4 ms·

The "children" excuse + most of the population saying "I don't need privacy, I have nothing to hide" is a double whammy against any form of encryption and it's

by sph 4y ago

The "children" excuse + most of the population saying "I don't need privacy, I have nothing to hide" is a double whammy against any form of encryption and it's just a matter of time before our Internet privacy rights are completely stripped away. A huge educational campaign is necessary to convince people and the average politician that being pro-encryption doesn't mean being criminals or pedophiles. So it's a lost battle already, and the intelligence services everywhere know it's just a matter of time. Eventually a pro-privacy activist will be found with child pornography and everybody will cheer and applaud any form of privacy-stripping law. The children angle is insidious, and where the discussion keep devolving even in tech-savvy forums like this one, instead if seeing it's convenient and very effective marketing to hide anti-privacy goals.

ta1243 4y ago
Easy to frame a headline against it. "New bill to allow Jeremy Corbyn to read your secret messages and Tories WONT FIGHT IT"
- d3nj4l 4y ago
  The poor man’s not even in labour anymore, let him rest!
  - vaccarium 4y ago
    Nitpick: he is a Labour member but not a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party, so he sits in the Commons as an independent.
    - toyg 4y ago
      He'll stand as independent at the next election, hence getting automatically expelled from the party.
roenxi 4y ago
> The children angle is insidious... The entire rhetorical position is difficult. One of the (somewhat implicit) rules of public discourse seems to be "assume good faith". To make the argument that people should have freedom from government requires an acknowledgement that government officials regularly do more harm than good. It is insanely challenging to carry that position in a debate. Keep your eye out for the handful of people who manage to do it without being tarred as crazy. That rhetorical imbalance makes it safe and straightforward for power politicians and police to argue that they should get to read everyone's emails. It is tricky to understand why centralised power is a terrible thing that will lead to corruption and injustice. Implementing a system that tolerates privacy requires the bureaucracy to not grasp power. We've always been lucky in a sense that a critical mass of people learned they need to fight to protect freedom as an ideal, even if they can't exactly explain why or if the details seem to lead to bad outcomes (see also "fight for your right to say it"). It may be the only defence against a Stalinist- or Maoist-style collapse.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > requires an acknowledgement that government officials regularly do more harm than good I don't think it's that. The argument should be similar to the Veil of Ignorance: do you want every conceivable future government to have these powers?
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Well, hypothetically, if the government on average does more good than harm why would you not want that? Sure you'd get Hitler-lite on occasion, but that would be balanced out by anti-Hitler-lite doing good. Of course, the damage the bad apples do far outweighs the benefits of the good so that argument doesn't hold. A century of good governance with global assistance barely balanced out the damage Hitler triggered in 5 years. Destruction is easy and creation is hard. And that plays out on the small scale too with small numbers of corrupt officials undoing huge amounts of work by good people. If we had perfect information, we'd find that the spying apparatus of the 5 Eyes has done far more bad than good to the general welfare. The political corruption that must be causing is immense, we already know that every president since Obama has been targeted by the intelligence apparatus in some form. It is unlikely it ends there. I'm less sure about the situation in the UK, but they generally follow the US trend.
survirtual 4y ago
100% I see you posting an opinion I agree strongly with here often. Glad you’re still at it. I will offer a positive side to this situation. Their war against math proves the math works and they don’t have an internal workaround. Since a war against math is bound to fail in long term (just like the war on vegetables aka “war on drugs”), short term victories of oppression won’t shut down the future. The children angle is insidious, especially when whistle blowers, reporters, and power players in revealing high up people involved in pedophilia seem to all magically have unfortunate accidents. It is a tool to emotionally manipulate a population which is ravenous against pedophilia. A very effective one. I look forward to the day these people are all held accountable.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - bombolo 4y ago
    I'm having a hard time taking a website called "free minds and free markets" seriously as a reliable source.
aftbit 4y ago
There is already a more subtle problem here, at least in countries with case law. The people who end up on trial trying to defend encryption are typically guilty (as very roughly 90% of people who go to trial are). Many of them are guilty of things that most of us look very strongly down upon, like possessing and sharing child sexual abuse material. Thus if you want to set a strong precedent for protection of encryption, you end up defending exactly this sort of person.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  [citation needed]

by sph 4y ago

ta1243 4y ago

Easy to frame a headline against it. "New bill to allow Jeremy Corbyn to read your secret messages and Tories WONT FIGHT IT"

d3nj4l 4y ago
The poor man’s not even in labour anymore, let him rest!
- vaccarium 4y ago
  Nitpick: he is a Labour member but not a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party, so he sits in the Commons as an independent.
  - toyg 4y ago
    He'll stand as independent at the next election, hence getting automatically expelled from the party.

roenxi 4y ago

> The children angle is insidious... The entire rhetorical position is difficult. One of the (somewhat implicit) rules of public discourse seems to be "assume good faith". To make the argument that people should have freedom from government requires an acknowledgement that government officials regularly do more harm than good. It is insanely challenging to carry that position in a debate. Keep your eye out for the handful of people who manage to do it without being tarred as crazy. That rhetorical imbalance makes it safe and straightforward for power politicians and police to argue that they should get to read everyone's emails. It is tricky to understand why centralised power is a terrible thing that will lead to corruption and injustice. Implementing a system that tolerates privacy requires the bureaucracy to not grasp power. We've always been lucky in a sense that a critical mass of people learned they need to fight to protect freedom as an ideal, even if they can't exactly explain why or if the details seem to lead to bad outcomes (see also "fight for your right to say it"). It may be the only defence against a Stalinist- or Maoist-style collapse.

robertlagrant 4y ago
> requires an acknowledgement that government officials regularly do more harm than good I don't think it's that. The argument should be similar to the Veil of Ignorance: do you want every conceivable future government to have these powers?
- roenxi 4y ago
  Well, hypothetically, if the government on average does more good than harm why would you not want that? Sure you'd get Hitler-lite on occasion, but that would be balanced out by anti-Hitler-lite doing good. Of course, the damage the bad apples do far outweighs the benefits of the good so that argument doesn't hold. A century of good governance with global assistance barely balanced out the damage Hitler triggered in 5 years. Destruction is easy and creation is hard. And that plays out on the small scale too with small numbers of corrupt officials undoing huge amounts of work by good people. If we had perfect information, we'd find that the spying apparatus of the 5 Eyes has done far more bad than good to the general welfare. The political corruption that must be causing is immense, we already know that every president since Obama has been targeted by the intelligence apparatus in some form. It is unlikely it ends there. I'm less sure about the situation in the UK, but they generally follow the US trend.

survirtual 4y ago

100% I see you posting an opinion I agree strongly with here often. Glad you’re still at it. I will offer a positive side to this situation. Their war against math proves the math works and they don’t have an internal workaround. Since a war against math is bound to fail in long term (just like the war on vegetables aka “war on drugs”), short term victories of oppression won’t shut down the future. The children angle is insidious, especially when whistle blowers, reporters, and power players in revealing high up people involved in pedophilia seem to all magically have unfortunate accidents. It is a tool to emotionally manipulate a population which is ravenous against pedophilia. A very effective one. I look forward to the day these people are all held accountable.

908B64B197 4y ago
[flagged]
- bombolo 4y ago
  I'm having a hard time taking a website called "free minds and free markets" seriously as a reliable source.

aftbit 4y ago

There is already a more subtle problem here, at least in countries with case law. The people who end up on trial trying to defend encryption are typically guilty (as very roughly 90% of people who go to trial are). Many of them are guilty of things that most of us look very strongly down upon, like possessing and sharing child sexual abuse material. Thus if you want to set a strong precedent for protection of encryption, you end up defending exactly this sort of person.

ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
[citation needed]