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> Gennie Gebhart, a researcher with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who was on Thursday’s call, said she hoped Zoom would change course and offer protected v

> Gennie Gebhart, a researcher with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who was on Thursday’s call, said she hoped Zoom would change course and offer protected video more widely. > But Jon Callas, a technology fellow of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the strategy seemed a reasonable compromise. > Safety experts and law enforcement have warned that sexual predators and other criminals are increasingly using encrypted communications to avoid detection. > “Those of us who are doing secure communication believe we need to do things about the real horrible stuff,” said Callas, who previously sold paid encryption services Why do people still believe that preventing civilians from using encryption is going to stop criminals? Is there a name for this fallacy? What does Zoom’s premium subscription offer? Jitsi supports unlimited participants and runtime for free, and soon E2E encryption.

lonelappde 6y ago
This is horrific. The surveillance state has infiltrated ACLU. How is such a brazenly anti-liberty person tolerated at the ACLU? Even if you take his perspective, why is child porn OK in the enterprise?! Especially after Jeffrey Epstein?!
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The ACLU is not a singular entity with the same thought; it’s a collection of people, and people have different opinions on things. I’m reminded of when the ACLU defended a white supremacist and many were upset, even to the point of leaving the ACLU.
dijksterhuis 6y ago
> Why do people still believe that preventing civilians from using encryption is going to stop criminals? Is there a name for this fallacy? After a quick search i found the base rate fallacy which maybe could be applicable (no idea if it is really). > If presented with related base rate information (i.e. generic, general information) and specific information (information pertaining only to a certain case), the mind tends to ignore the former and focus on the latter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy There's also the general fallacy around security (a non technical term I've made up on the spot): > The only truly secure computer is one that is disconnected from any and all networks, turned off, buried in the ground, and encased in concrete. But that computer isn't terribly useful. Kinda applies to both parties of the argument because there's often an idea behind both that there is such a thing as "perfect security". https://particular.net/blog/the-network-is-secure https://particular.net/blog/the-network-is-secure Theres also possibly some agenda bias going on. -------- > What does Zoom’s premium subscription offer? Jitsi supports unlimited participants and runtime for free, and soon E2E encryption. The biggest thing around this is to remember that >90% of users are not tech nerds: * The Jitsi webclient isn't the nicest UI and a nice UI is really important for non-nerds. * Jitsi Dial in options are a bit limited (from what I remember, could be wrong). Zoom offers a package for toll-free dial in in US + Canada, for example. * No dedicated support for Jitsi (unless you know how to create a GitHub ticket and scoure through forums). * There's no dedicated physical meeting room connector service for Jitsi. * Also don't think there's any sign up for Jitsi. So while zoom has the problem that anyone with an email address can join a meeting, Jitsi has the problem that anyone with the meeting ID can join a meeting. This then becomes a problem when you want to report a user. * Jitsi meeting IDs can be lower entropy compared to Zoom. Often they're just names for the meeting. * Join the Jitsi meeting called "test" and you can see the problem with the last two points Ive set up local public (ish) nightly meetings on Zoom and help to maintain it. Several people have talked about Jitsi and Google services. In a ideal world I would set up a private and dedicated Jitsi server at home for it. But it's not an ideal world and that's too much maintenance for me to do. Zoom basically provides a decent feature set, with a nice and intuitive UI, and all the set up is handled by Zoom for you. For people who "just want the thing to work so I can do stuff" it makes sense.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  > Why do people still believe that preventing civilians from using encryption is going to stop criminals? Is there a name for this fallacy? If there is no name for this, I suggest Congressman fallacy, since they're mostly clueless about this kind of stuff technology-wise and use But Think Of The Children™ as an argument to erode the privacy of its citizens.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    I'm going to start using that name.
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      I don't know that obfuscating the mechanics of a problem with in-crowd names will help spread the word well.
      - Shared404 6y ago
        On the other hand, it's a catchy, anti-politics name that is likely to cause people to ask what your talking about. Or I could just be completely wrong about that. If that turns out to be the case I'll just use it in-crowd.

lonelappde 6y ago

This is horrific. The surveillance state has infiltrated ACLU. How is such a brazenly anti-liberty person tolerated at the ACLU? Even if you take his perspective, why is child porn OK in the enterprise?! Especially after Jeffrey Epstein?!

colejohnson66 6y ago
The ACLU is not a singular entity with the same thought; it’s a collection of people, and people have different opinions on things. I’m reminded of when the ACLU defended a white supremacist and many were upset, even to the point of leaving the ACLU.

dijksterhuis 6y ago

> Why do people still believe that preventing civilians from using encryption is going to stop criminals? Is there a name for this fallacy? After a quick search i found the base rate fallacy which maybe could be applicable (no idea if it is really). > If presented with related base rate information (i.e. generic, general information) and specific information (information pertaining only to a certain case), the mind tends to ignore the former and focus on the latter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy There's also the general fallacy around security (a non technical term I've made up on the spot): > The only truly secure computer is one that is disconnected from any and all networks, turned off, buried in the ground, and encased in concrete. But that computer isn't terribly useful. Kinda applies to both parties of the argument because there's often an idea behind both that there is such a thing as "perfect security". https://particular.net/blog/the-network-is-secure https://particular.net/blog/the-network-is-secure Theres also possibly some agenda bias going on. -------- > What does Zoom’s premium subscription offer? Jitsi supports unlimited participants and runtime for free, and soon E2E encryption. The biggest thing around this is to remember that >90% of users are not tech nerds: * The Jitsi webclient isn't the nicest UI and a nice UI is really important for non-nerds. * Jitsi Dial in options are a bit limited (from what I remember, could be wrong). Zoom offers a package for toll-free dial in in US + Canada, for example. * No dedicated support for Jitsi (unless you know how to create a GitHub ticket and scoure through forums). * There's no dedicated physical meeting room connector service for Jitsi. * Also don't think there's any sign up for Jitsi. So while zoom has the problem that anyone with an email address can join a meeting, Jitsi has the problem that anyone with the meeting ID can join a meeting. This then becomes a problem when you want to report a user. * Jitsi meeting IDs can be lower entropy compared to Zoom. Often they're just names for the meeting. * Join the Jitsi meeting called "test" and you can see the problem with the last two points Ive set up local public (ish) nightly meetings on Zoom and help to maintain it. Several people have talked about Jitsi and Google services. In a ideal world I would set up a private and dedicated Jitsi server at home for it. But it's not an ideal world and that's too much maintenance for me to do. Zoom basically provides a decent feature set, with a nice and intuitive UI, and all the set up is handled by Zoom for you. For people who "just want the thing to work so I can do stuff" it makes sense.

m-p-3 6y ago
> Why do people still believe that preventing civilians from using encryption is going to stop criminals? Is there a name for this fallacy? If there is no name for this, I suggest Congressman fallacy, since they're mostly clueless about this kind of stuff technology-wise and use But Think Of The Children™ as an argument to erode the privacy of its citizens.
- Shared404 6y ago
  I'm going to start using that name.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    I don't know that obfuscating the mechanics of a problem with in-crowd names will help spread the word well.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      On the other hand, it's a catchy, anti-politics name that is likely to cause people to ask what your talking about. Or I could just be completely wrong about that. If that turns out to be the case I'll just use it in-crowd.