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> There are no skeleton keys, only vulnerabilities. This is something really unique to digital technologies. In meat-space, everything has a vulnerability: for

> There are no skeleton keys, only vulnerabilities. This is something really unique to digital technologies. In meat-space, everything has a vulnerability: force. With sufficient reason and circumstance, whether or not you give up your keys, the government is still able to claim dominion over anything you're trying to hide. All they have to do is break a few walls. Digital technologies don't have this problem (feature if you're the government). If you have your key stored in your memory, and there is no back door in the software, no matter what court orders anyone has, if you don't tell them the key then the information is lost to them forever. This kind of breaks some fundamental assumptions layed into law prior to tech. When you use encryption, tech really becomes an extension of your mind, and your 5th amendment rights effectively shut the government out of them completely. While I like this idea, it definitely poses problems for enforcement of basically every digital and financial law on the books, which can pose problems for all of us.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
The use of force generally leaves evidence of its use, however. If the government cuts the door off your safe, and doesn't have a warrant to conduct that search, then the facts will speak for themselves when you avail yourself of your rights - e.g. to have evidence from an unlawful search suppressed in court and the subsequent civil rights lawsuit. This is where the analogy breaks down - introducing backdoors and passkeys into digital security doesn't create the same trail in the physical world. The better analogy would be - imagine that the government insisted that all locks be approved by the government, on the understanding that those locks would have master keys that the government owned. They would be able to come to a bank during the night, unlock the front door, the vault, and your safe deposit box; or come into your home when you were at work, unlock your filing cabinet and look at your records. You would have to trust that government employees who had access to the master keys would only use them for legitimate purposes, and when authorized to do so. You would have to trust that the government could secure those keys at all times so they never fell into the wrong hands, and that no unauthorized duplicates would be made. You would have to do all those things bearing in mind that the government regularly loses such master keys, has employees that exceed their authority, misuse government resources, demonstrate poor custody practices, and so on. It doesn't seem like a good bet to me. EDIT: oh yes, and I forgot to mention there's a whole bunch of other bad actors out there who know how to buy a government-approved lock, take it apart, and are highly motivated to make their own master keys.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

The use of force generally leaves evidence of its use, however. If the government cuts the door off your safe, and doesn't have a warrant to conduct that search, then the facts will speak for themselves when you avail yourself of your rights - e.g. to have evidence from an unlawful search suppressed in court and the subsequent civil rights lawsuit. This is where the analogy breaks down - introducing backdoors and passkeys into digital security doesn't create the same trail in the physical world. The better analogy would be - imagine that the government insisted that all locks be approved by the government, on the understanding that those locks would have master keys that the government owned. They would be able to come to a bank during the night, unlock the front door, the vault, and your safe deposit box; or come into your home when you were at work, unlock your filing cabinet and look at your records. You would have to trust that government employees who had access to the master keys would only use them for legitimate purposes, and when authorized to do so. You would have to trust that the government could secure those keys at all times so they never fell into the wrong hands, and that no unauthorized duplicates would be made. You would have to do all those things bearing in mind that the government regularly loses such master keys, has employees that exceed their authority, misuse government resources, demonstrate poor custody practices, and so on. It doesn't seem like a good bet to me. EDIT: oh yes, and I forgot to mention there's a whole bunch of other bad actors out there who know how to buy a government-approved lock, take it apart, and are highly motivated to make their own master keys.