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Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

361 points by jonathanmh 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
joelhaus 11y ago
Rather than rhetoric, it would be nice to see more HN arguments based on the strongest possible counterarguments []. http://lesswrong.com/lw/85h/better_disagreement/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/85h/better_disagreement/
- studentrob 11y ago
  I agree that being open to an alternate point of view is a good idea.. We need to share facts in this debate.. We know about technology, they know about law enforcement Let us each bring facts to the table and resist coming up with conclusions from the outset. Obama is missing some facts, and in order to convince him that's true I think we need to be open to the idea that there may be some things we do not know We're not going to find out about those things by conjecturing. We need the administration to share any relevant details as much as they need to understand encryption technology
mozumder 11y ago
I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, then there's a pretty dammed good reason, as determined by a judge. Sure, you might call that final safeguard as not enough or susceptible to corruption, but once you do that, you cease to be able to function in a society. Judicial review is the "trust zone" that citizens are expected to have on society. If you don't trust judicial review, then there's no hope left for you to function in a normal society filled with other people. If you don't have such a "trust zone" in government, then you are basically forced to build your own army to protect you, since you don't trust government. Since having your personal army is stupid, your best option is to make sure judicial review cannot be corrupted.
- tehwebguy 11y ago
  Communications are already being monitored by random government employees with no judicial review. The FISA court is already a rubber stamp. Encryption is one of the only ways to non-passively protest. Edit: Can't reply to my replies, likely because of the down votes on my parent's comment. Re: FISA, yes to both. That anecdote may be truth but I am still hung up on NSA employee looking up ex-girlfriends' emails the day he got access to do so. Re: Army, you aren't wrong but that's not encouraging. It's true, at the end of the day the most powerful military will win. But it's an argument that only wins against those with something to lose, like people who care about their family or nation states with a future. I guess that's why the ultimate response over a long enough timeline to an unbeatable military force is terrorism.
  - mozumder 11y ago
    Again, good luck building your own army. My army can beat your army. As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court.
    - ross-life 11y ago
      > As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court. This opinion is just nuts. Trust a court that you were told for years didn't even exist? A secret court? How about no. Secret courts lead to abuses: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jo-shaw/secret-courts-8-nightmare-scenarios-now-possible-in-britain-0 https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jo-shaw/secret-cour...
      - mozumder 11y ago
        Would you prefer if there were NO judicial oversight? Because the only way to oversee top-secret data is with a top-secret court.
      - schoen 11y ago
        The existence of the FISA Court has never been a secret. It was created by FISA in 1978 and is right there in the text of the statute. Even the members of the FISA Court are publicly disclosed (they're all existing Federal judges who are appointed to temporary terms). What is secret about the FISA Court is its decisions, not its existence (and that should change slightly as a result of the USA Freedom Act's requirement to release "significant" opinions).
kailuowang 11y ago
Would like to see more detailed logic in the original post. For e.g. why specifically the parallel between physical world and digital is flawed.
- jonathanmh 11y ago
  alright, will write a follow up
  - studentrob 11y ago
    There's a lot of this online. Check out Sam Harris' recant of his original position against Apple in which he reads an email he received from a Google engineer [1]. The email is very well written [1] https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ?t=2m33s https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ?t=2m33s
- d0mine 11y ago
  It seems obvious that It is impossible to spy on so many people in the physical world with the same efficiency as in digital.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Sam Harris posted a video trying to draw such parallels between digital and physical worlds [1]. After reading responses to his first video, he then changed his mind [2]. In particular, one email from a Google engineer he found particularly compelling. I can summarize. Our phones contain both a) things we consider privacy-sensitive and b) security-sensitive. Family photos and bank accounts. The Googler dispels one of Sam's analogies. Digital security and insecurity is highly scalable. We lock our doors, and police can force them open if needed. Generally, there are not many burglars around. Here I will quote Sam's reading of the Googler's email, > "The digital world is like having a house at zero distance from every burglar in existence, including the planet's top lock pickers. They have zero cost and near-zero risk attempting to break into my door. The "police" are virtually non-existent, and even if identified the bad guys are probably out of reach of prosecution. Even the amateurs have tools that allow them to probe millions of doors per second, and the pros have access to the same heavy tools that the police would use to force my door. And perhaps I live in a huge condo with a single door, so hacking that one lock will expose millions to ransacking. That's the nature of every digital device connected to the internet. Attacking them is a highly scalable task. You're not protected by your location, there's no affluent neighborhood with low crime and good police, where the wealthy can live and feel safe. Nope, the internet is a dystopian world when it comes to security. It's a Mad Max scenario where you're only safe if your front door and your entire house and your personal car is blinded like Fort Knox's safes, and armed with flame throwers." Before I realized Sam had recanted his position, I wrote a point-by-point response to his first video [3]. I think the Googler did a better job relating to non-technologists. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQAmlVFjJ9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQAmlVFjJ9k [2] https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ [3] https://pastelink.net/151k https://pastelink.net/151k
ecma 11y ago
This is incredibly naive bordering on puerile. To suggest that POTUS' view on this is without nuance is to miss his point. POTUS went on to cite existing warrant mechanisms and their underlying principle: "And we agree on that, because we recognize that just like all of our other rights ... that there are going to be some constraints we impose so we are safe, secure and can live in a civilized society." I'm not suggesting that this means POTUS and the government have the right answers at the moment. Despite that, we can't ignore the important role law enforcement plays in society, the requirements in support of their role, and the complexities surrounding the right to privacy. We need people advocating for the right balance, not just getting each other frustrated. OP may have worries other than US law enforcement being from another country. This is one of the /many/ complexities in this space.
- andrewfromx 11y ago
  but there is no "balance" when somethig is binary. You either have encryption or you don't.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    So Apple either designs their phones such that they themselves can't hack them, or they have to comply with government court orders.
    - tehwebguy 11y ago
      Sounds binary to me.
  - ecma 11y ago
    If the San Bernardino case proves anything, it's that encryption is not the whole picture.
    - HillaryBriss 11y ago
      So far, my takeaway from the federal government's reaction to the San Bernardino attacks is the following prioritization of freedom: Higher priority freedoms: 1. Freedom of religious choice and freedom from religious persecution. Freedom of religious assembly. 2. Freedom to immigrate to the US. Lower Priority Freedoms: 1. Freedom to purchase guns and ammunition 2. Freedom to use encryption to keep personal communication private
SwimAway 11y ago
Obama, our manipulating word artisan of a president yet again attempting to use strong language (i.e "fetishizing") to polarize our view.
- bigiain 11y ago
  Interesting choice too - there's clearly a demographic who go to the Folsom Street Fair who definitely don't have negative connotations to "fetishizing", and I suspect any porn site operator could give you some numbers that some people would not believe about the number of people for whom fetishes are a real thing. I wonder if Obama and his speechwriters have research about how many people (and from which demographics) that phrase is going to be read in which ways? (I wonder if they've worked out that they've already lost the tech crowd on this issue, and there's a statistically significant crossover between the tech crowd and the people for whom fetishes are considered a positive thing?)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomlongson 11y ago
    If they are not harnessing big data for writing speeches then the White House is less savvy than Netflix and House of Cards writer, Beau Willimon.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  First he accused me of clinging to my guns, but since I didn't own any guns, I was OK with that. Next he accused me of clinging to my religion, but since I was an atheist, I was like, meh, whatever. Then he accused me of clinging to my smartphone, and oh, boy. It's on now, motherfucker.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    Oh, please delete this before more people see it and you're further embarrassed. Or, you know, elaborate on how the federal government has infringed on any of your religious rights whatsoever. Or, you know, your gun rights... at all... Really easy to beat strawmen, come on. Have some self respect. Why did you press Enter on that comment? You and I both know that you were aware it was bullshit when you posted it. Did you think we're all just stupid?
tudorw 11y ago
One strong point that comes out is reference to the transitory nature of governments, just because you trust yours now (!), does not mean you can trust future incarnations, don't give this kind of power to an unknown.
- gambiting 11y ago
  Case in point - pre-ww2 governments collecting data about their citizens(religion, sexuality, race, political affiliation) which was then used to actually murder people by the Nazis. Just because the current government doesn't use the data in a malicious way doesn't mean the next one won't.
- simonh 11y ago
  Also asserting that your government has the right to certain powers over its citizens establishes the precedent that any government should have that right. If it's OK for the US or UK governments to have the keys to its citizens encryption, then it's ok for China, Russia, Iran, etc. Interestingly, the encryption system underlying WhatsApp was developed by the US government for people in oppressive states to use to avoid surveillance and restrictions on access to information.
- revscat 11y ago
  This is well known and, for the most part, internalized by the people. Governments, however, seem to believe the opposite: that the fundamental goodness of their pursuit of protecting the governed justifies almost all tactics. This is short-sighted and blatantly wrong.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Right. We need to inform each other and our representatives how we feel about this issue, and support our argument with facts. There is a lot each of us can do. I suggest focusing on the security and economic implications of passing legislation requiring backdoors in phones. The DOJ and Obama will not listen to the privacy angle. It must be shown that on balance, we will not be more secure because criminals will just change to use technology that is encrypted, and in the mean time we will have placed our user data within reach of hackers everywhere via a government-imposed weakness that phone makers like Apple will never be allowed to fix. They'll be required by law to maintain such a weakness.
pasbesoin 11y ago
Fetish. Rubber hose "security". Coincidence?
- tomlongson 11y ago
  Coincidence. Commenter SwimAway had a more likely argument that it is polarizing language.
tomlongson 11y ago
A key promise of Obama's campaign for the presidency was to run the “most transparent” government- however the only person to really deliver on that promise was a whistleblower. Secret courts, secret domestic spying, and now calls for weakening of the digital equivalent of the safe shows that he either was not honest about transparency, or has radically changed his opinion since becoming POTUS. Maybe it's that he decided to use his political clout to pick healthcare as his signature in American history, not wage war against the NSA, but either way it saddens me to have campaigned for someone who has empowered a surveillance state instead of fight against it. Liberty literally means "freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control", and freedom in the information age means the liberty to communicate and store information. Anything to compromise that makes us all more vulnerable to control in all parts of our lives, not just those stored in zeros and ones. I believe America can be "Land of the free, home of the brave", but not without digital liberty.
- rubbingalcohol 11y ago
  Speaking of transparency, Obama also secretly lobbied to kill FOIA transparency reform: https://freedom.press/blog/2016/03/new-documents-show-obama-admin-aggressively-lobbied-kill-transparency-reform-congress https://freedom.press/blog/2016/03/new-documents-show-obama-...
  - SwimAway 11y ago
    Wow.
- grandalf 11y ago
  I think the following truth has a lot of relevance to your comment: the only way somebody gets elected president of the US is if it's a given that he or she will maintain the status quo on behalf of powerful interests. Obama's campaign promises are as empty as those of any other politician. He's used his presidency to bring a windfall to the Halliburtons of healthcare and escalated the war on whistleblowers and the attack on privacy. His successor will do the same. We can hope that his supporters become appropriately disillusioned, but so much of politics is about loyalty in exchange for spoils, not ideas or accountability, so I'm not optimistic.
jonathanmh 11y ago
I honestly didn't expect this to be seen. /me is humbled and reading comments
shitgoose 11y ago
so they tell us that we have to arrange our private lives in such way that it would be easier for them to investigate/persecute us, if sometime in the future they decide that we are guilty of breaking their laws. [with great sadness]: how low have we fallen if we seriously discussing this instead of grabbing pitchforks.
- epicureanideal 11y ago
  I think what it takes is a visible critical mass gathering with "pitchforks" and all the relatively-awake people in society would join in. Nobody wants to be part of the 10 or 100 or 1000 person "movement" that gets squashed and futures ruined. But if it seemed like most of (active) society was going to pile on too, people would. However, most of society is simply not active. Most of society would never pick up any pitchforks one way or the other, without things getting REALLY bad. At some point a highly motivated minority of the population (but still a lot of people) basically needs to make the change for everyone. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, just saying what seems to be the case.
aldeluis 11y ago
This interview with Snowden has been broadcasted tonight in Spain. Ended just minutes ago. http://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/entrevista-completa-edward-snowden-objetivo-version-extendida_2016031300159.html http://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/entrev...
- dawkins 11y ago
  Thank you
- awqrre 11y ago
  Would be nice to have English subtitles for the questions...
thom 11y ago
We're going to fight hard so our grandchildren have really secure email in a world where everything they do and every word they say is uploaded to the internet, transcribed and annotated in realtime by swarms of drones controlled by other kids that, only 50 years earlier, would have been at home doxxing people on Twitter. Privacy will die, not because it's undesirable or a bad idea, it'll die like copyright and DRM - because it's technically and economically easy to defeat, and people will be motivated to do so. What's more, those people will be hard to catch - after all, the drones will be communicating over very strongly encrypted channels. [Please refute - I genuinely have nightmares about this future]
- beeboop 11y ago
  I disagree - digital surveillance state will be gone within a decade, or twenty years at most. Already we see programs like Telegram becoming very popular (100 million users) where the opportunity for surveillance is massively reduced. Platforms are going to slowly transition towards encrypted content and data that not even service providers can decrypt (SpiderOak is a good example). The biggest holdout will be operating systems - Google and Microsoft very much do not want to lose their backdoors (or front doors) into everyone's data. But within ten years, we will finally have a "year of Linux on desktops" in which both grandma and the young university student can both buy an Ubuntu computer and have it work how they need it to. And phones will run an OS that can't be maliciously updated remotely, and doesn't leak user data to apps and OS providers. The final step will be near anonymous internet usage, which we are currently in the infancy of. There will be a shift to a more decentralized availability (but not necessarily storage) of data in most of the applications we use most often. Essentially Freenet, but without all the usability problems. The Facebook of the future will have open source (and encrypted) data where your info is only viewable to you and your friends. There are currently platforms that exist like this, but they are mostly in "testing" stages and are not ready for widespread use.
  - thom 11y ago
    I'm not talking about the state exclusively, nor am I talking about your online activities. I'm saying you will have a camera and microphone trained on you, always. My personal AI assistant - smart but not nearly sentient - knows to highlight the most titillating segments, which I have just captioned and published for all to see (anonymously, over an encrypted connection). It's great that one's ISP doesn't know what porn site one is visiting, but 4chan are nevertheless streaming a video of one in the act. I fail to see how this technology - small, cheap, highly capable and connected drones - will fail to come about in the next 50-100 years. And because of that, I seriously think we need to mentally prepare for living much more publicly than we do now.
x5n1 11y ago
Obama, the technology, sir, is absolutist. You can have it one way, with privacy, or another, complete lack of it. That's how things are, and you are, with all due respect, stupid for arguing otherwise.
downandout 11y ago
In the end, they are going to introduce laws that make it illegal to implement end-to-end encryption. This sucks, but it's going to happen. France is already moving to do it [1], and in the US, John McCain and others are also calling for similar laws [2]. They will all start off saying that it will be controlled carefully etc., as Obama keeps saying, and then it will be used with reckless abandonment. What this essentially means is a move to Android for criminals, terrorists, and anyone that wants privacy (since Android allows installation of apps that have not been approved by a gatekeeper bound by the laws of the countries it operates in, whereas iOS does not by default). Open source Android apps with strong encryption will be built in countries without such laws. All of this will likely be the downfall of a few lazy drug dealers that don't want to give up their iPhones, but since the cat is out of the bag and apps with end-to-end encryption already exist and will continue to be built, the governments making these moves will not actually catch any reasonably intelligent terrorists that install and use these apps. They will, however, gain exactly what they want: the ability to conduct surveillance on most people in the world whenever they want. [1] http://fortune.com/2016/03/04/french-law-apple-iphone-encryption/ http://fortune.com/2016/03/04/french-law-apple-iphone-encryp... [2] http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/senator-mccain-joins-the-call-for-new-laws-against-end-to-end-encryption/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/senator-mccain-joins-...
- beeboop 11y ago
  I cannot fathom end to end encryption ever being made illegal. I tremendously doubt this will ever happen in any effective manner. At worst, they will pass from vaguely worded bill that makes it illegal in the sense that you are required to decrypt data on demand for any government agency. But since we are already seeing the trend of service providers being unable to decrypt user data, I doubt that will be much of an issue either. We will probably start seeing a lot more people getting locked up for decades for "contempt of court" by refusing or being unable to decrypt their personal data for a judge. Current record for contempt is 14 years - with no conviction and no jury.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    If you're not willing to revolt over it then it is definitely a possibility that end-to-end encryption will be made illegal. Non-techies simply don't care, they have 'nothing to hide' (or so they think).
thoughtsimple 11y ago
This is akin to the politicians that don't want to believe the science around global warming. They believe that if they just deny it, they will turn out to be correct. Obama is doing the same with "golden key" encryption. It is not that the experts are correct and know what they are talking about, it is just that they are disengaged and being stubborn. "I'm the President of the United States of America and if I say that there must be math that gives me what I want. If you don't invent it, you are disengaged."
- studentrob 11y ago
  Yup. But he doesn't understand that criminals will just change to use technology that is encrypted. We just need to share the facts and let people make up their own minds. What baffles me is that nobody has been able to convince the President of that simple fact. Surely, he must know about Signal and Snowden, and that Signal can easily be downloaded to any device...
eigenvector 11y ago
> So if your argument is strong encryption, no matter what, and we can and should, in fact, create black boxes, then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years. Mr. Obama, you are the one who upset the balance with secret, dragnet surveillance of nearly all communications. That's not the bargain the public has had with law enforcement for the last 300 years. Widespread, end-to-end encryption is simply the natural reaction to the arms race you started. We would have never come to this point if the government had kept surveillance within court-supervised bounds.
- over 11y ago
  That's a really good point, it's like provoking someone until they scream at you and then accusing them of being unreasonable.
- ossreality 11y ago
  ... the programs that all started long before he was in office? He's at fault for keeping them in place, but that's about it.
  - eigenvector 11y ago
    Obama has been President for 7 years, during which time he has consistently supported and expanded the programs started during the Bush presidency. In my view this makes him as culpable as anyone for the position that we are at today. George Bush may have started these programs but he isn't the one launching attacks on the tech industry today. See: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/power-wars-how-obama-justified-expanded-bush-era-surveillance/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/power-wars-how-ob...
- studentrob 11y ago
  > dragnet surveillance of nearly all communications. That's not the bargain the public has had with law enforcement I'm not sure this is the argument to make to Obama and the DOJ. They are already framing this as a privacy issue The factors they understand are the public safety and economic impacts. Let us speak to those points and allow privacy to be a secondary concern. Obama himself told President Xi last year that the exact same policies would dramatically hurt Xi's economy [1] [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY2H520150302 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY...
brudgers 11y ago
This has been the default position of US government across administrations at least since the 1976 Arms Export Control Act. Nothing has changed except that "the terrorists" have replaced "the communists". It doesn't matter who says it.
plcancel 11y ago
A couple of other fun quotes: "And what we realized was that we could potentially build a SWAT team, a world-class technology office inside of the government that was helping across agencies. We’ve dubbed that the U.S. Digital Services." Yes, that's a great analogy! Go with that! "And this was a little embarrassing for me because I was the cool, early adaptor President." Cooler and adepter! https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/03/11/transcript-obama-remarks-sxsw/6m8IFsnpJh2k3XWxifHQnJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/03/11/transcrip...
- studentrob 11y ago
  Actually... From his rhetoric, it sounds like he wants to appeal to technologists by arguing he keeps them very close to him in the White House. He's saying, "see? I have tech friends and I give them cool jobs where they feel appreciated." He's also implying that they should count towards him being informed about technology. But we know that's not the case. So he's trying to say he has trusted technology advisors, but he doesn't. It's scary. Join me in tweeting at them [1] [1] https://twitter.com/usds https://twitter.com/usds
Mandatum 11y ago
If law was adopted to require backdoors - those who are privacy conscious would simply move their data to countries that allow for strong encryption as well as deniability. It'd still pose an issue for when people are accessing their data, however depending on your setup this will be very hard to prove from a third-parties perspective given ample security precautions taken (ie using an offshore VPN all the time, data never full accessed locally). For larger tech companies, I'd assume setup of a new company structure offshore and sensitive data handling to be "outsourced" offshore too (ie parts of the EU, other OECD countries).
cromwellian 11y ago
Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don't seem to want to face. Democracy relies on transparency. Many of the progressives who are rallying in support of absolute right to privacy are some of the same people who constantly criticize Swiss bank accounts, Cayman island financial shenanigans. But if companies were to implement the same sorts of impenetrable encryption, on every device, all the way down to the corporate desktop, in a way that not even the company executives themselves can read the email of their own employees, then lots of regulations the government applies to companies would be mooted. Taken to the extreme, if all communication is digital, and 100% impregnable, and people maintain good OpSec, then it will be hard to impossible to execute lawsuits or regulatory investigations into malfeasance because they'll be no paper trail. The end result of going full tilt on crypto is cryptoanarchy. This was pretty much well argued in the 90s among the cypherpunks community. Most of the libertarians and Objectivists were salivating over how strong crypto protocols would end fiat currency, end taxation, end regulation, and so on. So how far as a society are we willing to take this? Does it just extend to private data? Does it extend to transactions? To payments you make for things? To transfers of money? To business transactions? Will Democracy be able to audit nothing of the interactions of citizens or our institutions in the future? You don't have to agree with Obama's position to see that cryptoanarchy and Democracy are on a collision course, and it makes sense to discuss the possibilities openly without just plugging your ears and taking an absolutist position that demonizes anyone who disagrees.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  They can still plant bugs in offices, cars, homes, etc. That's specific and targeted and proportional, but expensive and hard. There's no good reason they have to have access to electronic devices, they can install cameras and mics. It's just easier going straight to the phones and emails. But they had that power and they abused it massively, and are now suffering the backlash, and why should privacy stop given they've demonstrated they can't be proportional in their surveillance? They were not specific with what they got from the phones and emails, so they've demonstrated they're not responsible or measured and now strong encryption is necessary as government has clearly shown that secret courts === warrantless mass surveillance. The other thing that's clear is that the US couldn't care less about privacy for anyone not in the US, so all us non-US citizen need this encryption to protect us from your peeping tom government.
Patronus_Charm 11y ago
Obama always telling people what to do. Its just not a good look.
- threeseed 11y ago
  He's the President who forms part of the apparatus that decides the laws that govern the nation. Everything he does involves telling people what to do.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
awqrre 11y ago
I used to think that Bush was bad and Obama was good... I'm really upset that I was wrong and that now Bush appears to be the better of the two.
basicplus2 11y ago
Obama, like all the recent US presidents is just a puppet.
studentrob 11y ago
Let's get the facts straight about encryption and security. The DOJ needs our help, and we need theirs We need a grassroots movement here. I know we have the EFF and Apple and a slew of others. But we all need to be writing about this to have our voices heard. I am in between projects and writing about this extensively online. Would anyone like to work together to organize facts and promote discussion in a concerted manner? The goal would be a) to make a concise message that is understandable by a non-techie, b) back it up with facts and primary source, and c) seek out public figures who can share our message. I have a running summary of events here which I will put in a github repo [1] Dear technologists: The task of educating the public and our government on encryption may be even harder than you think. Everyone needs to understand the issues at stake in order to make up their own mind, and it could take years to educate the general public about encryption. We can expect to continue seeing terrorists attacks in the news regardless of what laws Congress passes. This much we know, and this is, of course, out of our control. However, uninformed law enforcement will blame encryption and they will blame technologists for not allowing them to catch these attacks. Unless all law enforcement truly understands the technology, then they will always blame citizens for fighting for their right to privacy. Of course, we know this is about security vs. security, not security vs. privacy. Privacy is a secondary focus for many. But law enforcement believes our primary focus is privacy. My primary concern is that law enforcement does not know how to keep us safe in a world where criminals can sometimes communicate with smartphones across the world in a way that cannot be monitored with a warrant. Regardless of whether Cyrus Vance, James Comey, Loretta Lynch or Obama truly understand this or if they are putting up a smoke screen, the fact is that law enforcement across the country trust them the most. Non-technologists will be more moved to understand the security and economic implications of forcing backdoors upon Americans and US phone manufacturers. For the most part, they are not going to see eye to eye with us on privacy concerns. Lindsey Graham has already changed his view. We can share facts with others and let them make up their own minds. Some damage is already done. The fact that Vance and Comey have been fighting this for so long is going to make it difficult for them to go back and convince officers of the law that technologists were right, and they were wrong. Many officers will continue to feel snubbed by the tech community. If we're to advance to the next level of our mutually trusting society, we must all understand encryption technology and its implications. To the extent that we do not all understand encryption, and the ease of which it can be used regardless of government mandates, we will continue infighting and not progress together. The idea that technologists feel the issue is black and white or absolutist is absolutely incorrect :-). Math is black and white, but our public safety and security is not. It is a complex equation that must be balanced, and we have that focus just as President Obama does. The difference between us and the DOJ is we understand a few more pieces to the equation. I'm open to the idea there are pieces that technologists do not know about, and I encourage the administration to share these details with us. Until all the details are on the table, we won't be able to come up with a solution together. Let's focus on discussing and sharing the variables and their weights. Given information, people can make up their own minds. If backdoor laws are passed, it's not the end of the world, but our industry will suffer while non-technologists struggle to understand why terrorist attacks continue to occur. It'll be another 4-8 years until we can dig ourselves out of that hole. Let's keep the great country we have and bring facts to the table for open discussion. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/49otvu/the_mass_surveillance_debate_kicked_off_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/49otvu...
a3n 11y ago
This is not a fetish. This is a conflict between a government that has gotten away from the "we serve the citizens" mentality, and gone to "we'll do anything we want, routing around the constitution whenever we want, and use "serving citizens" as the excuse, and the citizens who should be able to specify, to any level detail that we want, exactly how those "servents" will serve us. It seems to be sliding away from us.
wl 11y ago
All this talk about "warrant-proof spaces" presumes that they're something new, when in fact they aren't. In the past, conversations in private tended to not be reduced to tangible form and were lost to law enforcement unless they had the foresight and the warrant to bug the location. Now that so many of our communications are mediated by technology, they are by necessity reduced to a tangible form. Secure end-to-end crypto merely takes us back to the status quo antebellum.
exabrial 11y ago
"You don't need encryption" "You don't need a gun" Oddly enough both are classified as munitions.
1024core 11y ago
I hate it when leaders get all upset when the balance is shifted away from them, and yet are perfectly fine when the balance tilts in their favor. FTA: "then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years." 200 years ago, it was not possible to cast a dragnet and catch everyone who was doing Something Bad(tm). The government had to get a warrant to open mail; today, the NSA can sift through billions of messages (metadata, they say) in a second. Even considering US Mail: you could not keep track of who was sending whom mail, at scale. But today, every letter that is mailed has its front and back scanned (for reading the address); but more importantly, these images are saved for future use. All of this is possible thanks to technology. And when the balance was tilting in their favor, the Establishment was quite happy. But when the balance tilts the other way, suddenly they're crying like a spoiled child whose toys have been taken away. You can't just throw tantrums when things don't go your way. If the technology permits E2E encryption, they'll just have to live with it and find other ways to catch criminals.

361 points by jonathanmh 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Rather than rhetoric, it would be nice to see more HN arguments based on the strongest possible counterarguments []. http://lesswrong.com/lw/85h/better_disagreement/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/85h/better_disagreement/

studentrob 11y ago
I agree that being open to an alternate point of view is a good idea.. We need to share facts in this debate.. We know about technology, they know about law enforcement Let us each bring facts to the table and resist coming up with conclusions from the outset. Obama is missing some facts, and in order to convince him that's true I think we need to be open to the idea that there may be some things we do not know We're not going to find out about those things by conjecturing. We need the administration to share any relevant details as much as they need to understand encryption technology

mozumder 11y ago

I think a lot of libertarians miss the fact that many of the communications monitoring aspects that the administration is proposing includes authorization by court order. It's not like your communications are being monitored by random government employees at will for no reason. There's a specific safeguard here for personal privacy, and that's through a court order. If government is monitoring your communications, then there's a pretty dammed good reason, as determined by a judge. Sure, you might call that final safeguard as not enough or susceptible to corruption, but once you do that, you cease to be able to function in a society. Judicial review is the "trust zone" that citizens are expected to have on society. If you don't trust judicial review, then there's no hope left for you to function in a normal society filled with other people. If you don't have such a "trust zone" in government, then you are basically forced to build your own army to protect you, since you don't trust government. Since having your personal army is stupid, your best option is to make sure judicial review cannot be corrupted.

tehwebguy 11y ago
Communications are already being monitored by random government employees with no judicial review. The FISA court is already a rubber stamp. Encryption is one of the only ways to non-passively protest. Edit: Can't reply to my replies, likely because of the down votes on my parent's comment. Re: FISA, yes to both. That anecdote may be truth but I am still hung up on NSA employee looking up ex-girlfriends' emails the day he got access to do so. Re: Army, you aren't wrong but that's not encouraging. It's true, at the end of the day the most powerful military will win. But it's an argument that only wins against those with something to lose, like people who care about their family or nation states with a future. I guess that's why the ultimate response over a long enough timeline to an unbeatable military force is terrorism.
- mozumder 11y ago
  Again, good luck building your own army. My army can beat your army. As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court.
  - ross-life 11y ago
    > As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court. This opinion is just nuts. Trust a court that you were told for years didn't even exist? A secret court? How about no. Secret courts lead to abuses: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jo-shaw/secret-courts-8-nightmare-scenarios-now-possible-in-britain-0 https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jo-shaw/secret-cour...
    - mozumder 11y ago
      Would you prefer if there were NO judicial oversight? Because the only way to oversee top-secret data is with a top-secret court.
    - schoen 11y ago
      The existence of the FISA Court has never been a secret. It was created by FISA in 1978 and is right there in the text of the statute. Even the members of the FISA Court are publicly disclosed (they're all existing Federal judges who are appointed to temporary terms). What is secret about the FISA Court is its decisions, not its existence (and that should change slightly as a result of the USA Freedom Act's requirement to release "significant" opinions).

kailuowang 11y ago

Would like to see more detailed logic in the original post. For e.g. why specifically the parallel between physical world and digital is flawed.

jonathanmh 11y ago
alright, will write a follow up
- studentrob 11y ago
  There's a lot of this online. Check out Sam Harris' recant of his original position against Apple in which he reads an email he received from a Google engineer [1]. The email is very well written [1] https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ?t=2m33s https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ?t=2m33s
d0mine 11y ago
It seems obvious that It is impossible to spy on so many people in the physical world with the same efficiency as in digital.
studentrob 11y ago
Sam Harris posted a video trying to draw such parallels between digital and physical worlds [1]. After reading responses to his first video, he then changed his mind [2]. In particular, one email from a Google engineer he found particularly compelling. I can summarize. Our phones contain both a) things we consider privacy-sensitive and b) security-sensitive. Family photos and bank accounts. The Googler dispels one of Sam's analogies. Digital security and insecurity is highly scalable. We lock our doors, and police can force them open if needed. Generally, there are not many burglars around. Here I will quote Sam's reading of the Googler's email, > "The digital world is like having a house at zero distance from every burglar in existence, including the planet's top lock pickers. They have zero cost and near-zero risk attempting to break into my door. The "police" are virtually non-existent, and even if identified the bad guys are probably out of reach of prosecution. Even the amateurs have tools that allow them to probe millions of doors per second, and the pros have access to the same heavy tools that the police would use to force my door. And perhaps I live in a huge condo with a single door, so hacking that one lock will expose millions to ransacking. That's the nature of every digital device connected to the internet. Attacking them is a highly scalable task. You're not protected by your location, there's no affluent neighborhood with low crime and good police, where the wealthy can live and feel safe. Nope, the internet is a dystopian world when it comes to security. It's a Mad Max scenario where you're only safe if your front door and your entire house and your personal car is blinded like Fort Knox's safes, and armed with flame throwers." Before I realized Sam had recanted his position, I wrote a point-by-point response to his first video [3]. I think the Googler did a better job relating to non-technologists. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQAmlVFjJ9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQAmlVFjJ9k [2] https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ https://youtu.be/9HK4IBscfMQ [3] https://pastelink.net/151k https://pastelink.net/151k

ecma 11y ago

This is incredibly naive bordering on puerile. To suggest that POTUS' view on this is without nuance is to miss his point. POTUS went on to cite existing warrant mechanisms and their underlying principle: "And we agree on that, because we recognize that just like all of our other rights ... that there are going to be some constraints we impose so we are safe, secure and can live in a civilized society." I'm not suggesting that this means POTUS and the government have the right answers at the moment. Despite that, we can't ignore the important role law enforcement plays in society, the requirements in support of their role, and the complexities surrounding the right to privacy. We need people advocating for the right balance, not just getting each other frustrated. OP may have worries other than US law enforcement being from another country. This is one of the /many/ complexities in this space.

andrewfromx 11y ago
but there is no "balance" when somethig is binary. You either have encryption or you don't.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  So Apple either designs their phones such that they themselves can't hack them, or they have to comply with government court orders.
  - tehwebguy 11y ago
    Sounds binary to me.
- ecma 11y ago
  If the San Bernardino case proves anything, it's that encryption is not the whole picture.
  - HillaryBriss 11y ago
    So far, my takeaway from the federal government's reaction to the San Bernardino attacks is the following prioritization of freedom: Higher priority freedoms: 1. Freedom of religious choice and freedom from religious persecution. Freedom of religious assembly. 2. Freedom to immigrate to the US. Lower Priority Freedoms: 1. Freedom to purchase guns and ammunition 2. Freedom to use encryption to keep personal communication private

SwimAway 11y ago

Obama, our manipulating word artisan of a president yet again attempting to use strong language (i.e "fetishizing") to polarize our view.

bigiain 11y ago
Interesting choice too - there's clearly a demographic who go to the Folsom Street Fair who definitely don't have negative connotations to "fetishizing", and I suspect any porn site operator could give you some numbers that some people would not believe about the number of people for whom fetishes are a real thing. I wonder if Obama and his speechwriters have research about how many people (and from which demographics) that phrase is going to be read in which ways? (I wonder if they've worked out that they've already lost the tech crowd on this issue, and there's a statistically significant crossover between the tech crowd and the people for whom fetishes are considered a positive thing?)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- tomlongson 11y ago
  If they are not harnessing big data for writing speeches then the White House is less savvy than Netflix and House of Cards writer, Beau Willimon.
CamperBob2 11y ago
First he accused me of clinging to my guns, but since I didn't own any guns, I was OK with that. Next he accused me of clinging to my religion, but since I was an atheist, I was like, meh, whatever. Then he accused me of clinging to my smartphone, and oh, boy. It's on now, motherfucker.
- ossreality 11y ago
  Oh, please delete this before more people see it and you're further embarrassed. Or, you know, elaborate on how the federal government has infringed on any of your religious rights whatsoever. Or, you know, your gun rights... at all... Really easy to beat strawmen, come on. Have some self respect. Why did you press Enter on that comment? You and I both know that you were aware it was bullshit when you posted it. Did you think we're all just stupid?

tudorw 11y ago

One strong point that comes out is reference to the transitory nature of governments, just because you trust yours now (!), does not mean you can trust future incarnations, don't give this kind of power to an unknown.

gambiting 11y ago
Case in point - pre-ww2 governments collecting data about their citizens(religion, sexuality, race, political affiliation) which was then used to actually murder people by the Nazis. Just because the current government doesn't use the data in a malicious way doesn't mean the next one won't.
simonh 11y ago
Also asserting that your government has the right to certain powers over its citizens establishes the precedent that any government should have that right. If it's OK for the US or UK governments to have the keys to its citizens encryption, then it's ok for China, Russia, Iran, etc. Interestingly, the encryption system underlying WhatsApp was developed by the US government for people in oppressive states to use to avoid surveillance and restrictions on access to information.
revscat 11y ago
This is well known and, for the most part, internalized by the people. Governments, however, seem to believe the opposite: that the fundamental goodness of their pursuit of protecting the governed justifies almost all tactics. This is short-sighted and blatantly wrong.
studentrob 11y ago
Right. We need to inform each other and our representatives how we feel about this issue, and support our argument with facts. There is a lot each of us can do. I suggest focusing on the security and economic implications of passing legislation requiring backdoors in phones. The DOJ and Obama will not listen to the privacy angle. It must be shown that on balance, we will not be more secure because criminals will just change to use technology that is encrypted, and in the mean time we will have placed our user data within reach of hackers everywhere via a government-imposed weakness that phone makers like Apple will never be allowed to fix. They'll be required by law to maintain such a weakness.

pasbesoin 11y ago

Fetish. Rubber hose "security". Coincidence?

tomlongson 11y ago
Coincidence. Commenter SwimAway had a more likely argument that it is polarizing language.

tomlongson 11y ago

A key promise of Obama's campaign for the presidency was to run the “most transparent” government- however the only person to really deliver on that promise was a whistleblower. Secret courts, secret domestic spying, and now calls for weakening of the digital equivalent of the safe shows that he either was not honest about transparency, or has radically changed his opinion since becoming POTUS. Maybe it's that he decided to use his political clout to pick healthcare as his signature in American history, not wage war against the NSA, but either way it saddens me to have campaigned for someone who has empowered a surveillance state instead of fight against it. Liberty literally means "freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control", and freedom in the information age means the liberty to communicate and store information. Anything to compromise that makes us all more vulnerable to control in all parts of our lives, not just those stored in zeros and ones. I believe America can be "Land of the free, home of the brave", but not without digital liberty.

rubbingalcohol 11y ago
Speaking of transparency, Obama also secretly lobbied to kill FOIA transparency reform: https://freedom.press/blog/2016/03/new-documents-show-obama-admin-aggressively-lobbied-kill-transparency-reform-congress https://freedom.press/blog/2016/03/new-documents-show-obama-...
- SwimAway 11y ago
  Wow.
grandalf 11y ago
I think the following truth has a lot of relevance to your comment: the only way somebody gets elected president of the US is if it's a given that he or she will maintain the status quo on behalf of powerful interests. Obama's campaign promises are as empty as those of any other politician. He's used his presidency to bring a windfall to the Halliburtons of healthcare and escalated the war on whistleblowers and the attack on privacy. His successor will do the same. We can hope that his supporters become appropriately disillusioned, but so much of politics is about loyalty in exchange for spoils, not ideas or accountability, so I'm not optimistic.

jonathanmh 11y ago

I honestly didn't expect this to be seen. /me is humbled and reading comments

shitgoose 11y ago

so they tell us that we have to arrange our private lives in such way that it would be easier for them to investigate/persecute us, if sometime in the future they decide that we are guilty of breaking their laws. [with great sadness]: how low have we fallen if we seriously discussing this instead of grabbing pitchforks.

epicureanideal 11y ago
I think what it takes is a visible critical mass gathering with "pitchforks" and all the relatively-awake people in society would join in. Nobody wants to be part of the 10 or 100 or 1000 person "movement" that gets squashed and futures ruined. But if it seemed like most of (active) society was going to pile on too, people would. However, most of society is simply not active. Most of society would never pick up any pitchforks one way or the other, without things getting REALLY bad. At some point a highly motivated minority of the population (but still a lot of people) basically needs to make the change for everyone. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, just saying what seems to be the case.

aldeluis 11y ago

This interview with Snowden has been broadcasted tonight in Spain. Ended just minutes ago. http://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/entrevista-completa-edward-snowden-objetivo-version-extendida_2016031300159.html http://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/entrev...

dawkins 11y ago
Thank you
awqrre 11y ago
Would be nice to have English subtitles for the questions...

thom 11y ago

We're going to fight hard so our grandchildren have really secure email in a world where everything they do and every word they say is uploaded to the internet, transcribed and annotated in realtime by swarms of drones controlled by other kids that, only 50 years earlier, would have been at home doxxing people on Twitter. Privacy will die, not because it's undesirable or a bad idea, it'll die like copyright and DRM - because it's technically and economically easy to defeat, and people will be motivated to do so. What's more, those people will be hard to catch - after all, the drones will be communicating over very strongly encrypted channels. [Please refute - I genuinely have nightmares about this future]

beeboop 11y ago
I disagree - digital surveillance state will be gone within a decade, or twenty years at most. Already we see programs like Telegram becoming very popular (100 million users) where the opportunity for surveillance is massively reduced. Platforms are going to slowly transition towards encrypted content and data that not even service providers can decrypt (SpiderOak is a good example). The biggest holdout will be operating systems - Google and Microsoft very much do not want to lose their backdoors (or front doors) into everyone's data. But within ten years, we will finally have a "year of Linux on desktops" in which both grandma and the young university student can both buy an Ubuntu computer and have it work how they need it to. And phones will run an OS that can't be maliciously updated remotely, and doesn't leak user data to apps and OS providers. The final step will be near anonymous internet usage, which we are currently in the infancy of. There will be a shift to a more decentralized availability (but not necessarily storage) of data in most of the applications we use most often. Essentially Freenet, but without all the usability problems. The Facebook of the future will have open source (and encrypted) data where your info is only viewable to you and your friends. There are currently platforms that exist like this, but they are mostly in "testing" stages and are not ready for widespread use.
- thom 11y ago
  I'm not talking about the state exclusively, nor am I talking about your online activities. I'm saying you will have a camera and microphone trained on you, always. My personal AI assistant - smart but not nearly sentient - knows to highlight the most titillating segments, which I have just captioned and published for all to see (anonymously, over an encrypted connection). It's great that one's ISP doesn't know what porn site one is visiting, but 4chan are nevertheless streaming a video of one in the act. I fail to see how this technology - small, cheap, highly capable and connected drones - will fail to come about in the next 50-100 years. And because of that, I seriously think we need to mentally prepare for living much more publicly than we do now.

x5n1 11y ago

Obama, the technology, sir, is absolutist. You can have it one way, with privacy, or another, complete lack of it. That's how things are, and you are, with all due respect, stupid for arguing otherwise.

downandout 11y ago

In the end, they are going to introduce laws that make it illegal to implement end-to-end encryption. This sucks, but it's going to happen. France is already moving to do it [1], and in the US, John McCain and others are also calling for similar laws [2]. They will all start off saying that it will be controlled carefully etc., as Obama keeps saying, and then it will be used with reckless abandonment. What this essentially means is a move to Android for criminals, terrorists, and anyone that wants privacy (since Android allows installation of apps that have not been approved by a gatekeeper bound by the laws of the countries it operates in, whereas iOS does not by default). Open source Android apps with strong encryption will be built in countries without such laws. All of this will likely be the downfall of a few lazy drug dealers that don't want to give up their iPhones, but since the cat is out of the bag and apps with end-to-end encryption already exist and will continue to be built, the governments making these moves will not actually catch any reasonably intelligent terrorists that install and use these apps. They will, however, gain exactly what they want: the ability to conduct surveillance on most people in the world whenever they want. [1] http://fortune.com/2016/03/04/french-law-apple-iphone-encryption/ http://fortune.com/2016/03/04/french-law-apple-iphone-encryp... [2] http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/senator-mccain-joins-the-call-for-new-laws-against-end-to-end-encryption/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/senator-mccain-joins-...

beeboop 11y ago
I cannot fathom end to end encryption ever being made illegal. I tremendously doubt this will ever happen in any effective manner. At worst, they will pass from vaguely worded bill that makes it illegal in the sense that you are required to decrypt data on demand for any government agency. But since we are already seeing the trend of service providers being unable to decrypt user data, I doubt that will be much of an issue either. We will probably start seeing a lot more people getting locked up for decades for "contempt of court" by refusing or being unable to decrypt their personal data for a judge. Current record for contempt is 14 years - with no conviction and no jury.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  If you're not willing to revolt over it then it is definitely a possibility that end-to-end encryption will be made illegal. Non-techies simply don't care, they have 'nothing to hide' (or so they think).

thoughtsimple 11y ago

This is akin to the politicians that don't want to believe the science around global warming. They believe that if they just deny it, they will turn out to be correct. Obama is doing the same with "golden key" encryption. It is not that the experts are correct and know what they are talking about, it is just that they are disengaged and being stubborn. "I'm the President of the United States of America and if I say that there must be math that gives me what I want. If you don't invent it, you are disengaged."

studentrob 11y ago
Yup. But he doesn't understand that criminals will just change to use technology that is encrypted. We just need to share the facts and let people make up their own minds. What baffles me is that nobody has been able to convince the President of that simple fact. Surely, he must know about Signal and Snowden, and that Signal can easily be downloaded to any device...

eigenvector 11y ago

> So if your argument is strong encryption, no matter what, and we can and should, in fact, create black boxes, then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years. Mr. Obama, you are the one who upset the balance with secret, dragnet surveillance of nearly all communications. That's not the bargain the public has had with law enforcement for the last 300 years. Widespread, end-to-end encryption is simply the natural reaction to the arms race you started. We would have never come to this point if the government had kept surveillance within court-supervised bounds.

over 11y ago
That's a really good point, it's like provoking someone until they scream at you and then accusing them of being unreasonable.
ossreality 11y ago
... the programs that all started long before he was in office? He's at fault for keeping them in place, but that's about it.
- eigenvector 11y ago
  Obama has been President for 7 years, during which time he has consistently supported and expanded the programs started during the Bush presidency. In my view this makes him as culpable as anyone for the position that we are at today. George Bush may have started these programs but he isn't the one launching attacks on the tech industry today. See: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/power-wars-how-obama-justified-expanded-bush-era-surveillance/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/power-wars-how-ob...
studentrob 11y ago
> dragnet surveillance of nearly all communications. That's not the bargain the public has had with law enforcement I'm not sure this is the argument to make to Obama and the DOJ. They are already framing this as a privacy issue The factors they understand are the public safety and economic impacts. Let us speak to those points and allow privacy to be a secondary concern. Obama himself told President Xi last year that the exact same policies would dramatically hurt Xi's economy [1] [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY2H520150302 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY...

brudgers 11y ago

This has been the default position of US government across administrations at least since the 1976 Arms Export Control Act. Nothing has changed except that "the terrorists" have replaced "the communists". It doesn't matter who says it.

plcancel 11y ago

A couple of other fun quotes: "And what we realized was that we could potentially build a SWAT team, a world-class technology office inside of the government that was helping across agencies. We’ve dubbed that the U.S. Digital Services." Yes, that's a great analogy! Go with that! "And this was a little embarrassing for me because I was the cool, early adaptor President." Cooler and adepter! https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/03/11/transcript-obama-remarks-sxsw/6m8IFsnpJh2k3XWxifHQnJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/03/11/transcrip...

studentrob 11y ago
Actually... From his rhetoric, it sounds like he wants to appeal to technologists by arguing he keeps them very close to him in the White House. He's saying, "see? I have tech friends and I give them cool jobs where they feel appreciated." He's also implying that they should count towards him being informed about technology. But we know that's not the case. So he's trying to say he has trusted technology advisors, but he doesn't. It's scary. Join me in tweeting at them [1] [1] https://twitter.com/usds https://twitter.com/usds

Mandatum 11y ago

If law was adopted to require backdoors - those who are privacy conscious would simply move their data to countries that allow for strong encryption as well as deniability. It'd still pose an issue for when people are accessing their data, however depending on your setup this will be very hard to prove from a third-parties perspective given ample security precautions taken (ie using an offshore VPN all the time, data never full accessed locally). For larger tech companies, I'd assume setup of a new company structure offshore and sensitive data handling to be "outsourced" offshore too (ie parts of the EU, other OECD countries).

cromwellian 11y ago

Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don't seem to want to face. Democracy relies on transparency. Many of the progressives who are rallying in support of absolute right to privacy are some of the same people who constantly criticize Swiss bank accounts, Cayman island financial shenanigans. But if companies were to implement the same sorts of impenetrable encryption, on every device, all the way down to the corporate desktop, in a way that not even the company executives themselves can read the email of their own employees, then lots of regulations the government applies to companies would be mooted. Taken to the extreme, if all communication is digital, and 100% impregnable, and people maintain good OpSec, then it will be hard to impossible to execute lawsuits or regulatory investigations into malfeasance because they'll be no paper trail. The end result of going full tilt on crypto is cryptoanarchy. This was pretty much well argued in the 90s among the cypherpunks community. Most of the libertarians and Objectivists were salivating over how strong crypto protocols would end fiat currency, end taxation, end regulation, and so on. So how far as a society are we willing to take this? Does it just extend to private data? Does it extend to transactions? To payments you make for things? To transfers of money? To business transactions? Will Democracy be able to audit nothing of the interactions of citizens or our institutions in the future? You don't have to agree with Obama's position to see that cryptoanarchy and Democracy are on a collision course, and it makes sense to discuss the possibilities openly without just plugging your ears and taking an absolutist position that demonizes anyone who disagrees.

mattmanser 11y ago
They can still plant bugs in offices, cars, homes, etc. That's specific and targeted and proportional, but expensive and hard. There's no good reason they have to have access to electronic devices, they can install cameras and mics. It's just easier going straight to the phones and emails. But they had that power and they abused it massively, and are now suffering the backlash, and why should privacy stop given they've demonstrated they can't be proportional in their surveillance? They were not specific with what they got from the phones and emails, so they've demonstrated they're not responsible or measured and now strong encryption is necessary as government has clearly shown that secret courts === warrantless mass surveillance. The other thing that's clear is that the US couldn't care less about privacy for anyone not in the US, so all us non-US citizen need this encryption to protect us from your peeping tom government.

Patronus_Charm 11y ago

Obama always telling people what to do. Its just not a good look.

threeseed 11y ago
He's the President who forms part of the apparatus that decides the laws that govern the nation. Everything he does involves telling people what to do.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

awqrre 11y ago

I used to think that Bush was bad and Obama was good... I'm really upset that I was wrong and that now Bush appears to be the better of the two.

basicplus2 11y ago

Obama, like all the recent US presidents is just a puppet.

studentrob 11y ago

Let's get the facts straight about encryption and security. The DOJ needs our help, and we need theirs We need a grassroots movement here. I know we have the EFF and Apple and a slew of others. But we all need to be writing about this to have our voices heard. I am in between projects and writing about this extensively online. Would anyone like to work together to organize facts and promote discussion in a concerted manner? The goal would be a) to make a concise message that is understandable by a non-techie, b) back it up with facts and primary source, and c) seek out public figures who can share our message. I have a running summary of events here which I will put in a github repo [1] Dear technologists: The task of educating the public and our government on encryption may be even harder than you think. Everyone needs to understand the issues at stake in order to make up their own mind, and it could take years to educate the general public about encryption. We can expect to continue seeing terrorists attacks in the news regardless of what laws Congress passes. This much we know, and this is, of course, out of our control. However, uninformed law enforcement will blame encryption and they will blame technologists for not allowing them to catch these attacks. Unless all law enforcement truly understands the technology, then they will always blame citizens for fighting for their right to privacy. Of course, we know this is about security vs. security, not security vs. privacy. Privacy is a secondary focus for many. But law enforcement believes our primary focus is privacy. My primary concern is that law enforcement does not know how to keep us safe in a world where criminals can sometimes communicate with smartphones across the world in a way that cannot be monitored with a warrant. Regardless of whether Cyrus Vance, James Comey, Loretta Lynch or Obama truly understand this or if they are putting up a smoke screen, the fact is that law enforcement across the country trust them the most. Non-technologists will be more moved to understand the security and economic implications of forcing backdoors upon Americans and US phone manufacturers. For the most part, they are not going to see eye to eye with us on privacy concerns. Lindsey Graham has already changed his view. We can share facts with others and let them make up their own minds. Some damage is already done. The fact that Vance and Comey have been fighting this for so long is going to make it difficult for them to go back and convince officers of the law that technologists were right, and they were wrong. Many officers will continue to feel snubbed by the tech community. If we're to advance to the next level of our mutually trusting society, we must all understand encryption technology and its implications. To the extent that we do not all understand encryption, and the ease of which it can be used regardless of government mandates, we will continue infighting and not progress together. The idea that technologists feel the issue is black and white or absolutist is absolutely incorrect :-). Math is black and white, but our public safety and security is not. It is a complex equation that must be balanced, and we have that focus just as President Obama does. The difference between us and the DOJ is we understand a few more pieces to the equation. I'm open to the idea there are pieces that technologists do not know about, and I encourage the administration to share these details with us. Until all the details are on the table, we won't be able to come up with a solution together. Let's focus on discussing and sharing the variables and their weights. Given information, people can make up their own minds. If backdoor laws are passed, it's not the end of the world, but our industry will suffer while non-technologists struggle to understand why terrorist attacks continue to occur. It'll be another 4-8 years until we can dig ourselves out of that hole. Let's keep the great country we have and bring facts to the table for open discussion. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/49otvu/the_mass_surveillance_debate_kicked_off_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/49otvu...

a3n 11y ago

This is not a fetish. This is a conflict between a government that has gotten away from the "we serve the citizens" mentality, and gone to "we'll do anything we want, routing around the constitution whenever we want, and use "serving citizens" as the excuse, and the citizens who should be able to specify, to any level detail that we want, exactly how those "servents" will serve us. It seems to be sliding away from us.

wl 11y ago

All this talk about "warrant-proof spaces" presumes that they're something new, when in fact they aren't. In the past, conversations in private tended to not be reduced to tangible form and were lost to law enforcement unless they had the foresight and the warrant to bug the location. Now that so many of our communications are mediated by technology, they are by necessity reduced to a tangible form. Secure end-to-end crypto merely takes us back to the status quo antebellum.

exabrial 11y ago

"You don't need encryption" "You don't need a gun" Oddly enough both are classified as munitions.

1024core 11y ago

I hate it when leaders get all upset when the balance is shifted away from them, and yet are perfectly fine when the balance tilts in their favor. FTA: "then that I think does not strike the kind of balance that we have lived with for 200, 300 years." 200 years ago, it was not possible to cast a dragnet and catch everyone who was doing Something Bad(tm). The government had to get a warrant to open mail; today, the NSA can sift through billions of messages (metadata, they say) in a second. Even considering US Mail: you could not keep track of who was sending whom mail, at scale. But today, every letter that is mailed has its front and back scanned (for reading the address); but more importantly, these images are saved for future use. All of this is possible thanks to technology. And when the balance was tilting in their favor, the Establishment was quite happy. But when the balance tilts the other way, suddenly they're crying like a spoiled child whose toys have been taken away. You can't just throw tantrums when things don't go your way. If the technology permits E2E encryption, they'll just have to live with it and find other ways to catch criminals.