3 ms·

The differences in opinion on this topic are almost entirely defined by whether or not the person has the most basic understanding of what cryptography actually

by ohazi 7y ago

The differences in opinion on this topic are almost entirely defined by whether or not the person has the most basic understanding of what cryptography actually is. Comment #1: > This argument is pointless. No government has jurisdiction over the laws of mathematics. No government can prevent encryption. No government can keep people from layering their own encryption over whatever flawed system the government mandates. Comment #2: > Encryption is an issue that Congress needs to resolve. However, there has not been any leadership on this issue for several decades. Apparently, there is no lobby and fundraising money to be made by either party and it does not win any votes, so Congress is not interested. Until the leadership vacuum in Congress is resolved this problem and many others will not go away. It's obvious where Barr falls: > Mr. Barr was surprised and puzzled, according to people familiar with the meeting. The government was struggling with similar problems when he first served as attorney general nearly 30 years ago, he told advisers. Why had they not been solved? Maybe we should be teaching this stuff in high school. The pseudocode for RSA is like twelve lines. Outlawing it is not practical.

joe_the_user 7y ago
I sympathize with your position but I think we need to imagine the counter argument the state would make. That argument would be "you don't understand the determination of the state. If you are correct and the threat exists in basic arithmatic and if we determine the threat is too great, we outlaw basic arithmatic. That is the level the state will go to." See O'Brien's speech in concerning "if we determine that 1+1 equals 3, we will make 1+1 equal 3", etc. IE, yes, it's impossible but that still doesn't mean they keep trying harder and harder and more and more destructively.
- ohazi 7y ago
  You're right of course, but theory and practice look very different. The "I don't care how cryptography works, why can't we just have a backdoor?" crowd is imagining that a magical piece of "common sense" legislation is capable of solving this problem. Yes, they can pass something, but it isn't going to work. Because two days after it passes, they'll have courts full of obstinate people who refuse to provide keys for their homebrew encrypted messaging systems. Sure, you can jail them indefinitely, but that just highlights how obviously unsolved the problem remains.
  - karmelapple 7y ago
    Why does jailing someone for breaking the law show how unsolved a problem is? Marijuana use is something thousands (millions?) of people have had jail time or other significant repercussions that have negatively impacted their life. If encryption is outlawed, I see no reason why jails wouldn’t fill up if people started wrapping their own backdoor-less crypto around whatever else is used.
    - ohazi 7y ago
      Jailing someone for refusing to reveal a secret doesn't cause that secret to be revealed. What is the problem they're trying to solve? They claim to want a "reveal secrets" button, but for any determined person or for any secret of consequence, the button won't work. Yes, jails will fill up, war-on-drugs style, but my argument is that filling up jails isn't a good goal given what they claim they wait. So my only conclusion is that they're either lying about what they want, or they're idiots. Both seem plausible.
- feanaro 7y ago
  Perhaps this is a signal that such a state needs to be deconstructed itself.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
njharman 7y ago
There's no correlation between how easy or widespread knowledge on something is and it's illegality. Everyone knows how to strangle someone. Every one can trivially learn what to use to poison someone. Murder is still illegal. We outlaw things we don't want to happen. If we don't want privacy. We should outlaw encryption. If we do want privacy, encryotion must remain legal.
SkyBelow 7y ago
> This argument is pointless. No government has jurisdiction over the laws of mathematics. No government can prevent encryption. No government can keep people from layering their own encryption over whatever flawed system the government mandates. While I think there are significant arguments against encryption, this one doesn't make sense to me because laws can stop widespread usage even if they cannot eliminate it. I would draw a comparison to other forms of illegal data that even today cannot be stopped, but which have resulted in far less usage and industrial support.

by ohazi 7y ago

joe_the_user 7y ago

I sympathize with your position but I think we need to imagine the counter argument the state would make. That argument would be "you don't understand the determination of the state. If you are correct and the threat exists in basic arithmatic and if we determine the threat is too great, we outlaw basic arithmatic. That is the level the state will go to." See O'Brien's speech in concerning "if we determine that 1+1 equals 3, we will make 1+1 equal 3", etc. IE, yes, it's impossible but that still doesn't mean they keep trying harder and harder and more and more destructively.

ohazi 7y ago
You're right of course, but theory and practice look very different. The "I don't care how cryptography works, why can't we just have a backdoor?" crowd is imagining that a magical piece of "common sense" legislation is capable of solving this problem. Yes, they can pass something, but it isn't going to work. Because two days after it passes, they'll have courts full of obstinate people who refuse to provide keys for their homebrew encrypted messaging systems. Sure, you can jail them indefinitely, but that just highlights how obviously unsolved the problem remains.
- karmelapple 7y ago
  Why does jailing someone for breaking the law show how unsolved a problem is? Marijuana use is something thousands (millions?) of people have had jail time or other significant repercussions that have negatively impacted their life. If encryption is outlawed, I see no reason why jails wouldn’t fill up if people started wrapping their own backdoor-less crypto around whatever else is used.
  - ohazi 7y ago
    Jailing someone for refusing to reveal a secret doesn't cause that secret to be revealed. What is the problem they're trying to solve? They claim to want a "reveal secrets" button, but for any determined person or for any secret of consequence, the button won't work. Yes, jails will fill up, war-on-drugs style, but my argument is that filling up jails isn't a good goal given what they claim they wait. So my only conclusion is that they're either lying about what they want, or they're idiots. Both seem plausible.
feanaro 7y ago
Perhaps this is a signal that such a state needs to be deconstructed itself.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

njharman 7y ago

There's no correlation between how easy or widespread knowledge on something is and it's illegality. Everyone knows how to strangle someone. Every one can trivially learn what to use to poison someone. Murder is still illegal. We outlaw things we don't want to happen. If we don't want privacy. We should outlaw encryption. If we do want privacy, encryotion must remain legal.

SkyBelow 7y ago

> This argument is pointless. No government has jurisdiction over the laws of mathematics. No government can prevent encryption. No government can keep people from layering their own encryption over whatever flawed system the government mandates. While I think there are significant arguments against encryption, this one doesn't make sense to me because laws can stop widespread usage even if they cannot eliminate it. I would draw a comparison to other forms of illegal data that even today cannot be stopped, but which have resulted in far less usage and industrial support.