6 ms·

I'm seeing more value in your comment than, apparently, the other people who have answered it here. I think you are 100% right that above-the-law communication

• latexr 2y ago
  > I think you are 100% right that above-the-law communication is not good for society. This should be obvious. At the same time, allowing government to be able to spy everywhere is also not good for society. Also obvious. The correct solution is therefore something in the middle. That conclusion is logically wrong and does not follow from the premises. You are decrying fallacies in other arguments while making them yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation > The proposed legislation is terrible: it is not balanced and does not contain any safeguard to avoid abuse. Then the logical course of action is to try to stop this legislation. Everything else about the argument is irrelevant right now, what matters is the close very bad thing in front of us that we can do something about. Eliminate that and then we can have a reasoned discussion about what the proper approach is. > several independent justice organizations share the set of key needed to decrypt There’s no such thing as keys that only good guys have access to. It has been shown time and again that someone with access will abuse it or be tricked. I won’t go long on this point, however, as I was not familiar with your specific example. I’ll read up more on it. But again, that’s a conversation that matters later.
  • cauch 2y ago
    > That conclusion is logically wrong and does not follow from the premises. I am not saying "the good argument is moderation" (argument to moderation fallacy), I'm saying "the two extremes are obviously wrong, and, it turns out, the middle is smarter". The argument to moderation fallacy is when you are saying that the good answer is good because it is in the middle. I don't do that, I find the good answer and I just state that it happens to be in the middle. I guess you are also doing a fallacy: "every solution that are in the middle is wrong because it can only be the result of the argument to moderation". It is obviously incorrect, there are plenty of solution that happens to be good and being in the middle. > Then the logical course of action is to try to stop this legislation. First, I'm not saying that we should not stop this legislation. I'm just answering to a comment saying "and then what", which is a discussion that we are, I hope, allowed to have. But secondly, a very good way to stop this legislation is by proposing something that checks all the boxes used to justify this legislation while having way better safeguard. What is your strategy? To say to people that are worried "yeah, well, too bad for you". Or to say "oh, I understand your point, why not this solution, which do what you want, and also avoid what I'm afraid of". Of course, we both know that one reason this legislation exists is because government want to spy on us. But if we propose something that satisfies all their justifications, they will have to either drop the pretends and openly admit that want to spy (and lose the support of people who are worried), or accept the solution where they cannot spy. > There’s no such thing as keys that only good guys have access to. It has been shown time and again that someone with access will abuse it or be tricked. This argument is a footgun: if indeed you cannot trust no-one, then EVERY online communication is already compromised. Your phone is full of spyware, even when you choose the most trustworthy one (because your point is that they don't exist), your softwares and servers are full of back doors, your internet provider and all your VPN are recording your communication, and even if you manage to get through all that, your interlocutor will not (and your interlocutor themselves is not a good guy). But then, I'm not saying everyone is a good guy, I'm saying that if we share DIFFERENT keys, each key being different and necessary to decrypt (think of a door having several different locks needed different keys), the probability that ALL THE GUYS are bad guys is exponentially low. If the probability of them being a bad guy or being tricked is 10%, then the probability that a 2-key system is failing is 1%, the probability that a 3-key system is failing is 0.1%, the probability that a 4-key system is failing is 0.01%, ... > But again, that’s a conversation that matters later. That's a fallacy. YOU are spending your time answering my comment instead of working to stop this legislation. When I check your account, I can see that you are also posting comments on "Getting 50% (SoTA) on Arc-AGI with GPT-4o" or "Show HN: Paste2Download – No Login, No Ads, Downlo..." instead of stopping this legislation. Then, suddenly, when some people are having a deeper discussion that can help putting the rug under the feet of the bad guys, you are, incorrectly, arguing that the best strategy would be to not propose any alternative and antagonize the innocent people that are being fooled by the bad guys. Also, these reflections on alternative approaches exists for a while (Chaum's idea is almost 10 years old). Bad legislation on the subject reappears regularly. It is time we progress instead of just pretending that we never have time for a deeper reflection, which is obviously not true.
• NoGravitas 2y ago
  > I think you are 100% right that above-the-law communication is not good for society. This should be obvious. At the same time, allowing government to be able to spy everywhere is also not good for society. Also obvious. The correct solution is therefore something in the middle. The correct solution should be something in the middle. Old-fashioned wiretapping, with a warrant and the need to dedicate staff to installing and monitoring the tap is basically okay. The problem is that the mathematics of cryptography and the scaling inherent to information technology mean that only all-or-nothing solutions are possible. If the cryptography is intentionally broken, it's broken not just for law enforcement, it's broken for everyone. If law enforcement has a backdoor they can use with a warrant, they're capable of using it without a warrant, and probably will. And if their special keys get leaked, then again, the encryption is broken for everyone. Like you point out, secret sharing is one way of getting around this in principle. But governments would never make their access dependent on an NGO; in practice I'm sure they'd only agree to secret sharing schemes where the separate parties were separated only by nominal bureaucratic firewalls, and then you're back to the original problem.
  • cauch 2y ago
    It's not up to governments to agree. Right now, there are encrypted communication solutions that exist. None of them have been built by a government. We can build Chaum's network and start to use it. If we do that, government will have to either accept this network as a legal usage, or admit that they don't care about kids and crimes but just want to spy. And sure, some government will admit that, but it's not by chance that right now the bad legislation are justified by "for the children" instead of "because we want to spy on you": admitting that will make these legislation obviously harmful, and they will be stopped even more easily. There are some reasons why a network like the one proposed by Chaum is not used. One is that it's not easy to put in place, similarly to how difficult it was to build ethical journalism network for example. A second one is that some people don't want such network, either because they want to do illegal things or they want to spy on citizen. But another reason is the childish mentality of being instantaneously against any ideas that does not fit into the "100% anonymity" of the Silicon Valley techno-libertarian (not saying that anyone who is against is like that, but some who are against are indeed like that).