6 ms·

Is it necessarily a problem? I've actually been bitten more by things that were encrypted without telling me when I went to try to restore things or do some ki

Is it necessarily a problem? I've actually been bitten more by things that were encrypted without telling me when I went to try to restore things or do some kind of archiving. Encryption should be explicit and available, but optional in the same way I could leave my front door unlocked. The forcing of either direction is the real problem

Legogris 7y ago
It seems you are conflating transport encryption with encryption at rest. I can not imagine a scenario where encrypted end-to-end transit can "bite" you as there is no recovery scenario apart from snooping network operators/attackers.
- eukgoekoko 7y ago
  E2E encryption can be really resource consuming, especially with the amount of traffic used for video chat. You might not want this just because of a worse user experience.
  - zrm 7y ago
    Video chat is something like 1.5Mbps. Even phones can do chacha20 at >1000Mbps these days. It's not that expensive. Where people start to feel it is if you want the server in the middle to be decrypting and re-encrypting everything, because it's not that much for one user but it starts to add up for a million users. But the obvious solution there is to use E2EE and then it isn't doing that.
- kristopolous 7y ago
  I cannot inspect what closed source software is sending to the server, how it is tracking me or what information it has. It is encrypting my data against me so not even I can view how I'm being studied or recorded. This applies to the public writ large, nobody outside the deep annals inside the company knows how the public is being monitored and sold. I've tried to make various tools and utilities for things like logging, auditing, inspection, etc, and have had to do self signed keys and a number of interesting hacks to work around encryption. Often times it's impossible. It's thousands of times more likely that the authorized party is spying, snooping and stealing my information to package and resell it in open bidding data markets and trying to hide that fact and cover their tracks then they're trying to be bold protectors of my liberty against roving blackhat ne'er-do-wells. Although they'll run to that defense whenever necessary. Ever see the amount of data trackers on say, a local news site? It's astounding, and they are the technically incompetent. Imagine what happens when people with the same wanton disregard for scruples knows what they are doing. I've convinced myself at least that instagram listens to the microphone and services ads based on conversations. I have blackboxed tested this in many ways --- and that's the only way I can do it, blackboxed - that's the problem. I could lay out the tests if you want, none are of course definitive, they can't be, that's the point. It's uninspectable and can't be proven either way because it's encryption that none of us can inspect. Like any other powerful party trying to hide information and abuse their subjects, they claim to actually be protecting us against the dark treachery that surely lies beyond the forest. Let's all tremble in fear and thank them for their service! Give me a break. It's a slight of hand, they've instead taken our digital stuff and protected against us from inspecting the process, the protections against an additional third party is merely a side effect. If I can't turn encryption off and see what's going on OR if I can't inspect my own device then I don't trust the network OR the supposedly "trusted" party with access to it. I don't trust Google, or Facebook with access to my microphone or ad networks running on apps and you shouldn't either. If I can't inspect the contents of the payloads, then I don't know what's happening. Platitudes and assurance be damned, what data is going OTA, that's all that matters. I understand there's brigading and hivemind against this basic reality, but I'm dedicated to reality, not to popular opinion.
  - Legogris 7y ago
    See, this is the one complicating factor for L7 E2E, and I think you make a compelling case; you pretty much need open source/reproducible builds to be able to have any kind of protection against leaking PIIs over encrypted channels. I think the best one can do today with services like Facebook/Instagram is to use third-party clients, or, in lack of that, the web apps. IMO DoH/DoT is the main venue where this tradeoff becomes obvious today; privacy with regards to infrastructure providers, or ability for the user to see/control what your software reaches out to?
bmn__ 7y ago
> Is it necessarily a problem? Yes, you neglect the concept of precaution. I draw the parallels to • wearing face masks, • neither confirming nor denying when asked whether one did something naughty. (See the Plausible Deniability story arc in HPMOR.) If one does not do it regularly and only in times of necessity, it stands out as weird, socially not acceptable, drawing attention. We want encryption everywhere, every time, even when it's not strictly needed, so it is a socially normal thing to do, which in turn fuels wide-spread use, which benefits everyone through strong network effects.
- kristopolous 7y ago
  Ok let's leave the theoretical analogy world and talk about the material, concrete, actual reality in actual practice. the crda regdb database in the Linux kernel, this one https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/regulatory/wireless-regdb https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/regulatory/wi... It's encrypted and there's a long (somewhat silly) explanation of why it's not in a plain ascii format like everything else. You can't just crack it open and try something if you have a country hardware locked wireless device (via it's firmware). It's still possible to do here with a bit of effort but the next one isn't. Android adoptable storage, unlike Android traditional storage will encrypt without telling the user https://source.android.com/devices/storage/adoptable https://source.android.com/devices/storage/adoptable You can not get access to the decryption keys if you haven't rooted your phone. You need to hack your own device to look at what you stored on your sd card. If you're having a failing sd card and want to do recovery on it, well too bad, it's now utterly impossible, even if you own the phone. These are just two real world actual problems I've run into in the past week alone. Encryption can be, and often is used to be an extremely hostile, closed-data system. So that devices I Own, with My data I don't have access to and cannot see. That's not a better society, just like closed source isn't a better world.
  - bmn__ 7y ago
    > the crda regdb database […] It's encrypted That's false. It's just a binary database file. See man 5 regulatory.db $ hex /lib/firmware/regulatory.db | head -n 10 0000 52 47 44 42 00 00 00 14 30 30 03 61 41 44 03 c5 RGDB␀␀␀␔00␃aAD␃Å 0010 41 45 03 bb 41 46 03 cc 41 49 03 dd 41 4c 03 cc AE␃»AF␃ÌAI␃ÝAL␃Ì 0020 41 4d 03 a3 41 4e 03 cc 41 52 03 bb 41 53 03 79 AM␃£AN␃ÌAR␃»AS␃y 0030 41 54 03 e4 41 55 03 58 41 57 03 cc 41 5a 03 bf AT␃äAU␃XAW␃ÌAZ␃¿ 0040 42 41 03 e4 42 42 03 f5 42 44 04 15 42 45 03 e4 BA␃äBB␃õBD␄␕BE␃ä 0050 42 46 03 bb 42 47 03 fd 42 48 03 a6 42 4c 03 cc BF␃»BG␃ýBH␃¦BL␃Ì 0060 42 4d 03 79 42 4e 03 da 42 4f 04 10 42 52 03 bb BM␃yBN␃ÚBO␄␐BR␃» 0070 42 53 04 05 42 54 03 cc 42 59 03 cc 42 5a 04 24 BS␄␅BT␃ÌBY␃ÌBZ␄$ 0080 43 41 03 66 43 46 03 a9 43 48 03 98 43 49 03 bb CA␃fCF␃©CH␃�CI␃» 0090 43 4c 03 da 43 4e 03 f8 43 4f 03 bb 43 52 03 9f CL␃ÚCN␃øCO␃»CR␃� The documentation talks about optionally signing the database with a key. You confuse things. A signature is not encryption. > Android adoptable storage […] will encrypt without telling the user […] You can not get access to the decryption keys if you haven't rooted your phone. […] If you're having a failing sd card and want to do recovery on it, well too bad, it's now utterly impossible, even if you own the phone. Works as designed? In this scenario, you're not the recipient of encrypted transmission, you're the adversary. You should not be upset at encryption as a generic tool. You should be upset at the creators of this system that turns people who paid good money to own a mobile computer into dependent thralls: they cannot exercise the freedom to do with their property what they want. The answer to that injustice is not to abolish encryption, but to abolish the use of non-free software that enables the creation of such systems. The predications from my previous post still stand.

Legogris 7y ago

It seems you are conflating transport encryption with encryption at rest. I can not imagine a scenario where encrypted end-to-end transit can "bite" you as there is no recovery scenario apart from snooping network operators/attackers.

eukgoekoko 7y ago
E2E encryption can be really resource consuming, especially with the amount of traffic used for video chat. You might not want this just because of a worse user experience.
- zrm 7y ago
  Video chat is something like 1.5Mbps. Even phones can do chacha20 at >1000Mbps these days. It's not that expensive. Where people start to feel it is if you want the server in the middle to be decrypting and re-encrypting everything, because it's not that much for one user but it starts to add up for a million users. But the obvious solution there is to use E2EE and then it isn't doing that.
kristopolous 7y ago
I cannot inspect what closed source software is sending to the server, how it is tracking me or what information it has. It is encrypting my data against me so not even I can view how I'm being studied or recorded. This applies to the public writ large, nobody outside the deep annals inside the company knows how the public is being monitored and sold. I've tried to make various tools and utilities for things like logging, auditing, inspection, etc, and have had to do self signed keys and a number of interesting hacks to work around encryption. Often times it's impossible. It's thousands of times more likely that the authorized party is spying, snooping and stealing my information to package and resell it in open bidding data markets and trying to hide that fact and cover their tracks then they're trying to be bold protectors of my liberty against roving blackhat ne'er-do-wells. Although they'll run to that defense whenever necessary. Ever see the amount of data trackers on say, a local news site? It's astounding, and they are the technically incompetent. Imagine what happens when people with the same wanton disregard for scruples knows what they are doing. I've convinced myself at least that instagram listens to the microphone and services ads based on conversations. I have blackboxed tested this in many ways --- and that's the only way I can do it, blackboxed - that's the problem. I could lay out the tests if you want, none are of course definitive, they can't be, that's the point. It's uninspectable and can't be proven either way because it's encryption that none of us can inspect. Like any other powerful party trying to hide information and abuse their subjects, they claim to actually be protecting us against the dark treachery that surely lies beyond the forest. Let's all tremble in fear and thank them for their service! Give me a break. It's a slight of hand, they've instead taken our digital stuff and protected against us from inspecting the process, the protections against an additional third party is merely a side effect. If I can't turn encryption off and see what's going on OR if I can't inspect my own device then I don't trust the network OR the supposedly "trusted" party with access to it. I don't trust Google, or Facebook with access to my microphone or ad networks running on apps and you shouldn't either. If I can't inspect the contents of the payloads, then I don't know what's happening. Platitudes and assurance be damned, what data is going OTA, that's all that matters. I understand there's brigading and hivemind against this basic reality, but I'm dedicated to reality, not to popular opinion.
- Legogris 7y ago
  See, this is the one complicating factor for L7 E2E, and I think you make a compelling case; you pretty much need open source/reproducible builds to be able to have any kind of protection against leaking PIIs over encrypted channels. I think the best one can do today with services like Facebook/Instagram is to use third-party clients, or, in lack of that, the web apps. IMO DoH/DoT is the main venue where this tradeoff becomes obvious today; privacy with regards to infrastructure providers, or ability for the user to see/control what your software reaches out to?

bmn__ 7y ago

> Is it necessarily a problem? Yes, you neglect the concept of precaution. I draw the parallels to • wearing face masks, • neither confirming nor denying when asked whether one did something naughty. (See the Plausible Deniability story arc in HPMOR.) If one does not do it regularly and only in times of necessity, it stands out as weird, socially not acceptable, drawing attention. We want encryption everywhere, every time, even when it's not strictly needed, so it is a socially normal thing to do, which in turn fuels wide-spread use, which benefits everyone through strong network effects.

kristopolous 7y ago
Ok let's leave the theoretical analogy world and talk about the material, concrete, actual reality in actual practice. the crda regdb database in the Linux kernel, this one https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/regulatory/wireless-regdb https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/regulatory/wi... It's encrypted and there's a long (somewhat silly) explanation of why it's not in a plain ascii format like everything else. You can't just crack it open and try something if you have a country hardware locked wireless device (via it's firmware). It's still possible to do here with a bit of effort but the next one isn't. Android adoptable storage, unlike Android traditional storage will encrypt without telling the user https://source.android.com/devices/storage/adoptable https://source.android.com/devices/storage/adoptable You can not get access to the decryption keys if you haven't rooted your phone. You need to hack your own device to look at what you stored on your sd card. If you're having a failing sd card and want to do recovery on it, well too bad, it's now utterly impossible, even if you own the phone. These are just two real world actual problems I've run into in the past week alone. Encryption can be, and often is used to be an extremely hostile, closed-data system. So that devices I Own, with My data I don't have access to and cannot see. That's not a better society, just like closed source isn't a better world.
- bmn__ 7y ago
  > the crda regdb database […] It's encrypted That's false. It's just a binary database file. See man 5 regulatory.db $ hex /lib/firmware/regulatory.db | head -n 10 0000 52 47 44 42 00 00 00 14 30 30 03 61 41 44 03 c5 RGDB␀␀␀␔00␃aAD␃Å 0010 41 45 03 bb 41 46 03 cc 41 49 03 dd 41 4c 03 cc AE␃»AF␃ÌAI␃ÝAL␃Ì 0020 41 4d 03 a3 41 4e 03 cc 41 52 03 bb 41 53 03 79 AM␃£AN␃ÌAR␃»AS␃y 0030 41 54 03 e4 41 55 03 58 41 57 03 cc 41 5a 03 bf AT␃äAU␃XAW␃ÌAZ␃¿ 0040 42 41 03 e4 42 42 03 f5 42 44 04 15 42 45 03 e4 BA␃äBB␃õBD␄␕BE␃ä 0050 42 46 03 bb 42 47 03 fd 42 48 03 a6 42 4c 03 cc BF␃»BG␃ýBH␃¦BL␃Ì 0060 42 4d 03 79 42 4e 03 da 42 4f 04 10 42 52 03 bb BM␃yBN␃ÚBO␄␐BR␃» 0070 42 53 04 05 42 54 03 cc 42 59 03 cc 42 5a 04 24 BS␄␅BT␃ÌBY␃ÌBZ␄$ 0080 43 41 03 66 43 46 03 a9 43 48 03 98 43 49 03 bb CA␃fCF␃©CH␃�CI␃» 0090 43 4c 03 da 43 4e 03 f8 43 4f 03 bb 43 52 03 9f CL␃ÚCN␃øCO␃»CR␃� The documentation talks about optionally signing the database with a key. You confuse things. A signature is not encryption. > Android adoptable storage […] will encrypt without telling the user […] You can not get access to the decryption keys if you haven't rooted your phone. […] If you're having a failing sd card and want to do recovery on it, well too bad, it's now utterly impossible, even if you own the phone. Works as designed? In this scenario, you're not the recipient of encrypted transmission, you're the adversary. You should not be upset at encryption as a generic tool. You should be upset at the creators of this system that turns people who paid good money to own a mobile computer into dependent thralls: they cannot exercise the freedom to do with their property what they want. The answer to that injustice is not to abolish encryption, but to abolish the use of non-free software that enables the creation of such systems. The predications from my previous post still stand.