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The more I consider the ramifications of these news reports, the more I realize we need full decentralization and total encryption. We have the tech: Strong en
by s_q_b 11y ago
The more I consider the ramifications of these news reports, the more I realize we need full decentralization and total encryption.
We have the tech: Strong encryption, Tor-like relays, and the blockchain. What we need is a way to make services based on these technologies not just as easy to use but easier to use for the average Jane.
If the internet as we know it is to survive, we have to crack this nut.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoThat's necessary, but not sufficient. We need both sane policies and technical measures to ensure that nothing less than those policies is possible. If we only have the technology, policy-makers can and will make life difficult both for the users and makers of these technologies; more draconian regimes will simply never allow those technologies to take root to begin with.
- makmanalp 11y agoI think this needs to be expressed more often. Not only will draconian regimes now allow it, but it's also harder to protect such systems at the ends. I saw a presentation by cperciva at some point that talked about the "Three B's": Bribery, Burglary and Blackmail. So tech should be one of many tools to combat oppressive societal structure - some other ones being more social and legal tools.
- cperciva 11y agoThe concept of the "three Bs" has been around for longer than I have. In my talk ("everything you need to know about cryptography in one hour") I added a fourth B, "guantanamo Bay", aka. torture.
- hueving 11y agoguantanamo bay is pretty lame in comparison to what other oppressive regimes will do. I would suggest changing it to something more direct like "Breaking kneecaps" or something along those lines.
- enraged_camel 11y agoEither that, or they will simply intimidate and even torture people for their private keys. May sound far-fetched, but it isn't.
- pigeons 11y agoForce them to intimidate and torture at least one side of every communication they want, instead of letting them intimidate and torture three or four centralized service operators to get everybody's communication.
- rowofpixels 11y agoRelevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- mirimir 11y agoFar-fetched? Not in the UK, for example. > The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), Part III, activated by ministerial order in October 2007,[20] requires persons to supply decrypted information and/or keys to government representatives with a court order. Failure to disclose carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail. The provision was first used against animal rights activists in November 2007,[21] and at least three people have been prosecuted and convicted for refusing to surrender their encryption keys,[22] one of whom was sentenced to 13 months' imprisonment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_King...
- SEJeff 11y agoMore security, more usability. Pick one. That is why we are in the mess we are in
- s_q_b 11y agoI refuse to believe we cannot have both.
- afarrell 11y agoThen we need to devote actual money to pay students to spend time teaching laypeople or varied ages/economic backgrounds/attention spans how to send secure messages. Or we need some other way to build up a bunch of people who care about and have the skills to resolve that tradeoff.
- pjc50 11y agoSecurity must, by its very nature, prevent you from doing insecure things. This manifests as an obstacle to users, so they end up choosing the insecure route (writing down passwords etc etc). Decentralised systems tend to lose to centralised ones because there's no money locus for advertising, development or curation. It's not totally doomed; the popularity of Snapchat suggests there is demand for services that don't make everything saved and visible forever.
- TilJ 11y agoYou're referring to the limitations imposed by security as a spectrum versus usability (more secure to more usable). I don't think many people consider a lack of privacy to be a "feature" in the usability sense -- that's typically desirable by 3rd parties, not the users. I do agree with your profit motive. I consider that a potential opportunity rather than a problem.
- higherpurpose 11y agoBlockchain-based decentralization looks somewhat easier to monetize.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoWe don't have the tech for two important, related things: user-friendly, trust management tools as effective as in person; key management for various, complex scenarios. These two have so many issues that even technical people screw up. I've certainly seen a lot of good work on these. Yet, we're not there yet and getting there is worth a ton of effort by anyone who will try. We get that, then we might integrate it with our existing technologies to implement and use it. Need the foundation first, though.
- jobeirne 11y agoSeen keybase.io? I think that's one of the best stabs in this direction I've seen so far.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoIt looks better than manual GPG but not quite there yet for majority acceptance. Need a lot more work on visual alternatives to this sort of thing. Whatever is mass market will be easy for them to mentally visualize and connect dots. Implies the solution will likely be visual (eg GUI).
- davidgerard 11y agoAnd you were doing so well until you said "the blockchain". (The singular with a "the" means the Bitcoin blockchain, which is increasingly centralised under a decreasing number of Chinese mining pools. And this is apart from the stupendous list of problems with literally every single aspect of Bitcoin. It may not be a great idea to pin any of our hopes on the digital Cue::Cat.)
- superobserver 11y agoGlad someone already said what I was going to say about the Blockchain tech. There's no security in that, especially given the feudal nature of the bitcoin market (now and going forward).
- davidgerard 11y agoIndeed. I forgot to add: And when the NSA is our threat model, an inviolable record of every transaction ever, that lawyers refer to as "prosecution futures", may not be the technology of choice.
- e12e 11y agoNo, we live in a capitalist society - what is needed is a way to monetize such services that is as easy as trading in sensitive personal data behind the guise of "free" services. Or a different social order (my favorite) - but the first problem is probably much easier to solve in a short time-frame.
- unicornporn 11y agoI really hope http://maidsafe.net/ http://maidsafe.net/ doesn't end up being forever perfected and never released.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]