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> Criminals being able to hide evidence is a serious concern for the average person. Suspects. Alleged criminals. Until convicted, they're not criminals. The g

> Criminals being able to hide evidence is a serious concern for the average person. Suspects. Alleged criminals. Until convicted, they're not criminals. The government does not have an unlimited right to collect all information; they have a limited, judicially controlled right to try to collect information. One key detail: strong encryption does not prevent investigations from targeted collection of information, such as through physical surveillance, bugs, etc. There are many tools available to law enforcement, those tools are just less convenient. Framing it that way helps: in order to make investigations more convenient, the DOJ wants to prevent anyone from using secure communications.

slg 7y ago
>Suspects. Alleged criminals. Until convicted, they're not criminals. And even after they are convicted, they and their associates are still protected by encryption. Encryption protects everyone equally. That is viewed as a positive by pro-encryption people and a negative by anti-encryption people. >The government does not have an unlimited right to collect all information; they have a limited, judicially controlled right to try to collect information. This the point of warrants. The problem of massive warrantless collection of data by the government is a bigger and separate issue. I personally think encryption is a valuable tool to address the symptom of that problem, but it does nothing to actually fix problem of a corrupt and/or authoritarian government. One of my personal annoyances with the tech community is that we have a tendency to try to work around any governmental problems as if that solves the issue while making no attempt at fixing the root cause.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  > One of my personal annoyances with the tech community is that we have a tendency to try to work around any governmental problems as if that solves the issue while making no attempt at fixing the root cause. Agreed. We need to produce technical solutions, and effect policy solutions, and get a lot better at PR and rhetoric.
- viklove 7y ago
  The only way your argument makes any sense is if you can somehow show that conviction rates have gone down since encryption became widespread. I think you'll have a hard time doing that because people will usually find some other way to hide information, like just destroying evidence. Are you gonna go after shredders next? They're hiding criminal's secrets too!

slg 7y ago

>Suspects. Alleged criminals. Until convicted, they're not criminals. And even after they are convicted, they and their associates are still protected by encryption. Encryption protects everyone equally. That is viewed as a positive by pro-encryption people and a negative by anti-encryption people. >The government does not have an unlimited right to collect all information; they have a limited, judicially controlled right to try to collect information. This the point of warrants. The problem of massive warrantless collection of data by the government is a bigger and separate issue. I personally think encryption is a valuable tool to address the symptom of that problem, but it does nothing to actually fix problem of a corrupt and/or authoritarian government. One of my personal annoyances with the tech community is that we have a tendency to try to work around any governmental problems as if that solves the issue while making no attempt at fixing the root cause.

JoshTriplett 7y ago
> One of my personal annoyances with the tech community is that we have a tendency to try to work around any governmental problems as if that solves the issue while making no attempt at fixing the root cause. Agreed. We need to produce technical solutions, and effect policy solutions, and get a lot better at PR and rhetoric.
viklove 7y ago
The only way your argument makes any sense is if you can somehow show that conviction rates have gone down since encryption became widespread. I think you'll have a hard time doing that because people will usually find some other way to hide information, like just destroying evidence. Are you gonna go after shredders next? They're hiding criminal's secrets too!