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I think that forcing companies to add a backdoor for police is a good idea. It will create incentives for smaller decentralized alternatives to spawn up to repl

I think that forcing companies to add a backdoor for police is a good idea. It will create incentives for smaller decentralized alternatives to spawn up to replace those companies.

thephyber 7y ago
But if I understand it correctly, it makes the company liable for the worst possible uses of its product/service, so the alternatives may fail to be funded if the new liability expectations are too expensive.
- lambertsimnel 7y ago
  I wonder to what extent the alternatives could be protocols, rather than products/services, and how much that would help make those alternatives viable.
  - cryptica 7y ago
    Decentralized solutions don't need to concern themselves too much with the laws of any specific country; network participants can easily reorganize themselves so that the overall system remains compliant. That's why open protocols like BitTorrent are still thriving. Also, as we've seen with cryptocurrencies, funding is generally not an issue with these kinds of projects.
msla 7y ago
Replace them for the few people who can understand how to use those services. It's another example of the divide between people who know how to use non-default software and those who don't; you can see it with adblocking software, where the people who use uBlock Origin have a markedly better experience than those who "get on the Internet" by clicking something and don't know what a web browser is other than it being "the Internet" for them. Most people are that way about most things. Nobody's an expert in everything. Even before "specialization of labor" was officially invented, the people in the Kalahari had no idea how to hunt seals and the Polynesians had no idea how to hunt buffalo or bison. The only way to keep from being taken advantage of is through regulations.
danShumway 7y ago
This is a misguided sentiment. I've already had this debate before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507508), so I'm not going to rehash it too much. But the short version is: - decentralized systems hold up to these regulations better than centralized systems, but that doesn't mean these regulations are good for decentralized systems. It will still slow development, and still make it harder for companies and large nonprofits to use the technology. If our goal is for encryption to be universal, then large, public organizations need to be able to use it. - the DOJ and local police will happily target individual homeservers to make an example of if people start using these services in mass. Anyone who thinks our federal government won't be petty or vindictive about small operators hasn't been paying much attention to them. The DOJ will go wherever encryption is; the only reason they're not currently complaining about Matrix is because no one uses it yet. - most of the people who care about privacy are already moving to decentralized alternatives, so a ban on E2E encryption may not actually speed that process up. It may just create a bigger technical gap between users who care and users who don't, since decentralized services like Matrix/Mastodon won't be able to make easy onboarding servers. - decentralization is not an end goal in and of itself. User freedom and privacy are the end goal, and decentralization is a means to accomplish that goal. It is counterproductive to give up user freedom and privacy in order to get decentralization. We should ramp up efforts to build decentralized platforms in anticipation of bills like this, since centralized platforms can't cope as well and we need mitigations if the laws get passed. But we should not become any less zealous in fighting bad laws, and we certainly shouldn't encourage them.

I think that forcing companies to add a backdoor for police is a good idea. It will create incentives for smaller decentralized alternatives to spawn up to replace those companies.

thephyber 7y ago

But if I understand it correctly, it makes the company liable for the worst possible uses of its product/service, so the alternatives may fail to be funded if the new liability expectations are too expensive.

lambertsimnel 7y ago
I wonder to what extent the alternatives could be protocols, rather than products/services, and how much that would help make those alternatives viable.
- cryptica 7y ago
  Decentralized solutions don't need to concern themselves too much with the laws of any specific country; network participants can easily reorganize themselves so that the overall system remains compliant. That's why open protocols like BitTorrent are still thriving. Also, as we've seen with cryptocurrencies, funding is generally not an issue with these kinds of projects.

msla 7y ago

Replace them for the few people who can understand how to use those services. It's another example of the divide between people who know how to use non-default software and those who don't; you can see it with adblocking software, where the people who use uBlock Origin have a markedly better experience than those who "get on the Internet" by clicking something and don't know what a web browser is other than it being "the Internet" for them. Most people are that way about most things. Nobody's an expert in everything. Even before "specialization of labor" was officially invented, the people in the Kalahari had no idea how to hunt seals and the Polynesians had no idea how to hunt buffalo or bison. The only way to keep from being taken advantage of is through regulations.

danShumway 7y ago

This is a misguided sentiment. I've already had this debate before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22507508), so I'm not going to rehash it too much. But the short version is: - decentralized systems hold up to these regulations better than centralized systems, but that doesn't mean these regulations are good for decentralized systems. It will still slow development, and still make it harder for companies and large nonprofits to use the technology. If our goal is for encryption to be universal, then large, public organizations need to be able to use it. - the DOJ and local police will happily target individual homeservers to make an example of if people start using these services in mass. Anyone who thinks our federal government won't be petty or vindictive about small operators hasn't been paying much attention to them. The DOJ will go wherever encryption is; the only reason they're not currently complaining about Matrix is because no one uses it yet. - most of the people who care about privacy are already moving to decentralized alternatives, so a ban on E2E encryption may not actually speed that process up. It may just create a bigger technical gap between users who care and users who don't, since decentralized services like Matrix/Mastodon won't be able to make easy onboarding servers. - decentralization is not an end goal in and of itself. User freedom and privacy are the end goal, and decentralization is a means to accomplish that goal. It is counterproductive to give up user freedom and privacy in order to get decentralization. We should ramp up efforts to build decentralized platforms in anticipation of bills like this, since centralized platforms can't cope as well and we need mitigations if the laws get passed. But we should not become any less zealous in fighting bad laws, and we certainly shouldn't encourage them.