5 ms·

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% contro

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
  > 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. What? Maybe you're like 20+ years younger than me, because I feel like this boogeyman has been presented for 20 years and routinely shut-down as a bad-faith argument for 20 consecutive years. Maybe without that context it could look like it's never been considered, but it has, and it's been rejected. The basic summary is this -- You weigh all the positive side-effects of breaking encryption vs all the negative ones and you do the math. And the math is that most governments already are corrupt and take too much power over their citizens and abuse it, and of all the problems in the world child porn and even terrorism are lower on the list than people slipping in the bathtub and it's all FUD. If there's ANYWHERE we need to trade away privacy to for everybody's wellbeing, it's collecting and exposing information on political corruption, finances, and tax evasion (see US supreme court justices). It's so funny how the people in power forget to mention that auditing of their own behavior could be so valuable... odd...
  - darkwater 3y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with you, and not trusting governments or government agencies to not go rogue is a very valid reason. What's not a valid reason is comparing this to other real life examples that are _actually strongly regulated_.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > and of all the problems in the world child porn and even terrorism are lower on the list than people slipping in the bathtub and it's all FUD. You can also bust the terrorists and child pornographers without breaking everyone else's encryption. Get a warrant, break into their homes and install a keylogger and snarf all their passwords and break into all their accounts if you have to. And that's assuming they aren't just stupid and talking about what they're doing on unencrypted channels, which is usually what happens.
- singleshot_ 3y ago
msluyter 3y ago
I think this -- whether something should be illegal because it could be used to harm others -- isn't a particularly helpful way to frame things. I could drop a refrigerator from a crane onto the jerk who lets his dog poop in my yard, and obviously refrigerators and cranes shouldn't be illegal. OTOH, "you could set off an atom bomb, should atom bombs be illegal?" (Yes, for ordinary folks, obviously.) And "11 year olds could drive a car and have an accident, should 11 year olds driving cars be illegal?" (Yes, obviously.) I think you have to look at from a broader viewpoint. The government regulates many things for a variety of reasons (public safety, mitigating negative externalities), and aside from libertarian cranks, I don't see anyone shaking their fists at the government for having seatbelt laws or food regulations or speed limits. It's not "because criminals could drive their getaway cars really fast" that we have speed limits. (Perhaps that's actually what you're implying... not sure.)

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
> 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. What? Maybe you're like 20+ years younger than me, because I feel like this boogeyman has been presented for 20 years and routinely shut-down as a bad-faith argument for 20 consecutive years. Maybe without that context it could look like it's never been considered, but it has, and it's been rejected. The basic summary is this -- You weigh all the positive side-effects of breaking encryption vs all the negative ones and you do the math. And the math is that most governments already are corrupt and take too much power over their citizens and abuse it, and of all the problems in the world child porn and even terrorism are lower on the list than people slipping in the bathtub and it's all FUD. If there's ANYWHERE we need to trade away privacy to for everybody's wellbeing, it's collecting and exposing information on political corruption, finances, and tax evasion (see US supreme court justices). It's so funny how the people in power forget to mention that auditing of their own behavior could be so valuable... odd...
- darkwater 3y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with you, and not trusting governments or government agencies to not go rogue is a very valid reason. What's not a valid reason is comparing this to other real life examples that are _actually strongly regulated_.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > and of all the problems in the world child porn and even terrorism are lower on the list than people slipping in the bathtub and it's all FUD. You can also bust the terrorists and child pornographers without breaking everyone else's encryption. Get a warrant, break into their homes and install a keylogger and snarf all their passwords and break into all their accounts if you have to. And that's assuming they aren't just stupid and talking about what they're doing on unencrypted channels, which is usually what happens.
singleshot_ 3y ago

msluyter 3y ago

I think this -- whether something should be illegal because it could be used to harm others -- isn't a particularly helpful way to frame things. I could drop a refrigerator from a crane onto the jerk who lets his dog poop in my yard, and obviously refrigerators and cranes shouldn't be illegal. OTOH, "you could set off an atom bomb, should atom bombs be illegal?" (Yes, for ordinary folks, obviously.) And "11 year olds could drive a car and have an accident, should 11 year olds driving cars be illegal?" (Yes, obviously.) I think you have to look at from a broader viewpoint. The government regulates many things for a variety of reasons (public safety, mitigating negative externalities), and aside from libertarian cranks, I don't see anyone shaking their fists at the government for having seatbelt laws or food regulations or speed limits. It's not "because criminals could drive their getaway cars really fast" that we have speed limits. (Perhaps that's actually what you're implying... not sure.)