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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 ima
by 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 agoWhy 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 agoJailing 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.