7 ms·

I'm not sure this is a great analogy as yes, we permit people to have doors and locks but society also provides a mechanism for the government to lawfully get a

I'm not sure this is a great analogy as yes, we permit people to have doors and locks but society also provides a mechanism for the government to lawfully get access to them. If the Police have a legit reason to access a property they go to court and get a warrent, and if they need to they'll kick the door in to get in. The current government requests to be able to access encrypted info with a warrent are an extension of what currently happens in physical space.

lysium 7y ago
Shouldn’t they come to me then and look into my phone instead of constantly looking into my messages on the server? I think the door is a great analogy.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  and if you say "no", they're screwed. Whereas with a door, they can just push you out of the way and kick it down. I'm opposed to back doors, but the door analogy is a bad one.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    If you say no, then you're arrested for contempt of court or similar.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    > and if you say "no", they're screwed This is false. If it's ever true, the crime is confined to the perpetrator's mind.
  - laumars 7y ago
    There's no such thing as a perfect analogy because the entire point of an analogy is it takes an argument and reframes it in a different context. Different contexts have different edge cases and thus no analogy fits an argument perfectly. Given this door analogy works for the majority of the arguments being presented (which is impressive in itself given how different the physical and electronic worlds are), I'd say it's actually a pretty good analogy.
  - diffeomorphism 7y ago
    Any analogy has its limitations, but I think it is helpful for talking about things like "back doors" (and how that is no different from not having doors at all) or how a proposal is basically only "unintended" consequences and no gain. Feel free to suggest a better analogy. The main difference where this analogy breaks down is that it is much easier to build practically unbreakable encryption (assuming P != NP), versus practically unbreakable doors or safes.
  - cjg 7y ago
    They can't kick it down and push me out of the way if I have built an underground bunker. And surely we all deserve an underground bunker.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    no, if you say "no", you're screwed. they jail you until you cooperate with the investigation.
- matt-attack 7y ago
  Right. I believe it’s just laziness on their part. If the crime is abusing children, go catch the guys doing the abuse. If you’re worried someone is in possession of illegal materials go get a warrant and search their home/computer, etc.
igama 7y ago
"If the Police have a legit reason to access a property they go to court and get a warrent, and if they need to they'll kick the door in to get in." That's what currently takes, place, Government doesn't have the keys, they have to use force to get in, or other methods. (However there are physical limits to materials, so there is usually a way to break in) But, by having a special key that opens all the doors, anyone could copy it - yes rules can put in place to who as access, etc, etc, but by knowing there is a "hole" in each device, every possible malicious agent will try and break it as soon as possible. Then what? We have seen examples by Law Enforcement officers using accesses to gather data that would required a court order, but they didn't have one, and it was for personal reasons. So, how does that work out?
- tootie 7y ago
  How do you know nobody has a copy of your house key? I live in an apartment building and it's actually mandatory for the super to be able to enter my apartment in emergencies so he has a key.
  - amdavidson 7y ago
    That's not the argument they made. I do not know that there is no one out there in the world who has a key to my house. Even if there was and someone found that key on a city street they would likely not be able to figure out which house it opened. I know there is no legally mandated key to everyone's house that would allow anyone to enter whomever's house they please.
- jdsnape 7y ago
  well, there is kinda a key is that lets anyone in - in the UK they call it 'the enforcer' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcer_(battering_ram) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcer_(battering_ram) If an officer does something that should require a court order and don't have one then they end up prosecuted in the same way a criminal would be. You put checks and balances in place to make sure that they are caught.
  - 7y ago
laumars 7y ago
Police can request access to your phone and if you say "no" then they can send it off to forensics to try and break their way into it. Some buildings are barricaded to make forced entry harder, some phones are more secure which makes hacking into them harder.
gmuslera 7y ago
The police, the government, the intelligence agencies and so on are not abstract entities, they are composed by people at all levels, in a capitalist economy, with human biases and wishes. There are plenty of documented examples of abuse of this kind of access for fun and profit. And besides those not-so-abstract entities, they have contractors from private companies and corporations that aren't abstract neither, but even in abstract mode are driven by profit, not respecting your privacy/security/economy.
Zak 7y ago
If the government of a wealthy nation state decides to read messages a given group of people have been sending to each other using user-friendly consumer chat services, it will succeed. It just can't do so casually, with minimal resources, with a low probability of detection like it can when those messages are sent in the clear. A targeted cyberattack authorized by a warrant is the digital equivalent of sending a SWAT team to kick in a door.
ptero 7y ago
> The current government requests to be able to access encrypted info with a warrent are an extension of what currently happens in physical space. The key difference, to me, is that the current setup where the police can kick in the door to get in does not require subjects to make it any easier / more convenient for the police. If they have to raid and break in and get an approval, they will, but I am not required to arrange my locks or my furniture to help. In fact, I am free to do the opposite. For example, I can put the things I do not want to share (private photos, detailed plans to become the world dictator, etc.), in an incinerator safe and try to destroy them if the doors are flying in. My 2c.
parliament32 7y ago
You don't have to go down to your police station with a copy of your key every time you change you lock, which some of the "solutions" imply. Further, there are no laws for how strong of a door you can build: you're more than welcome to have a safe with a 3-ft thick steel door and an unpickable lock, that'd take a professional a month to get through.
phkahler 7y ago
They can get a warrant and have a court compel you to provide passwords already. That's equivalent to locked doors. What they want is the ability to go through peoples stuff without them knowing (via court order or not isn't even the point). Its not at all like the physical world.
snowwrestler 7y ago
Warrants give the government the legal right to access private materials or information. It allows them to use measures that would normally be illegal, to gain that access. This is equally true for doors or encryption. If the government has a warrant for some data, they can attack the computing system that holds the data--just like trying to kick down a door. They do this successfully all the time. Encryption is math in theory, but in practice it is implemented in hardware and software, neither of which are perfect. They are usually breakable. The FBI made a big stink about forcing Apple to help them break the encryption on an iPhone. The FBI's own inspector general said that the FBI did not try hard enough to break into the phone before they went to court. And ultimately the FBI did break into that phone and access the data! There is no need for a special law weakening encryption.

lysium 7y ago

Shouldn’t they come to me then and look into my phone instead of constantly looking into my messages on the server? I think the door is a great analogy.

throwawayjava 7y ago
and if you say "no", they're screwed. Whereas with a door, they can just push you out of the way and kick it down. I'm opposed to back doors, but the door analogy is a bad one.
- isostatic 7y ago
  If you say no, then you're arrested for contempt of court or similar.
- brlewis 7y ago
  > and if you say "no", they're screwed This is false. If it's ever true, the crime is confined to the perpetrator's mind.
- laumars 7y ago
  There's no such thing as a perfect analogy because the entire point of an analogy is it takes an argument and reframes it in a different context. Different contexts have different edge cases and thus no analogy fits an argument perfectly. Given this door analogy works for the majority of the arguments being presented (which is impressive in itself given how different the physical and electronic worlds are), I'd say it's actually a pretty good analogy.
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  Any analogy has its limitations, but I think it is helpful for talking about things like "back doors" (and how that is no different from not having doors at all) or how a proposal is basically only "unintended" consequences and no gain. Feel free to suggest a better analogy. The main difference where this analogy breaks down is that it is much easier to build practically unbreakable encryption (assuming P != NP), versus practically unbreakable doors or safes.
- cjg 7y ago
  They can't kick it down and push me out of the way if I have built an underground bunker. And surely we all deserve an underground bunker.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  no, if you say "no", you're screwed. they jail you until you cooperate with the investigation.
matt-attack 7y ago
Right. I believe it’s just laziness on their part. If the crime is abusing children, go catch the guys doing the abuse. If you’re worried someone is in possession of illegal materials go get a warrant and search their home/computer, etc.

igama 7y ago

"If the Police have a legit reason to access a property they go to court and get a warrent, and if they need to they'll kick the door in to get in." That's what currently takes, place, Government doesn't have the keys, they have to use force to get in, or other methods. (However there are physical limits to materials, so there is usually a way to break in) But, by having a special key that opens all the doors, anyone could copy it - yes rules can put in place to who as access, etc, etc, but by knowing there is a "hole" in each device, every possible malicious agent will try and break it as soon as possible. Then what? We have seen examples by Law Enforcement officers using accesses to gather data that would required a court order, but they didn't have one, and it was for personal reasons. So, how does that work out?

tootie 7y ago
How do you know nobody has a copy of your house key? I live in an apartment building and it's actually mandatory for the super to be able to enter my apartment in emergencies so he has a key.
- amdavidson 7y ago
  That's not the argument they made. I do not know that there is no one out there in the world who has a key to my house. Even if there was and someone found that key on a city street they would likely not be able to figure out which house it opened. I know there is no legally mandated key to everyone's house that would allow anyone to enter whomever's house they please.
jdsnape 7y ago
well, there is kinda a key is that lets anyone in - in the UK they call it 'the enforcer' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcer_(battering_ram) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcer_(battering_ram) If an officer does something that should require a court order and don't have one then they end up prosecuted in the same way a criminal would be. You put checks and balances in place to make sure that they are caught.
- 7y ago

laumars 7y ago

Police can request access to your phone and if you say "no" then they can send it off to forensics to try and break their way into it. Some buildings are barricaded to make forced entry harder, some phones are more secure which makes hacking into them harder.

gmuslera 7y ago

The police, the government, the intelligence agencies and so on are not abstract entities, they are composed by people at all levels, in a capitalist economy, with human biases and wishes. There are plenty of documented examples of abuse of this kind of access for fun and profit. And besides those not-so-abstract entities, they have contractors from private companies and corporations that aren't abstract neither, but even in abstract mode are driven by profit, not respecting your privacy/security/economy.

Zak 7y ago

If the government of a wealthy nation state decides to read messages a given group of people have been sending to each other using user-friendly consumer chat services, it will succeed. It just can't do so casually, with minimal resources, with a low probability of detection like it can when those messages are sent in the clear. A targeted cyberattack authorized by a warrant is the digital equivalent of sending a SWAT team to kick in a door.

ptero 7y ago

> The current government requests to be able to access encrypted info with a warrent are an extension of what currently happens in physical space. The key difference, to me, is that the current setup where the police can kick in the door to get in does not require subjects to make it any easier / more convenient for the police. If they have to raid and break in and get an approval, they will, but I am not required to arrange my locks or my furniture to help. In fact, I am free to do the opposite. For example, I can put the things I do not want to share (private photos, detailed plans to become the world dictator, etc.), in an incinerator safe and try to destroy them if the doors are flying in. My 2c.

parliament32 7y ago

You don't have to go down to your police station with a copy of your key every time you change you lock, which some of the "solutions" imply. Further, there are no laws for how strong of a door you can build: you're more than welcome to have a safe with a 3-ft thick steel door and an unpickable lock, that'd take a professional a month to get through.

phkahler 7y ago

They can get a warrant and have a court compel you to provide passwords already. That's equivalent to locked doors. What they want is the ability to go through peoples stuff without them knowing (via court order or not isn't even the point). Its not at all like the physical world.

snowwrestler 7y ago

Warrants give the government the legal right to access private materials or information. It allows them to use measures that would normally be illegal, to gain that access. This is equally true for doors or encryption. If the government has a warrant for some data, they can attack the computing system that holds the data--just like trying to kick down a door. They do this successfully all the time. Encryption is math in theory, but in practice it is implemented in hardware and software, neither of which are perfect. They are usually breakable. The FBI made a big stink about forcing Apple to help them break the encryption on an iPhone. The FBI's own inspector general said that the FBI did not try hard enough to break into the phone before they went to court. And ultimately the FBI did break into that phone and access the data! There is no need for a special law weakening encryption.