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> they know that without legal provisions technology can make it impossible to access communication during legitimate police investigations > How do we solve t

> they know that without legal provisions technology can make it impossible to access communication during legitimate police investigations > How do we solve this problem? It's called a search warrant.

mytailorisrich 6y ago
Well, no. That's the issue! If you only have peer-to-peer encryption with communications still passing through servers unencrypted then, sure, you can get a warrant to force disclosure. With end to end encryption, however you can show up with a warrant all you want it makes no difference because they physically cannot hand you clear-text communications. Same for encryption at rest. The strength of the encryption algorithms we have today makes it near impossible to recover the clear-text data.
- monocasa 6y ago
  A search warrant for the endpoints.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    And I will refuse to cooperate because I know what my "endpoint" contains, because of course my device is also encrypted and/or will be destroyed if I think I'm about to get caught. Your script kiddie might break at the suggestion that refusing to cooperate means 2 to 5 years in jail but organised crime, or people who are risking a much harsher penalty, won't. These are the real, down to Earth issues, not utopian discussions about individual liberties.
    - choward 6y ago
      Because criminals will follow the encryption laws? If they're not going to comply with a search warrant why would they stop using encryption? The logic makes no sense. The only people this law will affect are law abiding citizens. I'm not willing to give up my privacy just because other people are committing crime and the cops can't figure how to do their job. I'm in the US and the 4th amendment says I don't have to.
    - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
      Giving the government the option to show up at your door with some random garbage data and asking you to make an impossible proof of innocence or go to jail has some very obvious problems.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  A very real problem with "backdoors" and wiretapping in the digital age is that, in the past, wiretapping was for future communications and between two specific individuals. That is not how E2E encryption breaking will be used. For E2E encryption breaking, they won't ask for "future conversations between A and B for the next 2 weeks" they will say "give me all historical communication from this person between all of their followers for the last 5 years". For the first time in the history of the world, were are in a time when, not just your future communications, but your past ones, the ones that you think are private between two people in a modern-world way (that is, over the internet) are not private except when E2E. Worse, by all accounts from a normal person - they are private. I mean, we certainly act like the messages we send family iMessage or whatever are private, and we assume the same level of privacy we'd be afforded for a phone call, except that's not present; and, with laws like this, it will be even less present. And not only is the former bad, but the latter is much, much worse.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    SMS texts and call logs are already accessible, for example. Letters kept have always been accessible. The fact that they may be accessed by law enforcement agencies in specific circumstances does not mean that they are not private. If you are seeking absolute privacy for all time, i.e. absolute secrecy, the only option now and since writing was invented is to leave no trace: either communicate face to face discreetly or hand deliver letters and destroy them after reading. What has changed recently is that we are effectively communicating in writing for virtually everything (even a voice call is affectively "in writing" as it's data stored on a medium) and that the cost of storing those writings has dropped to zero. In addition, and that's the issue, encryption has reached a stage where what I suggested (to hand deliver letters and to destroy them after reading) has become 'easy' and cheap for all communications if you want to, which creates big problems for law enforcement and security agencies. I think this is a legitimate issue. The level of the debate, for example in this thread, is low and not helpful because, at least in some tech circles, people refuse to acknowledge real world issues and there is an extreme and utopian view than anything less than absolute secrecy is absolutely unacceptable.
    - 6y ago
- choward 6y ago
  > With end to end encryption, however you can show up with a warrant all you want it makes no difference because they physically cannot hand you clear-text communications. Well, no. That's the issue! They shouldn't be executing search warrant behind your back to some their party that happens to be stirring your data. They should execute the search warrant on the person who owns the data they're investigating. If they refuse to give up the data they're breaking the law. > Same for encryption at rest. The strength of the encryption algorithms we have today makes it near impossible to recover the clear-text data. Same for encryption at rest. We already have laws for that. Get a search warrant. If they refuse to give the data you have a warrant for they broke the law. For example, if you have something in a safe the cops won't just come into your house and crack your safe. They'll get a warrant first then in theory you'll open it for them or they'll have to crack it if you break the law and don't open it.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    > If they refuse to give the data you have a warrant for they broke the law. Warrants aren't issued for data, they're issued for property. A warrant authorizes law enforcement to search for and/or seize evidence (i.e. physical property) without regard for the owner's property rights. The owner doesn't have to give them anything or aid the search in any way beyond simply not interfering. Standing back and leaving them to break into the safe on their own does not violate any law. You might open it anyway just to show goodwill and avoid damage to the safe, but there is no obligation to do so, and unnecessarily demonstrating that you have the ability to open the safe may, in certain situations, amount to testifying against yourself.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

Well, no. That's the issue! If you only have peer-to-peer encryption with communications still passing through servers unencrypted then, sure, you can get a warrant to force disclosure. With end to end encryption, however you can show up with a warrant all you want it makes no difference because they physically cannot hand you clear-text communications. Same for encryption at rest. The strength of the encryption algorithms we have today makes it near impossible to recover the clear-text data.

monocasa 6y ago
A search warrant for the endpoints.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  And I will refuse to cooperate because I know what my "endpoint" contains, because of course my device is also encrypted and/or will be destroyed if I think I'm about to get caught. Your script kiddie might break at the suggestion that refusing to cooperate means 2 to 5 years in jail but organised crime, or people who are risking a much harsher penalty, won't. These are the real, down to Earth issues, not utopian discussions about individual liberties.
  - choward 6y ago
    Because criminals will follow the encryption laws? If they're not going to comply with a search warrant why would they stop using encryption? The logic makes no sense. The only people this law will affect are law abiding citizens. I'm not willing to give up my privacy just because other people are committing crime and the cops can't figure how to do their job. I'm in the US and the 4th amendment says I don't have to.
  - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
    Giving the government the option to show up at your door with some random garbage data and asking you to make an impossible proof of innocence or go to jail has some very obvious problems.
t-writescode 6y ago
A very real problem with "backdoors" and wiretapping in the digital age is that, in the past, wiretapping was for future communications and between two specific individuals. That is not how E2E encryption breaking will be used. For E2E encryption breaking, they won't ask for "future conversations between A and B for the next 2 weeks" they will say "give me all historical communication from this person between all of their followers for the last 5 years". For the first time in the history of the world, were are in a time when, not just your future communications, but your past ones, the ones that you think are private between two people in a modern-world way (that is, over the internet) are not private except when E2E. Worse, by all accounts from a normal person - they are private. I mean, we certainly act like the messages we send family iMessage or whatever are private, and we assume the same level of privacy we'd be afforded for a phone call, except that's not present; and, with laws like this, it will be even less present. And not only is the former bad, but the latter is much, much worse.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  SMS texts and call logs are already accessible, for example. Letters kept have always been accessible. The fact that they may be accessed by law enforcement agencies in specific circumstances does not mean that they are not private. If you are seeking absolute privacy for all time, i.e. absolute secrecy, the only option now and since writing was invented is to leave no trace: either communicate face to face discreetly or hand deliver letters and destroy them after reading. What has changed recently is that we are effectively communicating in writing for virtually everything (even a voice call is affectively "in writing" as it's data stored on a medium) and that the cost of storing those writings has dropped to zero. In addition, and that's the issue, encryption has reached a stage where what I suggested (to hand deliver letters and to destroy them after reading) has become 'easy' and cheap for all communications if you want to, which creates big problems for law enforcement and security agencies. I think this is a legitimate issue. The level of the debate, for example in this thread, is low and not helpful because, at least in some tech circles, people refuse to acknowledge real world issues and there is an extreme and utopian view than anything less than absolute secrecy is absolutely unacceptable.
  - 6y ago
choward 6y ago
> With end to end encryption, however you can show up with a warrant all you want it makes no difference because they physically cannot hand you clear-text communications. Well, no. That's the issue! They shouldn't be executing search warrant behind your back to some their party that happens to be stirring your data. They should execute the search warrant on the person who owns the data they're investigating. If they refuse to give up the data they're breaking the law. > Same for encryption at rest. The strength of the encryption algorithms we have today makes it near impossible to recover the clear-text data. Same for encryption at rest. We already have laws for that. Get a search warrant. If they refuse to give the data you have a warrant for they broke the law. For example, if you have something in a safe the cops won't just come into your house and crack your safe. They'll get a warrant first then in theory you'll open it for them or they'll have to crack it if you break the law and don't open it.
- nybble41 6y ago
  > If they refuse to give the data you have a warrant for they broke the law. Warrants aren't issued for data, they're issued for property. A warrant authorizes law enforcement to search for and/or seize evidence (i.e. physical property) without regard for the owner's property rights. The owner doesn't have to give them anything or aid the search in any way beyond simply not interfering. Standing back and leaving them to break into the safe on their own does not violate any law. You might open it anyway just to show goodwill and avoid damage to the safe, but there is no obligation to do so, and unnecessarily demonstrating that you have the ability to open the safe may, in certain situations, amount to testifying against yourself.