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> Your first three paragraphs are all focusing on structural flaws with my suggestion and not technical limitations of encryption itself. The debate has already

> Your first three paragraphs are all focusing on structural flaws with my suggestion and not technical limitations of encryption itself. The debate has already moved from this is impossible to this is impractical. I think the flaws are so large, and fixing them so impractical (especially anything involving direct human involvement), that the problem is essentially impossible. In theory traffic laws should prevent 100% of car accidents. Yet people die every day in traffic accidents. In theory the judicial system should never execute an innocent person. Yet the US sends people later proven innocent to the electric chair on a semi regular basis. In theory everyone should have a strong interest is keeping planet earth healthy enough to support human life, yet we’re on a course to cataclysmic climate change. Alcohol addiction should have ended during prohibition, and weed should be impossible to buy in the US. Yet neither is true. What on earth makes you think we’ll solve the structural issues with government key escrow for all encryption, when all the evidence suggest that we’re unable to perfectly solve these issues as a species? > Github is owned by Microsoft. Microsoft won't let you host code that is designed specifically to break the law. Cool we’ll host it on Gitlab then, or one of many no US hosting providers. We can’t even stop people pirating movies despite the media industry throwing billions at the problem. Do you honestly think we’ll have better luck with crypto? You wanna see how this story ends? Read up on prohibition America, or just the war on drugs. We’ve been down this road many times, with many different vices, it’s ends the same way every time. Normal people get criminalised, illicit behaviour continues regardless. Organised crime profits from facilitating illicit behaviour. Please explain why you thing crypto is going to be the exception?

slg 5y ago
>I think the flaws are so large, and fixing them so impractical (especially anything involving direct human involvement), that the problem is essentially impossible. Then let's as an industry try to think through ways to fix these impractical problems. My original goal was not for you and me to design the perfect system in a quick HN conversation. I was instead pointing out that the tech community too often treats this issue as a mathematical impossibility and refuses to engage anyone who pushes back on that. Admitting that something is not impossible but rather so impractical as to be essentially impossible is the first step in figuring out a solution. It is unlike the tech community to see an extremely difficult problem and just refuse any attempt to solve it because of the difficulty. >What on earth makes you think we’ll solve the structural issues with government key escrow for all encryption, when all the evidence suggest that we’re unable to perfectly solve these issues as a species? I am repeating myself here, but the goal isn't 100% compliance. No law can achieve that and I don't know you you are projecting that expectation on this conversation. The goal is to address most occurrences. >You wanna see how this story ends? Read up on prohibition America, or just the war on drugs. We’ve been down this road many times, with many different vices, it’s ends the same way every time. Normal people get criminalised, illicit behaviour continues regardless. Organised crime profits from facilitating illicit behaviour. Please explain why you thing crypto is going to be the exception? People want to engage in vices. I'm not convinced that people have nearly as strong of a desire for complete privacy as evident by all the behavior we have seen over the last few decades in responses to how governments and corporations invade privacy. It is a popular conspiracy theory that Facebook is secretly recording audio on your phone 24/7 and uses conversations it hears to better target ads. I have multiple friends who genuinely believe this. This belief isn't enough to get them to uninstall Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from their phones. Some people will certainly be willing to go the extra mile for privacy, but most people won't.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  > People want to engage in vices. I'm not convinced that people have nearly as strong of a desire for complete privacy as evident by all the behavior we have seen over the last few decades in responses to how governments and corporations invade privacy. The people law enforcement wants to access is supposedly those traffic CP, terrorise or similar crimes. Those individuals 100% want privacy and will get it. As for the remaining 99%, there’s no evidence that strong encryption prevents law enforcement from doing their job effectively. Want to see examples of law enforcement circumventing perfect encryption, then look to British police. They solved this problem quite elegantly, you wait for someone to unlock their phone, then you grab it out of their hands.

slg 5y ago

>I think the flaws are so large, and fixing them so impractical (especially anything involving direct human involvement), that the problem is essentially impossible. Then let's as an industry try to think through ways to fix these impractical problems. My original goal was not for you and me to design the perfect system in a quick HN conversation. I was instead pointing out that the tech community too often treats this issue as a mathematical impossibility and refuses to engage anyone who pushes back on that. Admitting that something is not impossible but rather so impractical as to be essentially impossible is the first step in figuring out a solution. It is unlike the tech community to see an extremely difficult problem and just refuse any attempt to solve it because of the difficulty. >What on earth makes you think we’ll solve the structural issues with government key escrow for all encryption, when all the evidence suggest that we’re unable to perfectly solve these issues as a species? I am repeating myself here, but the goal isn't 100% compliance. No law can achieve that and I don't know you you are projecting that expectation on this conversation. The goal is to address most occurrences. >You wanna see how this story ends? Read up on prohibition America, or just the war on drugs. We’ve been down this road many times, with many different vices, it’s ends the same way every time. Normal people get criminalised, illicit behaviour continues regardless. Organised crime profits from facilitating illicit behaviour. Please explain why you thing crypto is going to be the exception? People want to engage in vices. I'm not convinced that people have nearly as strong of a desire for complete privacy as evident by all the behavior we have seen over the last few decades in responses to how governments and corporations invade privacy. It is a popular conspiracy theory that Facebook is secretly recording audio on your phone 24/7 and uses conversations it hears to better target ads. I have multiple friends who genuinely believe this. This belief isn't enough to get them to uninstall Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from their phones. Some people will certainly be willing to go the extra mile for privacy, but most people won't.

avianlyric 5y ago
> People want to engage in vices. I'm not convinced that people have nearly as strong of a desire for complete privacy as evident by all the behavior we have seen over the last few decades in responses to how governments and corporations invade privacy. The people law enforcement wants to access is supposedly those traffic CP, terrorise or similar crimes. Those individuals 100% want privacy and will get it. As for the remaining 99%, there’s no evidence that strong encryption prevents law enforcement from doing their job effectively. Want to see examples of law enforcement circumventing perfect encryption, then look to British police. They solved this problem quite elegantly, you wait for someone to unlock their phone, then you grab it out of their hands.