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I'll be the devil's advocate. I can see a need to encrypt privileged communications, like with your lawyer, your health care provider, etc, but chats, for examp

I'll be the devil's advocate. I can see a need to encrypt privileged communications, like with your lawyer, your health care provider, etc, but chats, for example? Can someone please change my mind? And by the way, I find arguments of the type "are you ok to have transparent walls at the bathrooom" quite unconvincing. Bathrooms are not protected with encryption, the analogy is very weak. Or, "If you have nothing to hide, can you share with me your bank account password"? Well, no, the communication with my bank is encrypted, and I seriously doubt the Government wants me to put it out in the clear (oh, and also, banks are so heavily regulated, e.g. Anti-Money-Laundering, that if the Government wants to find anything about anything, they probably already can, regardless of how encrypted your communication with the bank is).

rootusrootus 5y ago
I see it more as a 'why not?' kind of issue. Why can't I encrypt my own communications? Why does the government need to see what I talk about and to whom? Criminals aren't going to avoid encryption technology just because the government says so, which means the law only really applies to law abiding citizens. I want the government to explain why they need this power without invoking the criminal scare tactic since we already know it isn't relevant.
- andai 5y ago
  Same reason governments got rid of gun rights in most countries: to protect themselves from the people.
steelstraw 5y ago
I consider communication with my parents, friends and coworkers to be privileged communication.
ipaddr 5y ago
Why would you want to encrypt your communication? An easy example is you are going to China for business. You share some trade secrets in private and by tomorrow some factory is producing your new part. Another example. You live in a cheap apartment. Your landlord wiresharks all communication over your internet connection and steals your private pictures Why would you want to hide information from your government? Maybe you are a journalist with a story on someone in power. You could have been raped by a high powered government employee You could be part of a minority who is being made into a villian in the current political climate. You have rights for a reason. You need to make a case why we should give up those rights.
RHSeeger 5y ago
Because I could be talking about something that gets me in trouble, depending on where I am. There are plenty of things that are reasonable to discuss with friends, but not not reasonable to be made public. There is no such thing as a person with nothing to hide; only those that don't know what they need to hide. And that's ignoring the fact that these entities pushing to ban e2e encryption on chat programs include many of the same ones that pushed to ban secure encryption all together, outside of their own uses, of course. So, if they get this, it's just one step on the way to ban secure encryption everywhere, which would be catastrophic.
lmm 5y ago
> I can see a need to encrypt privileged communications, like with your lawyer, your health care provider, etc, but chats, for example? Can someone please change my mind? Most normal people share those kind of legal or health conversations with their parents/partners/close friends as well. If you were spying on an opposition politician (say) or social activist, being able to read their personal private chats with their mother or husband would probably tell you just as much as reading their "professional" chats or medical chats - perhaps more, since you'd know what they were actually worrying about. > I seriously doubt the Government wants me to put it out in the clear (oh, and also, banks are so heavily regulated, e.g. Anti-Money-Laundering, that if the Government wants to find anything about anything, they probably already can, regardless of how encrypted your communication with the bank is). You've contradicted yourself. The Government absolutely does want a backdoor that lets them read your communications with your bank, the AML laws are proof of that.
stephen_g 5y ago
I absolutely consider plenty of conversations with friends and loved ones absolutely private. What your argument misses is that end-to-end encryption has a very important role - keeping information safe from hacks of the messaging platform. If a messaging service is hacked, and the database dumped, I’d prefer that what they get was encrypted by keys on my device, not keys that are able to be stolen by the hack (or not being encrypted at rest at all). Extremely personal, private and intimate conversations, photos and videos have been leaked that way. End to end encryption prevents that. Secondly, it protects my messages from being able to be snooped on by bad actors at the messaging service (like a nosy sysadmin). Somebody could easily be physically stalked using information gleaned in this scenario, or a bad actor could use the information gathered from reading their messages to groom a minor for example! I’ve read stories of cyber-stalking happening in this way, like a Google Hangouts SRE who was reading a woman’s messages, messaging her inappropriately, and when she would block him, unblocking himself through the backend (luckily he was eventually found out and fired). End to end encryption would help from these people being able to see messages or steal photos an pod images. There are even more scenarios and circumstances when it’s important. So I’d say your comment is not as much a ‘devil’s advocate view’ as a ‘haven’t thought hard enough about possible threats’ view.
riptheworld 5y ago
Perhaps I can convince you with a more philosophical argument. Private communication is essential for freedom of speech. I may not speak freely with my friends or family if I believe that those conversations are easily accessible by the government. It's not that these conversations are inherently bad either; rather, I believe that people have a tendency to self-censor themselves depending on their audience. When the audience consists of an entity that has overwhelming influence on your life, I believe the potential for self-censorship is enormous. Historically, many of the world’s greatest ideas were first discussed in private. Bold ideas were discussed in discreet locations, free from the threat of eavesdroppers out of fear of government recourse. Nowadays, technology has enabled people to communicate instantaneously with one another from thousands of miles away. Encryption enhances that capability by further allowing that communication to be private, fostering freedom of speech and the discussion of new ideas. It is really quite amazing when you think about it!
trhway 5y ago
>but chats, for example? Can someone please change my mind? your chat may be pretty legal in the country you're residing at the moment of the chat. Few days or years later you may be flying over/into the country where the content of that chat is illegal. Say, you're trying to come into US, and in the chat you discussed that time you smoked a weed back in your home country where it is legal.

rootusrootus 5y ago

I see it more as a 'why not?' kind of issue. Why can't I encrypt my own communications? Why does the government need to see what I talk about and to whom? Criminals aren't going to avoid encryption technology just because the government says so, which means the law only really applies to law abiding citizens. I want the government to explain why they need this power without invoking the criminal scare tactic since we already know it isn't relevant.

andai 5y ago
Same reason governments got rid of gun rights in most countries: to protect themselves from the people.

steelstraw 5y ago

I consider communication with my parents, friends and coworkers to be privileged communication.

ipaddr 5y ago

Why would you want to encrypt your communication? An easy example is you are going to China for business. You share some trade secrets in private and by tomorrow some factory is producing your new part. Another example. You live in a cheap apartment. Your landlord wiresharks all communication over your internet connection and steals your private pictures Why would you want to hide information from your government? Maybe you are a journalist with a story on someone in power. You could have been raped by a high powered government employee You could be part of a minority who is being made into a villian in the current political climate. You have rights for a reason. You need to make a case why we should give up those rights.

RHSeeger 5y ago

Because I could be talking about something that gets me in trouble, depending on where I am. There are plenty of things that are reasonable to discuss with friends, but not not reasonable to be made public. There is no such thing as a person with nothing to hide; only those that don't know what they need to hide. And that's ignoring the fact that these entities pushing to ban e2e encryption on chat programs include many of the same ones that pushed to ban secure encryption all together, outside of their own uses, of course. So, if they get this, it's just one step on the way to ban secure encryption everywhere, which would be catastrophic.

lmm 5y ago

> I can see a need to encrypt privileged communications, like with your lawyer, your health care provider, etc, but chats, for example? Can someone please change my mind? Most normal people share those kind of legal or health conversations with their parents/partners/close friends as well. If you were spying on an opposition politician (say) or social activist, being able to read their personal private chats with their mother or husband would probably tell you just as much as reading their "professional" chats or medical chats - perhaps more, since you'd know what they were actually worrying about. > I seriously doubt the Government wants me to put it out in the clear (oh, and also, banks are so heavily regulated, e.g. Anti-Money-Laundering, that if the Government wants to find anything about anything, they probably already can, regardless of how encrypted your communication with the bank is). You've contradicted yourself. The Government absolutely does want a backdoor that lets them read your communications with your bank, the AML laws are proof of that.

stephen_g 5y ago

I absolutely consider plenty of conversations with friends and loved ones absolutely private. What your argument misses is that end-to-end encryption has a very important role - keeping information safe from hacks of the messaging platform. If a messaging service is hacked, and the database dumped, I’d prefer that what they get was encrypted by keys on my device, not keys that are able to be stolen by the hack (or not being encrypted at rest at all). Extremely personal, private and intimate conversations, photos and videos have been leaked that way. End to end encryption prevents that. Secondly, it protects my messages from being able to be snooped on by bad actors at the messaging service (like a nosy sysadmin). Somebody could easily be physically stalked using information gleaned in this scenario, or a bad actor could use the information gathered from reading their messages to groom a minor for example! I’ve read stories of cyber-stalking happening in this way, like a Google Hangouts SRE who was reading a woman’s messages, messaging her inappropriately, and when she would block him, unblocking himself through the backend (luckily he was eventually found out and fired). End to end encryption would help from these people being able to see messages or steal photos an pod images. There are even more scenarios and circumstances when it’s important. So I’d say your comment is not as much a ‘devil’s advocate view’ as a ‘haven’t thought hard enough about possible threats’ view.

riptheworld 5y ago

Perhaps I can convince you with a more philosophical argument. Private communication is essential for freedom of speech. I may not speak freely with my friends or family if I believe that those conversations are easily accessible by the government. It's not that these conversations are inherently bad either; rather, I believe that people have a tendency to self-censor themselves depending on their audience. When the audience consists of an entity that has overwhelming influence on your life, I believe the potential for self-censorship is enormous. Historically, many of the world’s greatest ideas were first discussed in private. Bold ideas were discussed in discreet locations, free from the threat of eavesdroppers out of fear of government recourse. Nowadays, technology has enabled people to communicate instantaneously with one another from thousands of miles away. Encryption enhances that capability by further allowing that communication to be private, fostering freedom of speech and the discussion of new ideas. It is really quite amazing when you think about it!

trhway 5y ago

>but chats, for example? Can someone please change my mind? your chat may be pretty legal in the country you're residing at the moment of the chat. Few days or years later you may be flying over/into the country where the content of that chat is illegal. Say, you're trying to come into US, and in the chat you discussed that time you smoked a weed back in your home country where it is legal.