4 ms·

> But it’s not their responsibility to account for negative side effects. That’s our responsibility, as citizens who are in charge of our governments. Wait, wh

> But it’s not their responsibility to account for negative side effects. That’s our responsibility, as citizens who are in charge of our governments. Wait, what? We have a saying in the actions and decisions of our governments (context: EU and US)? No we don't. We don't live in direct democracies. If Interpol or any police force wants to ban encryption and if that benefits who ever is in government, then that ban will come. Thus: that ban will come. (Western) governments have been eyeing bans and bypasses of encryption for decades. This is nothing new. What we as citizens think of that is completely irrelevant. Unless the majority of the population would really care about encryption and it would influence the 4-yearly vote-thing (elections). Which is not the case. Every Western country has had headlines in their news papers in the past months about their politicians -all of a sudden and all at the same time- wanting to pass laws to allow them to bypass encryption (pressured by the US?). Just in case it would influence the 4-yearly voting thing. The synchronized timing of the publications to me is shocking but not really surprising anymore. Manufacturing consent. the online kiddy porn and terrorism is really getting out of hand like right about now. Never been worse. Let's all ban encryption quickly and save the world from all child abuse

jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
Maybe go outside, make some friends, join a community of individuals who are interested in claiming their place in the history of the world. Stop waiting for a champion to come and save you, and just be a champion. We're trying to form a voting bloc in my community to turn the local government upside down. If similar movements happened in other communities around the U.S. the legislature would be very different.
- bboygravity 7y ago
  That's nice and I truly hope you'll succeed. My strategy is slightly different and more selfish: I'm planning to move to the only country in the world that has direct democracy. At the same time I try to convince people outside of that country of what should be their political number 1 priority (in my humble opinion); political decisions through popular vote.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Switzerland?
    - bboygravity 7y ago
      yep
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    Switzerland isn't big enough to take us all, unfortunately
scandox 7y ago
> This is nothing new. What we as citizens think of that is completely irrelevant. Unless the majority of the population would really care about encryption and it would influence the 4-yearly vote-thing (elections). You are contradicting yourself. Effectively you're saying unless a majority of people agree with you then it is non-democratic. As parent poster said we have the responsibility: it is to communicate this argument to people and also to be part of our own government.
- bboygravity 7y ago
  > Effectively you're saying unless a majority of people agree with you then it is non-democratic. No, I'm not. My point is that we (citizens) are not in charge of government. It's misleading to claim that we are. It doesn't matter whether "the people" are for or against encryption. It's irrelevant for political decision making (unless popular opinion on encryption threatens to influence elections, which right now it doesn't and probably won't ever). > it is to communicate this argument to people and also to be part of our own government. "We" (as in the majority of citizens) can't be part of our government. "We" can't even significantly influence government at all other than through elections. Popular political influence through elections only works for very limited very broad subjects that happen to be in fashion by the time an election takes place. Subjects unlike relatively specific things such as encryption. > we have the responsibility With the above in mind I don't agree. At all. You could try to explain the point of the parent poster to 1000's of people and convince them to agree. This would be a tremendous task and would politically change: nothing. At all. You could also try to convince them of the opposite. And this would also have 0 political effect. Even if everybody on HN did it. Even if everyone on here had the exact same opinion, arguments and same amazing sales skills.
  - scandox 7y ago
    So you don't reckon representative democracy works at all. In which case what is there to talk about here? You should be out attending to the business of revolution, not yakking on forums about incremental change right? Personally at present I think representative democracy is working, but that people are very dishonest about what they really want.
snowwrestler 7y ago
At least in the U.S., the reason we don't have backdoors in private encryption systems today is because of public outcry during the first "crypto wars" in the late 1990s/early 2000s. In general, there is plenty of hard proof that public advocacy works in the U.S. See the entire environmental and union movements, for example. Feigning helplessness in the face of corruption is not as insightful or clever as you think, and contrary to what you might think, works to suppress citizen engagement rather than spur it. "You have no power" is what your opponents want you to think. What are you helping them convince people it's true? The reality is that citizens absolutely have the ability to affect their governments, and should make it clear that mandating encryption backdoors is not acceptable policy.
- hollerith 7y ago
  >the reason we don't have backdoors in private encryption systems today is because of public outcry I always thought the NSA gave up on its Clipper Chip initiative not because people complained, but rather because of a handful of people with the right skills or the right kind of influence engaged in civil disobedience. Specifically, Phil Zimmermann wrote PGP and published its source code (under no-commercial-use terms, which at that time were not frowned upon as strongly as they are these days) and enough people demonstrated a resolve to keep the source code on the internet -- by continuing to host it even after being threatened by the US government -- to convince the NSA that it would never persuade enough manufacturers to adopt the Clipper Chip. Netscape's decision to design and implement SSL and include it in the most popular browser of the day probably had a lot to do with it, too.

jacobwilliamroy 7y ago

Maybe go outside, make some friends, join a community of individuals who are interested in claiming their place in the history of the world. Stop waiting for a champion to come and save you, and just be a champion. We're trying to form a voting bloc in my community to turn the local government upside down. If similar movements happened in other communities around the U.S. the legislature would be very different.

bboygravity 7y ago
That's nice and I truly hope you'll succeed. My strategy is slightly different and more selfish: I'm planning to move to the only country in the world that has direct democracy. At the same time I try to convince people outside of that country of what should be their political number 1 priority (in my humble opinion); political decisions through popular vote.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Switzerland?
  - bboygravity 7y ago
    yep
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  Switzerland isn't big enough to take us all, unfortunately

scandox 7y ago

> This is nothing new. What we as citizens think of that is completely irrelevant. Unless the majority of the population would really care about encryption and it would influence the 4-yearly vote-thing (elections). You are contradicting yourself. Effectively you're saying unless a majority of people agree with you then it is non-democratic. As parent poster said we have the responsibility: it is to communicate this argument to people and also to be part of our own government.

bboygravity 7y ago
> Effectively you're saying unless a majority of people agree with you then it is non-democratic. No, I'm not. My point is that we (citizens) are not in charge of government. It's misleading to claim that we are. It doesn't matter whether "the people" are for or against encryption. It's irrelevant for political decision making (unless popular opinion on encryption threatens to influence elections, which right now it doesn't and probably won't ever). > it is to communicate this argument to people and also to be part of our own government. "We" (as in the majority of citizens) can't be part of our government. "We" can't even significantly influence government at all other than through elections. Popular political influence through elections only works for very limited very broad subjects that happen to be in fashion by the time an election takes place. Subjects unlike relatively specific things such as encryption. > we have the responsibility With the above in mind I don't agree. At all. You could try to explain the point of the parent poster to 1000's of people and convince them to agree. This would be a tremendous task and would politically change: nothing. At all. You could also try to convince them of the opposite. And this would also have 0 political effect. Even if everybody on HN did it. Even if everyone on here had the exact same opinion, arguments and same amazing sales skills.
- scandox 7y ago
  So you don't reckon representative democracy works at all. In which case what is there to talk about here? You should be out attending to the business of revolution, not yakking on forums about incremental change right? Personally at present I think representative democracy is working, but that people are very dishonest about what they really want.

snowwrestler 7y ago

At least in the U.S., the reason we don't have backdoors in private encryption systems today is because of public outcry during the first "crypto wars" in the late 1990s/early 2000s. In general, there is plenty of hard proof that public advocacy works in the U.S. See the entire environmental and union movements, for example. Feigning helplessness in the face of corruption is not as insightful or clever as you think, and contrary to what you might think, works to suppress citizen engagement rather than spur it. "You have no power" is what your opponents want you to think. What are you helping them convince people it's true? The reality is that citizens absolutely have the ability to affect their governments, and should make it clear that mandating encryption backdoors is not acceptable policy.

hollerith 7y ago
>the reason we don't have backdoors in private encryption systems today is because of public outcry I always thought the NSA gave up on its Clipper Chip initiative not because people complained, but rather because of a handful of people with the right skills or the right kind of influence engaged in civil disobedience. Specifically, Phil Zimmermann wrote PGP and published its source code (under no-commercial-use terms, which at that time were not frowned upon as strongly as they are these days) and enough people demonstrated a resolve to keep the source code on the internet -- by continuing to host it even after being threatened by the US government -- to convince the NSA that it would never persuade enough manufacturers to adopt the Clipper Chip. Netscape's decision to design and implement SSL and include it in the most popular browser of the day probably had a lot to do with it, too.