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Remember: every time a government cites child pornography or terrorism as the reason ban cryptography or otherwise limit human rights, they are just using an ex

Remember: every time a government cites child pornography or terrorism as the reason ban cryptography or otherwise limit human rights, they are just using an excuse.

CameronNemo 6y ago
It's like banning assault rifles to prevent mobsters from getting hold of them. Except in this case the good being banned is just some well known and distributed, cheap to copy, easy to build, easy to use software.
- Jenk 6y ago
  > It's like banning assault rifles to prevent mobsters from getting hold of them. Obvious bait is obvious but whatever, I'm in... Is it the same, though? Is it really? On one side we have literal implements of death responsible for countless accidental and/or illegal deaths, and the other we have some encryption software.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    Never said same! Just has some resemblances. As well as major hilarious contrasts (hence why I chose the subject, instead of cats and cat lovers). I don't think a gun and cryptography should have the same treatment.
  - robcohen 6y ago
    Countless doesn’t seem totally accurate. Last I checked the FBI census a few years back showed 318 deaths over a year due to long guns in the United States. That includes shotgun, rifle, and scary “assault” weapons. Handguns on the other hand kill 100x-200x the same amount of people. Seems like if gun control proponents wanted to reduce harm, they’d focus on handguns first.
    - Jenk 6y ago
      318 > 0. So yeah.. ban all guns then.
      - HideousKojima 6y ago
        390 deaths from swimming pools every year in the US. 390 > 0, ban all swimming pools.
        Jenk 6y ago
        How many people are pointing swimming pools at each other or themselves with the intent on causing harm?
        HideousKojima 6y ago
        No idea since homicide by drowning is notoriously hard to prove[0], but the median pool is more likely to drown someone than the median "assault weapon" is to kill someone. ~10 million swimming pools in the US vs. ~20 million "assault weapons," and there are fewer murders annually with long guns of all types (of which "assault weapons" are a small subset) than there are pool drownings. Also pools disproportionately kill kids, while most victims of gun violence ate adults. 0 - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drowning-one-hardest-homicides-prove-these-investigators-want-change-n1011911 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drowning-one-hardest-ho...
    - schoolornot 6y ago
      Aggregated stats from 2019: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
      - Jenk 6y ago
        That's _just_ murder. Doesn't include accidental deaths.
    - 6y ago
  - ian-g 6y ago
    I think the point is that the people who're already on the wrong side of the law will continue ignoring this new law. Mobsters won't stop buying guns because they're banned. Lots of people won't stop using encryption software just because it's banned.
    - CameronNemo 6y ago
      >Lots of people won't stop using encryption software just because it's banned. In particular organized crime, which the government is claiming to address via this policy.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      I think the hope isn’t that mobsters would choose to stop buying guns out of respect for the law, but rather that it will literally be more difficult for mobsters to buy guns because of actual enforcement of the law.
    - kajecounterhack 6y ago
      Like any abuse fighting, your goal is not to make guns impossible to get (which is impossible), your goal is to make it as expensive as humanly possible, which decreases how many people have them and increases overall societal safety. Also mobsters get rid of guns that killed people because they can lead to stiffer penalties. So taking legal guns out of circulation and then making strong deterrents for possession of illegal guns does help achieve this aim, you're decreasing the overall supply and driving up their prices.
  - debacle 6y ago
    Those implements of death have been tools of liberty, stability, and safety in the hands of hundreds of millions of people across the world in the last several hundred years. The world, under its thin, patchy veneer of peace and prosperity, is still a savage place. Ask the IDF, Ukraine, South Korea, etc.
  - PartiallyTyped 6y ago
    The moment encryption becomes illegal is the moment political dissidents, whistleblowers, reporters and every person in between are criminals. We forfeit our freedom to express any idea or thought that deviates from the current list of acceptable thought patterns. Suddenly you and all your thoughts or actions are subject to tracking by any government, any government official, any corporation and any malevolect actor. The government already has a monopoly on violence, what's next?
    - Jenk 6y ago
      I think you replied to the wrong post. I'm against banning encryption.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > On one side we have literal implements of death responsible for countless accidental and/or illegal deaths Cars?
- kajecounterhack 6y ago
  We need encryption to do peaceful things like economic transactions on the internet and private conversation. We don't need assault rifles for anything but murder. So no it's not the same.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    Murder? Self defense is not murder. But again my point was not that they are similar, just that they are valuable, difficult to control, and law enforcement wants a monopoly on them.
    - lexicality 6y ago
      I can understand owning a pistol for self defence, but what situation does a civilian need an assault rifle in? Surely it'd just get in the way massively in any kind of home invasion scenario and if you end up firing it the bullet will go through 3 houses and hit someone's dog
  - calvinmorrison 6y ago
    Crypto exists because bad actors exist. The same reason Americans own guns.
    - cl0ne 6y ago
      Some Americans own guns for subsistence hunting as a source of food.
      - kajecounterhack 6y ago
        You can use a non-automatic rifle or shotgun for this. You don't need an assault rifle. And we can talk a lot about carve-outs for folks like this, or just admit that they are rare and like any creature in the free market, they need to adapt to a changing landscape of rules and regulations.
        6y ago
- draw_down 6y ago
  Whoops! Not allowed to say that.
dagss 6y ago
Why do you say that? Do you really think that noone can have a genuine interest in combating child pornography or terrorism? My intuition is exactly the opposite: That many have a legitimate wish to combat both child porn and terrorism. Many people work with that every day and obviously they want to do a good job. And one effect of limiting crypto would help that. (That doesn't mean in itself crypto should be limited; but I don't see how writing one side off as "just an excuse" and basically offering a conspiracy theory helps anyone. Better to just say "it's unfortunate about child porn and terrorism, but it's the price that must be paid / here's another way to combat that", if that is what you mean.)
- jedberg 6y ago
  If they have a genuine interest in combating child pornography or terror, they would be proposing things that actually make a difference to those problems. Encryption is such a small part of those crimes that it would make almost no difference to the level of crime whether it exists or not.
  - dagss 6y ago
    According to another poster, there were in fact here other proposals and crypto was a small part of it. And that small part was, quoting the text: > One of the specific initiatives under the EU Internet Forum in 2020 is the creation of a technical expert process to map and assess possible solutions which could allow companies to detect and report child sexual abuse in end-to-end encrypted electronic communications, in full respect of fundamental rights and without creating new vulnerabilities criminals could exploit. Technical experts from academia, industry, public authorities and civil society organisations will examine possible solutions focused on the device, the server and the encryption protocol that could ensure the privacy and security of electronic communications and the protection of children from sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. So -- you may say that you know that this project is hopeless and a foregone conclusion. But will every politician trust that -- or will they make a panel of experts to explore solutions and tell them for sure that you can't meaningfully limit encryption in the first place, and even if you did you can't do it without violating privacy, as is presumed here? Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to technical ignorance.
notwedtm 6y ago
Such a fitting username.
estaseuropano 6y ago
Please read the underlying documents and not this fearmongering. There is no such plan. Just click the first link titled 'upcoming plans for communication surveillance' and actually read the document (or just CTRL-F 'encryption') to see how misleading this lobby letter is. It is a communication about child porn/abuse outlining measures for prevention, rehabilitation, etc. It doesn't say anything about banning encryption, just as one of many points it points out that increased encryption is making detection of child porn/abuse difficult and that government and industry should set up an expert group to discuss what can be done without breaking privacy. So total bs article. I used to be a customer at mailbox but am right now very happy I moved away already...
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah - this linked article is total bullshit, at best it's misleading political spin arguing in bad faith. This is the actual proposal: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/interim-regulation-processing-personal-and-other-data-purpose-combatting-child-sexual-abuse https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/interim-reg... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826599 I think when we something that plays right into an existing confirmation bias it's important to be extra skeptical of its claims to offset that.
gher-shyu3i 6y ago
See also: cryptocurrencies.
ggvvfdde 6y ago
How would you like this privacy invading bill wrapped? Child abuse or terrorism?

Remember: every time a government cites child pornography or terrorism as the reason ban cryptography or otherwise limit human rights, they are just using an excuse.

CameronNemo 6y ago

It's like banning assault rifles to prevent mobsters from getting hold of them. Except in this case the good being banned is just some well known and distributed, cheap to copy, easy to build, easy to use software.

Jenk 6y ago
> It's like banning assault rifles to prevent mobsters from getting hold of them. Obvious bait is obvious but whatever, I'm in... Is it the same, though? Is it really? On one side we have literal implements of death responsible for countless accidental and/or illegal deaths, and the other we have some encryption software.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Never said same! Just has some resemblances. As well as major hilarious contrasts (hence why I chose the subject, instead of cats and cat lovers). I don't think a gun and cryptography should have the same treatment.
- robcohen 6y ago
  Countless doesn’t seem totally accurate. Last I checked the FBI census a few years back showed 318 deaths over a year due to long guns in the United States. That includes shotgun, rifle, and scary “assault” weapons. Handguns on the other hand kill 100x-200x the same amount of people. Seems like if gun control proponents wanted to reduce harm, they’d focus on handguns first.
  - Jenk 6y ago
    318 > 0. So yeah.. ban all guns then.
    - HideousKojima 6y ago
      390 deaths from swimming pools every year in the US. 390 > 0, ban all swimming pools.
      - Jenk 6y ago
        How many people are pointing swimming pools at each other or themselves with the intent on causing harm?
        HideousKojima 6y ago
        No idea since homicide by drowning is notoriously hard to prove[0], but the median pool is more likely to drown someone than the median "assault weapon" is to kill someone. ~10 million swimming pools in the US vs. ~20 million "assault weapons," and there are fewer murders annually with long guns of all types (of which "assault weapons" are a small subset) than there are pool drownings. Also pools disproportionately kill kids, while most victims of gun violence ate adults. 0 - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drowning-one-hardest-homicides-prove-these-investigators-want-change-n1011911 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drowning-one-hardest-ho...
  - schoolornot 6y ago
    Aggregated stats from 2019: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
    - Jenk 6y ago
      That's _just_ murder. Doesn't include accidental deaths.
  - 6y ago
- ian-g 6y ago
  I think the point is that the people who're already on the wrong side of the law will continue ignoring this new law. Mobsters won't stop buying guns because they're banned. Lots of people won't stop using encryption software just because it's banned.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    >Lots of people won't stop using encryption software just because it's banned. In particular organized crime, which the government is claiming to address via this policy.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    I think the hope isn’t that mobsters would choose to stop buying guns out of respect for the law, but rather that it will literally be more difficult for mobsters to buy guns because of actual enforcement of the law.
  - kajecounterhack 6y ago
    Like any abuse fighting, your goal is not to make guns impossible to get (which is impossible), your goal is to make it as expensive as humanly possible, which decreases how many people have them and increases overall societal safety. Also mobsters get rid of guns that killed people because they can lead to stiffer penalties. So taking legal guns out of circulation and then making strong deterrents for possession of illegal guns does help achieve this aim, you're decreasing the overall supply and driving up their prices.
- debacle 6y ago
  Those implements of death have been tools of liberty, stability, and safety in the hands of hundreds of millions of people across the world in the last several hundred years. The world, under its thin, patchy veneer of peace and prosperity, is still a savage place. Ask the IDF, Ukraine, South Korea, etc.
- PartiallyTyped 6y ago
  The moment encryption becomes illegal is the moment political dissidents, whistleblowers, reporters and every person in between are criminals. We forfeit our freedom to express any idea or thought that deviates from the current list of acceptable thought patterns. Suddenly you and all your thoughts or actions are subject to tracking by any government, any government official, any corporation and any malevolect actor. The government already has a monopoly on violence, what's next?
  - Jenk 6y ago
    I think you replied to the wrong post. I'm against banning encryption.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > On one side we have literal implements of death responsible for countless accidental and/or illegal deaths Cars?
kajecounterhack 6y ago
We need encryption to do peaceful things like economic transactions on the internet and private conversation. We don't need assault rifles for anything but murder. So no it's not the same.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Murder? Self defense is not murder. But again my point was not that they are similar, just that they are valuable, difficult to control, and law enforcement wants a monopoly on them.
  - lexicality 6y ago
    I can understand owning a pistol for self defence, but what situation does a civilian need an assault rifle in? Surely it'd just get in the way massively in any kind of home invasion scenario and if you end up firing it the bullet will go through 3 houses and hit someone's dog
- calvinmorrison 6y ago
  Crypto exists because bad actors exist. The same reason Americans own guns.
  - cl0ne 6y ago
    Some Americans own guns for subsistence hunting as a source of food.
    - kajecounterhack 6y ago
      You can use a non-automatic rifle or shotgun for this. You don't need an assault rifle. And we can talk a lot about carve-outs for folks like this, or just admit that they are rare and like any creature in the free market, they need to adapt to a changing landscape of rules and regulations.
      - 6y ago
draw_down 6y ago
Whoops! Not allowed to say that.

dagss 6y ago

Why do you say that? Do you really think that noone can have a genuine interest in combating child pornography or terrorism? My intuition is exactly the opposite: That many have a legitimate wish to combat both child porn and terrorism. Many people work with that every day and obviously they want to do a good job. And one effect of limiting crypto would help that. (That doesn't mean in itself crypto should be limited; but I don't see how writing one side off as "just an excuse" and basically offering a conspiracy theory helps anyone. Better to just say "it's unfortunate about child porn and terrorism, but it's the price that must be paid / here's another way to combat that", if that is what you mean.)

jedberg 6y ago
If they have a genuine interest in combating child pornography or terror, they would be proposing things that actually make a difference to those problems. Encryption is such a small part of those crimes that it would make almost no difference to the level of crime whether it exists or not.
- dagss 6y ago
  According to another poster, there were in fact here other proposals and crypto was a small part of it. And that small part was, quoting the text: > One of the specific initiatives under the EU Internet Forum in 2020 is the creation of a technical expert process to map and assess possible solutions which could allow companies to detect and report child sexual abuse in end-to-end encrypted electronic communications, in full respect of fundamental rights and without creating new vulnerabilities criminals could exploit. Technical experts from academia, industry, public authorities and civil society organisations will examine possible solutions focused on the device, the server and the encryption protocol that could ensure the privacy and security of electronic communications and the protection of children from sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. So -- you may say that you know that this project is hopeless and a foregone conclusion. But will every politician trust that -- or will they make a panel of experts to explore solutions and tell them for sure that you can't meaningfully limit encryption in the first place, and even if you did you can't do it without violating privacy, as is presumed here? Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to technical ignorance.

notwedtm 6y ago

Such a fitting username.

estaseuropano 6y ago

Please read the underlying documents and not this fearmongering. There is no such plan. Just click the first link titled 'upcoming plans for communication surveillance' and actually read the document (or just CTRL-F 'encryption') to see how misleading this lobby letter is. It is a communication about child porn/abuse outlining measures for prevention, rehabilitation, etc. It doesn't say anything about banning encryption, just as one of many points it points out that increased encryption is making detection of child porn/abuse difficult and that government and industry should set up an expert group to discuss what can be done without breaking privacy. So total bs article. I used to be a customer at mailbox but am right now very happy I moved away already...

fossuser 6y ago
Yeah - this linked article is total bullshit, at best it's misleading political spin arguing in bad faith. This is the actual proposal: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/interim-regulation-processing-personal-and-other-data-purpose-combatting-child-sexual-abuse https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/interim-reg... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826599 I think when we something that plays right into an existing confirmation bias it's important to be extra skeptical of its claims to offset that.

gher-shyu3i 6y ago