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> Anything short of that is not enough. I like that in spirit, but not as a practical standard. A major function of government is to prevent abuses of power. S

> Anything short of that is not enough. I like that in spirit, but not as a practical standard. A major function of government is to prevent abuses of power. So I'm more inclined to shoot for overall minimization of abuse.

zozbot234 3y ago
Well, in this case a random law enforcement deputy could get sensitive location information about random people with no meaningful cross-check of any sort - and this has only come to light after the fact, as part of a criminal investigation. So there's reason to be highly skeptical that the status quo is the best we can do when it comes to preventing abuse across the board.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> A major function of government is to prevent abuses of power. But they can still do this. If you want to know where someone is, instead of compelling devices or carriers to spy on everyone at all times, you attach a tracker to the suspect's vehicle, or assign an agent to follow them. That's more expensive -- which is the deterrent to abuse. A bad cop doesn't have time to follow around their ex all day. They do have time to follow around the subject of an official investigation, because that's their job. Tracking devices cost money, so it limits the number of people who can be tracked at once and prevents mass surveillance. The argument for compulsory backdoors is purely an efficiency case, but efficiency is less important than preventing abuse.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  The carrier is not spying on you here. A cell phone network has to know your phone's location in order to function at all, and this info has only gotten more and more fine-grained with newer network standards. There's nothing wrong with granting access to such data with proper authorization. The "expense" involved in getting warrants approved is a better check on abuse, since it's very easy to do this as part of official law enforcement duties, and quite hard otherwise - the corrupt cop will need to come up with some reasonable justification, and not have it fall apart under deeper scrutiny. Of course if your local judge will rubber-stamp blank_document.docx as a proper "warrant" you have a problem again. But that can be addressed in turn.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    It would be simple to design a cellular data network that didn't tie account holders to devices. Issue access tokens good for e.g. 10 GB of data to the mobile device. Don't store the token in connection with the account. Anyone could buy a prepaid card with tokens for cash at any convenience store. The network identifies the device via the token, which is temporary and anonymous. Telephone routing is done via VoIP which anyone has the option of routing through a VPN. It's designed the way it is now on purpose, to spy on everyone. > The "expense" involved in getting warrants approved is a better check on abuse Except that they don't actually get warrants when they're doing abuse, they just lie about it because the phone company has minimal incentive to check and the victim who does typically isn't notified. > Of course if your local judge will rubber-stamp blank_document.docx as a proper "warrant" you have a problem again. But that can be addressed in turn. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" is in latin because it was published circa 100 AD. No effective solution to this problem has yet been uncovered.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - nurple 3y ago
      There was a phone called the AN0M that came on the market a couple years ago that purportedly had similar features, turns out it was an FBI honeypot op to sell it to people that were seeking "privacy" with the hope that criminals would purchase it. https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7b4gg/anom-phone-arcaneos-fbi-backdoor https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7b4gg/anom-phone-arcaneos-f...
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        This is why open source and strong cryptography are important. Anybody can sell you some snake oil when you can't verify how it works.
- wpietri 3y ago
  > But they can still do this [...] attach a tracker I was responding to somebody who wanted it to be "mathematically impossible for them to abuse their power". Attachable trackers aren't sufficient to achieve that.

zozbot234 3y ago

Well, in this case a random law enforcement deputy could get sensitive location information about random people with no meaningful cross-check of any sort - and this has only come to light after the fact, as part of a criminal investigation. So there's reason to be highly skeptical that the status quo is the best we can do when it comes to preventing abuse across the board.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> A major function of government is to prevent abuses of power. But they can still do this. If you want to know where someone is, instead of compelling devices or carriers to spy on everyone at all times, you attach a tracker to the suspect's vehicle, or assign an agent to follow them. That's more expensive -- which is the deterrent to abuse. A bad cop doesn't have time to follow around their ex all day. They do have time to follow around the subject of an official investigation, because that's their job. Tracking devices cost money, so it limits the number of people who can be tracked at once and prevents mass surveillance. The argument for compulsory backdoors is purely an efficiency case, but efficiency is less important than preventing abuse.

zozbot234 3y ago
The carrier is not spying on you here. A cell phone network has to know your phone's location in order to function at all, and this info has only gotten more and more fine-grained with newer network standards. There's nothing wrong with granting access to such data with proper authorization. The "expense" involved in getting warrants approved is a better check on abuse, since it's very easy to do this as part of official law enforcement duties, and quite hard otherwise - the corrupt cop will need to come up with some reasonable justification, and not have it fall apart under deeper scrutiny. Of course if your local judge will rubber-stamp blank_document.docx as a proper "warrant" you have a problem again. But that can be addressed in turn.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  It would be simple to design a cellular data network that didn't tie account holders to devices. Issue access tokens good for e.g. 10 GB of data to the mobile device. Don't store the token in connection with the account. Anyone could buy a prepaid card with tokens for cash at any convenience store. The network identifies the device via the token, which is temporary and anonymous. Telephone routing is done via VoIP which anyone has the option of routing through a VPN. It's designed the way it is now on purpose, to spy on everyone. > The "expense" involved in getting warrants approved is a better check on abuse Except that they don't actually get warrants when they're doing abuse, they just lie about it because the phone company has minimal incentive to check and the victim who does typically isn't notified. > Of course if your local judge will rubber-stamp blank_document.docx as a proper "warrant" you have a problem again. But that can be addressed in turn. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" is in latin because it was published circa 100 AD. No effective solution to this problem has yet been uncovered.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - nurple 3y ago
    There was a phone called the AN0M that came on the market a couple years ago that purportedly had similar features, turns out it was an FBI honeypot op to sell it to people that were seeking "privacy" with the hope that criminals would purchase it. https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7b4gg/anom-phone-arcaneos-fbi-backdoor https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7b4gg/anom-phone-arcaneos-f...
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      This is why open source and strong cryptography are important. Anybody can sell you some snake oil when you can't verify how it works.
wpietri 3y ago
> But they can still do this [...] attach a tracker I was responding to somebody who wanted it to be "mathematically impossible for them to abuse their power". Attachable trackers aren't sufficient to achieve that.