losing their foothold. Those who don’t or can’t afford to will be overrun. We dislike it even though we would be forced to do the same thing in their position. We dislike it because we aren’t the ones in power. Again, as it goes in the jungle, life isn’t always fair.
blobs 7y ago
The keeping safe argument from government is indeed preposterous. As if that was their mission to keep us safe. Why are they allowing our nature to be destroyed in favor of money/economy? This years heatwaves killed many thousands of people in Europe only, some estimates are in the tens of thousands. This is real deaths in 1 year, not because of terrorist attacks, no fucking backdoor will stop this. And what are they doing? Measures that won't make any difference. The cars will keep driving, the factories continue to produce poisons. Pesticides will still be allowed for better economy at the cost of entire insect species being wiped from this planet in just a few decades. The list goes on and on. It is so sad that I don't really want to listen to politicians anymore. They are the only ones who can change things by law, not me. And what law are they coming with for my safety? A backdoor for Whatsapp and Facebook.. We better ignore all this shit and try to enjoy our little lives for as long it will last.
- grawprog 7y ago
  >They are the only ones who can change things by law, not me. I had this thought yesterday as I read about several prominent politicians in Canada, including the prime minister, actively participating in the climate 'protests' that occurred yesterday. Who were they out there protesting? Themselves? They're the ones with the power to change things. Why were they outside with signs instead of in their offices doing something about it?
  - jebeng 7y ago
    That can presumably be explained by the fact that there is a federal election coming up in less than a month.
  - kemiller 7y ago
    Because politicians in a democracy cannot do things unilaterally.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    Well we know these actions look good from a public relations point of view. We only need ask if they had any other motivations or if it was only for PR.
BubRoss 7y ago
Outlawing AES will be difficult since it is embedded into P CPUs.
- ur-whale 7y ago
  That's assuming AES is safe.
  - ripdog 7y ago
    AES is far and away the most heavily scrutinized encryption algorithm in history. Of course that doesn't make it flawless, but the level of genius that the authors would need to hide a backdoor in it for all these years boggles the mind. The implementation of AES in popular CPUs? Yeah, who knows.
    - johnisgood 7y ago
      Yeah, I would not even go as far as AES in your CPU. Just... any part of your CPU, or your motherboard, or your GPU. RISC-V is still not suitable for desktop, or at least not commercially available AFAIK, and POWER9 is too expensive. I want open software and open hardware!
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    AES implemented on CPUs and AES being safe are two different things.
qyirius 7y ago
Ah but you see the government is also mandating that terrorists use these backdoored apps. So it will work
resters 7y ago
> What's perhaps even more frightening is that so many people believe that moves like this are to keep us safe... Strangely, HN is also very much in favor of the administration’s trade protectionism.
ThinkBeat 7y ago
I am about 90% certain that IRC and Slack is already well backdoored.
- mrgarborg 7y ago
  IRC? If that were the case, and open source servers like UnrealIRCd were somehow backdoored in a way the community couldn't detect, you're still free to implement your own backdoor-free server and client if you want. The spec is freely and openly available as RFC1459.
  - johnisgood 7y ago
    That, and there is OTR. You can create your own IRC client in a few lines of code in Python, and you can pull OTR on top of it quite easily. As far as Slack goes... I trust them as much as I trust Discord: I do not.
throwaway87378 7y ago
> The idea that moves like this will "keep us safe" is utterly preposterous The "terrorism" rationalization provided for this surveillance has nothing to do with reality. The United States government is not in any way involved in fighting the source of jihadist terrorism, and the state responsible for 9/11, Saudi Arabia. They are allies, and Trump's cabinet is now attempting to arm Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons. The actual intent of this law is to surveil whistle-blowers and journalists. WhatsApp messages have already been used in the case against IRS whistle-blower John Fry, who exposed the Donald Trump-Michael Cohen hush payments. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/report-trump-rushing-sell-saudi-arabia-nuclear-technology-190219181918317.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/report-trump-rushing-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCo-0EAu5Oc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCo-0EAu5Oc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-SjxsGHOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-SjxsGHOI https://theintercept.com/2019/08/04/whistleblowers-surveillance-fbi-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2019/08/04/whistleblowers-surveilla...
mytailorisrich 7y ago
It is reasonable for governments to want to be able to wiretap communications. They can wiretap telephones, including mobile/cell phones, for example as this is built into those systems. There is no problem with that and it is actually welcome. Those apps that provide end-to-end encryption are a problem and they are working on solving it. Claiming that they should not be able to wiretap lawfully (or even otherwise) is a rather naive view of the world and lawful wiretapping does not imply dystopia.
- sidlls 7y ago
  Lawful wiretapping does not imply dystopia, but the actual practice sure seems to. This is very likely to be abused by enforcement agencies and politicians.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    In the UK there is some oversight by the parliamentary committee and also the courts. Here's a case where the courts say that police surveillance was not correctly authorised: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIPTrib/2018/IPT_17_93_H.html https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIPTrib/2018/IPT_17_93_H.ht...
- GordonS 7y ago
  > Those apps that provide end-to-end encryption are a problem Are they though? There will always be a means to communicate without surveillance. Backdooring encryption is fundamentally incompatible with privacy, and will be abused - at scale. For any real cases, the security services have a multitude of other ways of getting the information they need regardless - for example, they could gaining physical access to the target's phone and backdoor/bug it, or swap it out with a backdoored/bugged one. The real problem with backdooring or outlawing encryption is that it lowers the bar to entry for governments - it makes it too easy, and such sweeping powers will be abused.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    > Backdooring encryption is fundamentally incompatible with privacy, That's a very bold claim. Lawful wiretapping exists because it is accepted (and reasonable) that privacy should stop in specific circumstances, e.g. a criminal investigation. As I wrote before seeing this in black or white is naive. Wiretapping is useful for society. The key is to have proper oversight. By the way, to lawfully wiretap a phone the authorities only need the phone number: The operator will then duplicate all traffic transparently and on the fly. Bugging a phone really means illegal/covert operations these days...
fortran77 7y ago
IRC clients are largely open source. How do we know they haven't been backdoored?
- lozaning 7y ago
  I think you answered the second part of your post with the first didnt you? Get the source and compile it yourself.
  - fortran77 7y ago
    There have been backdoors in Open Source code. I have only read a tiny insignificant fraction of the Open Source code I run.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
> They denounce China and Russia for their human rights records in one breath, and seek to strip us of privacy and personal rights in the next - the hypocrisy is simply staggering. Politicians, generally, are not hypocrites. That implies the guise of good faith. Do you really think the biggest beneficiaries of terrorism are likely to be honest with you? Humans just like being told what to do and what to fear and whom to be mad at, and politicians make eager use of this role.
kevinmchugh 7y ago
They don't have to backdoor slack. Slack is able to respond to subpoenas.
compuguy 7y ago
Ironically, the US and UK governments use the same exact encryption libraries (with the caveat that some use FIPS mode)....

shrimp_emoji 7y ago

>moves like this are to keep us safe From the government's perspective, they are to keep "us" safe. It's easier to do that if no one's safe from us. :) Granted, that's a little over-ominous because the government's mission statement is to keep its people safe, and it's also elected by its people. Either of these two facts changing is the way bigger danger; backdooring centralized services is stuff that happens in the meantime either way.

philipov 7y ago
If you look at the way elections work at a micro scale in the US, you will begin to lose confidence in the assumption that they are elected by the people. Political machines have huge influence in controlling who it's possible to vote for, and swaying low-information voters. That makes sure they have a lockdown on decision-making, even if they allow a few mavericks through the cracks for the sake of plausible deniability. Even if this or that individual politician gets voted out, or even ten of them, it won't stop the machine's influence. They're still the ones who decide who the replacements can be chosen from.

autokad 7y ago

From what I can tell, it seems like the US is not forcing a backdoor. is that correct? This sounds like UK is forcing the issue. However, I don't care if it "keeps us safe". It's just wrong in so many ways

Spearchucker 7y ago
No matter. Under 5 eyes if one has it they all have it.

jhh 7y ago

Still remember how one German Islamist terror group just used their web-email provider's draft feature. They never 'sent' anything. There are often quite simple ways to circumvent this kind of thing.

fabiospampinato 7y ago
Yeah only a stupid person can think that backdooring whatsapp will actually prevent the next 9/11. And that's in my opinion the core issue with most politicians, stupidity/tech illiteracy. I'd love to hear about either a possible alternative government structure in which there are no politicians or a way to attract the smartest people in governments.
- cft 7y ago
  That structure is called Republic, as opposed to Democracy. https://youtu.be/rgUs5wtXgL4 https://youtu.be/rgUs5wtXgL4 (the video is a bit dated unfortunately)
- hef19898 7y ago
  On the politicians side I agree, tech illiteracy seems to be largely correct. As far as the intelligence agencies are concerned, well I think they know exactly what they are doing. So they know that a WhatsApp backdoor doesn't help against the next 911, it still allows a lot of general surveillance so. And that is what the agencies are after. Terrorists are just an excuse IMHO.
- gtycomb 7y ago
  Politicians are not at all stupid in general. The problem we have is in their selective listening after we elect them. If a legislator is not technically up to speed, considerable tax payer money goes towards hiring people in government to do the research and the explaining. Some high level advisers may come from organizations with a private agenda and after a few years of working within the goverment these experts pop right back to their industry jobs and we don't hear of them anymore. Ultimately its the same need in whatever form of government we want – we need people we can trust.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago

The only reason we are allowed guns is to use them to overthrow such corrupt governments before they overrun the planet starting with cooking the jews. So... use them, pussies.

Simon_says 7y ago

> Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? Yes. Absolutely. That's the only logical endgame.

verizonuser 7y ago
What indication is there of this?
- naniwaduni 7y ago
  There is no other endgame in which this is pointful.
  - andrewflnr 7y ago
    You're assuming the people making these rules actually understand encryption, which is doubtful at best.
    - molmalo 7y ago
      In many cases, (In my country for sure, and I bet this is common elsewhere) members of the legislative branch are approached by people from the intelligence community, who hand them the drafts for stuff they 'need'. And you can bet those people do understand encryption.
      - justforyou 7y ago
        They might understand encryprion, but that does not mean they are trustworthy nor truthful...
merpnderp 7y ago
Not possible in the US unless the Supreme Court stops giving a crap about the first amendment. Incredibly unlikely no matter how unpopular free speech might become.

verizonuser 7y ago

Disagree on hypocrisy. US still affords significant freedoms and largely respects human rights. Whether your communications can be decrypted or intercepted on networks that are government regulated anyway is not hypocritical. Residents of the US are still free to use whatever mathematical algorithm they want to encrypt their comms. Transporting OTP's across physical borders is trivial, and not technically illegally if not mistaken. Strong encryption is open source as you've pointed out. There's no law against using those open source libraries, nor any discussion to try to censor/outlaw them, AFAIK. Policing the airwaves and internet pipes hardly qualifies as some major abuse of human rights, particularly when the best that the Intercept/Snowden crowd can come up with regarding things like "Parallel Reconstruction" is "abuse" of "surveillance power" to catch, e.g., methamphetamine traffickers [1]. [1] https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/ https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega... edit: Downvote due to disagreement? This seems to be the mantra of HN in recent years.

thereare5lights 7y ago
Disagree. The end goal has always been to make civilian use of encryption in a such a way as to prevent government from being able to intercept communication illegal. That’s where we will end up.
- verizonuser 7y ago
  Four lights. Nice try, Madred.
GordonS 7y ago
> Policing the airwaves and internet pipes hardly qualifies as some major abuse of human rights The leaders of today are not the same as those of tomorrow - sweeping powers to invade anyone's privacy and communications could easily be used for nefarious purposes. I don't trust our current leaders with such powers, much less potentially worse ones. > Residents of the US are still free to use whatever mathematical algorithm they want to encrypt their comms. Transporting OTP's across physical borders is trivial, and not technically illegally if not mistaken. Strong encryption is open source as you've pointed out. There's no law against using those open source libraries, nor any discussion to try to censor/outlaw them, AFAIK. Do you really think things will stay this way? It seems to me that TFA is just the next step on a slow, but steady, march towards an authoritarian nightmare - once they've worn us down some more, there will be serious moves against encryption (it's happened before, and politicians have been bringing it up a lot in the past 10 years or so).

freeflight 7y ago

> Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? Funny story about that, those used to be considered controlled munitions [0]. [0] http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/crypto/tattoo.html http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/crypto/tattoo.html

GordonS 7y ago
TBH, I thought encryption was still subject to ITAR rules and considered "munitions" in the US?
- freeflight 7y ago
  The current situation looks like it still has a whole ton of potential legal tripping points, from Wikipedia: As of 2009, non-military cryptography exports from the U.S. are controlled by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. Some restrictions still exist, even for mass market products, particularly with regard to export to "rogue states" and terrorist organizations. Militarized encryption equipment, TEMPEST-approved electronics, custom cryptographic software, and even cryptographic consulting services still require an export license. Furthermore, encryption registration with the BIS is required for the export of "mass market encryption commodities, software and components with encryption exceeding 64 bits" (75 FR 36494). In addition, other items require a one-time review by, or notification to, BIS prior to export to most countries. For instance, the BIS must be notified before open-source cryptographic software is made publicly available on the Internet, though no review is required. Export regulations have been relaxed from pre-1996 standards, but are still complex. Other countries, notably those participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement, have similar restrictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#Current_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
jeremy_wiebe 7y ago
When you submit apps to Apple, you _still_ have to declare if your app uses encryption. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/complying_with_encryption_export_regulations https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/complying...

IAmGraydon 7y ago

The fight for power has this unavoidable conclusion. The saying that “knowledge is power” is more true than I think most people realize. He who knows the most holds all the power. It doesn’t matter who is in power or what their beliefs are - they would eventually have to resort to these tactics or risk losing their foothold. Those who don’t or can’t afford to will be overrun. We dislike it even though we would be forced to do the same thing in their position. We dislike it because we aren’t the ones in power. Again, as it goes in the jungle, life isn’t always fair.

blobs 7y ago

The keeping safe argument from government is indeed preposterous. As if that was their mission to keep us safe. Why are they allowing our nature to be destroyed in favor of money/economy? This years heatwaves killed many thousands of people in Europe only, some estimates are in the tens of thousands. This is real deaths in 1 year, not because of terrorist attacks, no fucking backdoor will stop this. And what are they doing? Measures that won't make any difference. The cars will keep driving, the factories continue to produce poisons. Pesticides will still be allowed for better economy at the cost of entire insect species being wiped from this planet in just a few decades. The list goes on and on. It is so sad that I don't really want to listen to politicians anymore. They are the only ones who can change things by law, not me. And what law are they coming with for my safety? A backdoor for Whatsapp and Facebook.. We better ignore all this shit and try to enjoy our little lives for as long it will last.

grawprog 7y ago
>They are the only ones who can change things by law, not me. I had this thought yesterday as I read about several prominent politicians in Canada, including the prime minister, actively participating in the climate 'protests' that occurred yesterday. Who were they out there protesting? Themselves? They're the ones with the power to change things. Why were they outside with signs instead of in their offices doing something about it?
- jebeng 7y ago
  That can presumably be explained by the fact that there is a federal election coming up in less than a month.
- kemiller 7y ago
  Because politicians in a democracy cannot do things unilaterally.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Well we know these actions look good from a public relations point of view. We only need ask if they had any other motivations or if it was only for PR.

BubRoss 7y ago

Outlawing AES will be difficult since it is embedded into P CPUs.

ur-whale 7y ago
That's assuming AES is safe.
- ripdog 7y ago
  AES is far and away the most heavily scrutinized encryption algorithm in history. Of course that doesn't make it flawless, but the level of genius that the authors would need to hide a backdoor in it for all these years boggles the mind. The implementation of AES in popular CPUs? Yeah, who knows.
  - johnisgood 7y ago
    Yeah, I would not even go as far as AES in your CPU. Just... any part of your CPU, or your motherboard, or your GPU. RISC-V is still not suitable for desktop, or at least not commercially available AFAIK, and POWER9 is too expensive. I want open software and open hardware!
- BubRoss 7y ago
  AES implemented on CPUs and AES being safe are two different things.

qyirius 7y ago

Ah but you see the government is also mandating that terrorists use these backdoored apps. So it will work

resters 7y ago

> What's perhaps even more frightening is that so many people believe that moves like this are to keep us safe... Strangely, HN is also very much in favor of the administration’s trade protectionism.

ThinkBeat 7y ago

I am about 90% certain that IRC and Slack is already well backdoored.

mrgarborg 7y ago
IRC? If that were the case, and open source servers like UnrealIRCd were somehow backdoored in a way the community couldn't detect, you're still free to implement your own backdoor-free server and client if you want. The spec is freely and openly available as RFC1459.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  That, and there is OTR. You can create your own IRC client in a few lines of code in Python, and you can pull OTR on top of it quite easily. As far as Slack goes... I trust them as much as I trust Discord: I do not.

throwaway87378 7y ago

> The idea that moves like this will "keep us safe" is utterly preposterous The "terrorism" rationalization provided for this surveillance has nothing to do with reality. The United States government is not in any way involved in fighting the source of jihadist terrorism, and the state responsible for 9/11, Saudi Arabia. They are allies, and Trump's cabinet is now attempting to arm Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons. The actual intent of this law is to surveil whistle-blowers and journalists. WhatsApp messages have already been used in the case against IRS whistle-blower John Fry, who exposed the Donald Trump-Michael Cohen hush payments. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/report-trump-rushing-sell-saudi-arabia-nuclear-technology-190219181918317.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/report-trump-rushing-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCo-0EAu5Oc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCo-0EAu5Oc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-SjxsGHOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-SjxsGHOI https://theintercept.com/2019/08/04/whistleblowers-surveillance-fbi-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2019/08/04/whistleblowers-surveilla...

mytailorisrich 7y ago

It is reasonable for governments to want to be able to wiretap communications. They can wiretap telephones, including mobile/cell phones, for example as this is built into those systems. There is no problem with that and it is actually welcome. Those apps that provide end-to-end encryption are a problem and they are working on solving it. Claiming that they should not be able to wiretap lawfully (or even otherwise) is a rather naive view of the world and lawful wiretapping does not imply dystopia.

sidlls 7y ago
Lawful wiretapping does not imply dystopia, but the actual practice sure seems to. This is very likely to be abused by enforcement agencies and politicians.
- DanBC 7y ago
  In the UK there is some oversight by the parliamentary committee and also the courts. Here's a case where the courts say that police surveillance was not correctly authorised: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIPTrib/2018/IPT_17_93_H.html https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIPTrib/2018/IPT_17_93_H.ht...
GordonS 7y ago
> Those apps that provide end-to-end encryption are a problem Are they though? There will always be a means to communicate without surveillance. Backdooring encryption is fundamentally incompatible with privacy, and will be abused - at scale. For any real cases, the security services have a multitude of other ways of getting the information they need regardless - for example, they could gaining physical access to the target's phone and backdoor/bug it, or swap it out with a backdoored/bugged one. The real problem with backdooring or outlawing encryption is that it lowers the bar to entry for governments - it makes it too easy, and such sweeping powers will be abused.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  > Backdooring encryption is fundamentally incompatible with privacy, That's a very bold claim. Lawful wiretapping exists because it is accepted (and reasonable) that privacy should stop in specific circumstances, e.g. a criminal investigation. As I wrote before seeing this in black or white is naive. Wiretapping is useful for society. The key is to have proper oversight. By the way, to lawfully wiretap a phone the authorities only need the phone number: The operator will then duplicate all traffic transparently and on the fly. Bugging a phone really means illegal/covert operations these days...

fortran77 7y ago

IRC clients are largely open source. How do we know they haven't been backdoored?

lozaning 7y ago
I think you answered the second part of your post with the first didnt you? Get the source and compile it yourself.
- fortran77 7y ago
  There have been backdoors in Open Source code. I have only read a tiny insignificant fraction of the Open Source code I run.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

> They denounce China and Russia for their human rights records in one breath, and seek to strip us of privacy and personal rights in the next - the hypocrisy is simply staggering. Politicians, generally, are not hypocrites. That implies the guise of good faith. Do you really think the biggest beneficiaries of terrorism are likely to be honest with you? Humans just like being told what to do and what to fear and whom to be mad at, and politicians make eager use of this role.

kevinmchugh 7y ago

They don't have to backdoor slack. Slack is able to respond to subpoenas.

compuguy 7y ago

Ironically, the US and UK governments use the same exact encryption libraries (with the caveat that some use FIPS mode)....