5 ms·

“A Parable” by Perry E. Metzger (1993) > There was once a far away land called Ruritania, and in Ruritania there was a strange phenonmenon -- all the trees tha

“A Parable” by Perry E. Metzger (1993) > There was once a far away land called Ruritania, and in Ruritania there was a strange phenonmenon -- all the trees that grew in Ruritainia were transparent. Now, in the days when people had lived in mud huts, this had not been a problem, but now high-tech wood technology had been developed, and in the new age of wood, everyone in Ruritania found that their homes were all 100% see through... > One day, a smart man invented paint -- and if you painted your house, suddenly the police couldn't watch all your actions at will... > Indignant, the state decided to try to require that all homes have video cameras installed in every nook and cranny. "After all", they said, "with this new development crime could run rampant. Installing video cameras doesn't mean that the police get any new capability -- they are just keeping the old one." [...] https://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1993/04/msg00559.html https://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1993/04/msg00559.html (I recommend reading the full parable.) ————— clock.org homepage (c. 1998) > Some agencies of the United States Government (notably the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)), want to prevent the deployment of encryption technology. They want either encryption so weak that just about anyone can break it, or they want a copy of every key used with strong encryption. https://web.archive.org/web/19980113124617/http://www.clock.org:80/ https://web.archive.org/web/19980113124617/http://www.clock.... Sound familiar? ————— Mujahedeen Secrets (first release: 2007), Al-Queda’s own encrypted messaging software. Those developers aren’t going to respond to a US court order. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahedeen_Secrets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahedeen_Secrets

jjoonathan 6y ago
The people who want a skeleton key to open all electronic doors are the same people who compiled a blackmail database on their own high-clearance employees and failed to keep it safe (the OPM data breach).
- Aperocky 6y ago
  My only question to this proposed act is how they're going to keep online banking and e-commerce working.. It's like shooting oneself in the foot before hiking.
chillacy 6y ago
> This would be equivalent to a town with no locks on the front doors, or where the sheriff has a copy of every door key (just in case he has to search the house). To be accurate though that's not exactly true. The sheriff doesn't even need a key to enter your house, he can get a warrant and bust your door down. This is a town where your house is indestructible and un-enterable without a key.
- surround 6y ago
  I included the clock.org homepage because I found it surprising how closely it describes the EARN IT act, despite being published before 1998. It’s a warning from over 20 years ago. I agree that their analogy isn’t particularly strong, so I removed that part from my comment.
- ihattendorf 6y ago
  Where the "bad guys" can build their own indestructible and un-enterable house themselves, without having to give the sheriff a key.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  The problem with the doors and locks analogies is that it's not really what this is about. This isn't about their ability to seize things you have after they get a warrant. It's that they want the ability to seize things you have before they get a warrant, just in case they get one later. It's like requiring everyone to have video cameras in their house with recordings sent to law enforcement no matter whether they're under suspicion or not, and then claiming that it's fine because they pinky swear not to look at them without a warrant. (Never mind that then you can't prove that they're not cheating, and that it would be the world's largest target for organized crime and foreign powers.)
- wirespot 6y ago
  > The sheriff doesn't even need a key to enter your house, he can get a warrant and bust your door down. That requires following due process, the presumption of innocence, and observing the right to privacy. You have to convince a judge, in the context of the existing laws, that a certain individual or group are suspicious enough to call for (specific) further investigation. Mass surveillance and forcing weak encryption bypass or overturn all that. It's a radically different view when you assume everybody is guilty of something by default and that they have no right to privacy.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> Mujahedeen Secrets (first release: 2007), Al-Queda’s own encrypted messaging software. Those developers aren’t going to respond to a US court order. Even with that, you are now forcing the terrorists to roll their own encryption. The likelihood of finding an exploit in Mujahadeen Secrets is likely much higher than finding an exploit in Apple Messenger or WhatsApp or something by djb or Moxie, etc. In addition, Mujahadeen is likely having to be side loaded - you won't find it in the App Store. This gives a chance to try to hack a single storage location to have a trojan horse version spread through their network. Finally, it affects recruiting. Basically only someone already comitted will go to the trouble of having Mujahadeen Secrets on their device, whereas a lot more people could be expected to have a common end-to-end messenger on their device. So overall, thinking from a purely law enforcement, anti-terrorist perspective, it would still be better for them to not have e2e in widely used apps, even if the terrorists tried to develop their own app.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- surround 6y ago
  The point is that the EARN IT act primarily affects the general population. Al-Queda hasn’t used American-made encryption software for the past 13 years.

jjoonathan 6y ago

The people who want a skeleton key to open all electronic doors are the same people who compiled a blackmail database on their own high-clearance employees and failed to keep it safe (the OPM data breach).

Aperocky 6y ago
My only question to this proposed act is how they're going to keep online banking and e-commerce working.. It's like shooting oneself in the foot before hiking.

chillacy 6y ago

> This would be equivalent to a town with no locks on the front doors, or where the sheriff has a copy of every door key (just in case he has to search the house). To be accurate though that's not exactly true. The sheriff doesn't even need a key to enter your house, he can get a warrant and bust your door down. This is a town where your house is indestructible and un-enterable without a key.

surround 6y ago
I included the clock.org homepage because I found it surprising how closely it describes the EARN IT act, despite being published before 1998. It’s a warning from over 20 years ago. I agree that their analogy isn’t particularly strong, so I removed that part from my comment.
ihattendorf 6y ago
Where the "bad guys" can build their own indestructible and un-enterable house themselves, without having to give the sheriff a key.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
The problem with the doors and locks analogies is that it's not really what this is about. This isn't about their ability to seize things you have after they get a warrant. It's that they want the ability to seize things you have before they get a warrant, just in case they get one later. It's like requiring everyone to have video cameras in their house with recordings sent to law enforcement no matter whether they're under suspicion or not, and then claiming that it's fine because they pinky swear not to look at them without a warrant. (Never mind that then you can't prove that they're not cheating, and that it would be the world's largest target for organized crime and foreign powers.)
wirespot 6y ago
> The sheriff doesn't even need a key to enter your house, he can get a warrant and bust your door down. That requires following due process, the presumption of innocence, and observing the right to privacy. You have to convince a judge, in the context of the existing laws, that a certain individual or group are suspicious enough to call for (specific) further investigation. Mass surveillance and forcing weak encryption bypass or overturn all that. It's a radically different view when you assume everybody is guilty of something by default and that they have no right to privacy.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> Mujahedeen Secrets (first release: 2007), Al-Queda’s own encrypted messaging software. Those developers aren’t going to respond to a US court order. Even with that, you are now forcing the terrorists to roll their own encryption. The likelihood of finding an exploit in Mujahadeen Secrets is likely much higher than finding an exploit in Apple Messenger or WhatsApp or something by djb or Moxie, etc. In addition, Mujahadeen is likely having to be side loaded - you won't find it in the App Store. This gives a chance to try to hack a single storage location to have a trojan horse version spread through their network. Finally, it affects recruiting. Basically only someone already comitted will go to the trouble of having Mujahadeen Secrets on their device, whereas a lot more people could be expected to have a common end-to-end messenger on their device. So overall, thinking from a purely law enforcement, anti-terrorist perspective, it would still be better for them to not have e2e in widely used apps, even if the terrorists tried to develop their own app.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
surround 6y ago
The point is that the EARN IT act primarily affects the general population. Al-Queda hasn’t used American-made encryption software for the past 13 years.