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> The simple problem with encryption is that it replaces communications that are exposed to this authority with communications that can evade it. > I am not su
by hiatus 2y ago
> The simple problem with encryption is that it replaces communications that are exposed to this authority with communications that can evade it.
> I am not sure we should blame governments for wanting to retain powers in a social contract we've been broadly happy for them to have for 150 years.
Encryption is math. I can encrypt messages and send them by post, and law enforcement would be equally powerless to read them.
Ciphers are not a new invention. The social contract you are speaking of never existed.
> It's technologists' jobs to explain why easily-broken encryption is a bad idea.
No, it is on the people who want new powers to justify them.
- throw46365 2y agoYes I don't need explaining that encryption is maths and letters can be encrypted. That is pretty obvious. (Postal inspectors the world over would assume evidence of a crime.) > No, it is on the people who want new powers to justify them. The exact point I am getting at is that the governments who want these things are seeking to protect the power they have, not expand it. Encrypted communications are eating away at the power to inspect communications they already have, that we have been happy to grant them (that is the social contract I am talking about; it has existed for as long as postal services have). It's a very American thing to assume that government in general is always acting in bad faith, I guess.