3 ms·

As much as I like privacy and e2ee, this is an important point. If there were locks or walls that are entirely impenetrable, would people be disallowed to poss

As much as I like privacy and e2ee, this is an important point. If there were locks or walls that are entirely impenetrable, would people be disallowed to possess or use them? I probably wouldn't like it, but it seems less crazy than some people make it out to be. In practice the analogy doesn't hold up of course, since it's costly and noticeable for cops to raid a house but cheap and easy for the government to spy on everyone (and we know how eager they are to do it).

M3L0NM4N 3y ago
Why is communication being compared to physical access? E2EE protects my conversations from being "heard" by others. If I was walking at the park talking to my friend, the government wouldn't complain that there's not a microphone nearby. Nobody else is physically able to listen to that conversation, and that's perfectly common and acceptable.
- sensanaty 3y ago
  I know it's cliche to bring up 1984 in these kind of talks, but your comment reminded me immediately of that section in the book where Winston goes to that park in order to be away from prying eyes and ears (If I'm remembering it correctly, it's been ages since I've read it).
  - simbolit 3y ago
    Winston and Julia go out into the countryside, they each take different trains, then meet at a pre-arranged location in the middle of nowhere, and then go out into the literal woods, to talk (and have sex), and they are still paranoid under every second branch there might be a microphone.
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  Nobody owns the air around you, whereas the cables and routers and switches your communication propagates through are owned by private corporations and by the state
  - M3L0NM4N 3y ago
    The fact that nobody owns the air around me is arbitrary. I could make the argument that because I'm in the United States they should be able to listen to any conversation in the United States (by "owning" the air or otherwise).
sofixa 3y ago
> In practice the analogy doesn't hold up of course, since it's costly and noticeable for cops to raid a house but cheap and easy for the government to spy on everyone (and we know how eager they are to do it). The same goes the other way too though - it's cheap for criminals/terrorists to communicate over e2e encrypted software compared to having to travel to meet physically.
zug_zug 3y ago
What are you talking about? There are millions of "impenetrable locks" in our society -- things you can do that might give the government less than 100% control over you. You could put your money in crypto where it can never be seized, should crypto be illegal? You could bury your money in a forest where it can never be seized, should shovels be illegal? You can stab somebody with a knife, should knives be illegal? You could fly to a foreign country, should flights be illegal? You could discuss a crime in-person not over the internet, should private conversations be illegal? The fact is, unless you want a totalitarian state, the agreement is that society functions without perfect control by government, and most of us prefer to live in such regimes. In fact, most of us recognize that regimes that want more and more power over the individual usually end up misusing it. THe easy boogey-monster is child-porn, but that's bull done by a tiny fraction of the population. The real monster is authoritarian governments, which are the majority of governments in the world.
- darkwater 3y ago
  > You could put your money in crypto where it can never be seized, should crypto be illegal? Well... > You could bury your money in a forest where it can never be seized, should shovels be illegal? Or forests or remote places... obviously not. > You can stab somebody with a knife, should knives be illegal? OK, but guns or automatic guns makes this much easily reproducible at scale. And guns are indeed heavily regulated everywhere in the world (well, yeah, there is ONE exception...) > You could fly to a foreign country, should flights be illegal? You need a valid passport, pass several checks and you might be on some list and blocked from taking the plane (obviously there are way to hack that, that's not the point). Or denied access to the other country. > You could discuss a crime in-person not over the internet, should private conversations be illegal? No, but police can still spy you if they have reasonable (or not...) reasons to do so. My point is: while I'm not OK with banning encryption or adding some backdoor to it, we cannot deny that the "at scale" differences are important enough to at least have an adult discussion about how the issue should be tackled. Dismissing it like many people in the tech world do is as naive as willing to ban it.
  - zug_zug 3y ago

M3L0NM4N 3y ago

Why is communication being compared to physical access? E2EE protects my conversations from being "heard" by others. If I was walking at the park talking to my friend, the government wouldn't complain that there's not a microphone nearby. Nobody else is physically able to listen to that conversation, and that's perfectly common and acceptable.

sensanaty 3y ago
I know it's cliche to bring up 1984 in these kind of talks, but your comment reminded me immediately of that section in the book where Winston goes to that park in order to be away from prying eyes and ears (If I'm remembering it correctly, it's been ages since I've read it).
- simbolit 3y ago
  Winston and Julia go out into the countryside, they each take different trains, then meet at a pre-arranged location in the middle of nowhere, and then go out into the literal woods, to talk (and have sex), and they are still paranoid under every second branch there might be a microphone.
Almondsetat 3y ago
Nobody owns the air around you, whereas the cables and routers and switches your communication propagates through are owned by private corporations and by the state
- M3L0NM4N 3y ago
  The fact that nobody owns the air around me is arbitrary. I could make the argument that because I'm in the United States they should be able to listen to any conversation in the United States (by "owning" the air or otherwise).

sofixa 3y ago

> In practice the analogy doesn't hold up of course, since it's costly and noticeable for cops to raid a house but cheap and easy for the government to spy on everyone (and we know how eager they are to do it). The same goes the other way too though - it's cheap for criminals/terrorists to communicate over e2e encrypted software compared to having to travel to meet physically.

zug_zug 3y ago

What are you talking about? There are millions of "impenetrable locks" in our society -- things you can do that might give the government less than 100% control over you. You could put your money in crypto where it can never be seized, should crypto be illegal? You could bury your money in a forest where it can never be seized, should shovels be illegal? You can stab somebody with a knife, should knives be illegal? You could fly to a foreign country, should flights be illegal? You could discuss a crime in-person not over the internet, should private conversations be illegal? The fact is, unless you want a totalitarian state, the agreement is that society functions without perfect control by government, and most of us prefer to live in such regimes. In fact, most of us recognize that regimes that want more and more power over the individual usually end up misusing it. THe easy boogey-monster is child-porn, but that's bull done by a tiny fraction of the population. The real monster is authoritarian governments, which are the majority of governments in the world.

darkwater 3y ago
> You could put your money in crypto where it can never be seized, should crypto be illegal? Well... > You could bury your money in a forest where it can never be seized, should shovels be illegal? Or forests or remote places... obviously not. > You can stab somebody with a knife, should knives be illegal? OK, but guns or automatic guns makes this much easily reproducible at scale. And guns are indeed heavily regulated everywhere in the world (well, yeah, there is ONE exception...) > You could fly to a foreign country, should flights be illegal? You need a valid passport, pass several checks and you might be on some list and blocked from taking the plane (obviously there are way to hack that, that's not the point). Or denied access to the other country. > You could discuss a crime in-person not over the internet, should private conversations be illegal? No, but police can still spy you if they have reasonable (or not...) reasons to do so. My point is: while I'm not OK with banning encryption or adding some backdoor to it, we cannot deny that the "at scale" differences are important enough to at least have an adult discussion about how the issue should be tackled. Dismissing it like many people in the tech world do is as naive as willing to ban it.
- zug_zug 3y ago