<story><title>More encryption means less privacy</title><url>http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2904894</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rocqua</author><text>I think a very important point was raised though.&lt;p&gt;Before crypto, basically all guarantees where conditional on a judge&amp;#x27;s say so. With crypto this changes. The issue also comes up, in a clearer way, with crypto currencies. There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin.&lt;p&gt;That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it. Even though no government has given a satisfactory solution, that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean there isn&amp;#x27;t a problem in need of solving.</text></item><item><author>forgotpwtomain</author><text>I think this point of view isn&amp;#x27;t just wrong it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;actively harmful&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;It completely ignores what happened - which is that various government agencies skirted around constitutional law, subverted public discussion of the matter [0] and have still not been brought into adequate compliance (Since it&amp;#x27;s incredibly hard to demonstrate standing and not have the case squashed [1]).&lt;p&gt;And after all this the author is saying the problem is that the users aren&amp;#x27;t part of the political process? I would say until powers and programs employed by government agencies are brought into accountability (let&amp;#x27;s not forget the CIA monitoring the computers of it&amp;#x27;s own oversight committee [2]) and a transparent debate is allowed to take place, there is precisely nothing better to do and &lt;i&gt;encryption everywhere&lt;/i&gt; is precisely the correct populist and democratic way to fight it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Just this past week Kazakhstan announced that a &amp;quot;state root certificate&amp;quot; would have to be installed on all computers wanting to use SSL&amp;#x2F;TLS&amp;#x2F;HTTPS out of the country.&lt;p&gt;Yes backwards nations like Kazakhstan might be implementing &amp;quot;state root certificates&amp;quot; but this is just clearly demonstrative that the power is on the side of the users in this debate. Isn&amp;#x27;t having these kinds of crazy measures on ballot in Western countries precisely forcing the political process the lack of which the author of this paper is criticizing?&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;andygreenberg&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;watch-top-u-s-intelligence-officials-repeatedly-deny-nsa-spying-on-americans-over-the-last-year-videos&amp;#x2F;#521129b121d3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;andygreenberg&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;watch-t...&lt;/a&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eff.org&amp;#x2F;cases&amp;#x2F;jewel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eff.org&amp;#x2F;cases&amp;#x2F;jewel&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theintercept.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;congress-intelligence-community-whos-overseeing&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theintercept.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;congress-intelligence-co...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Retric</author><text>Until very recently 99.99% of conversations where completely private and society functioned just fine.  Even with crypto everywhere the governments have far more access to what people say and do than they had for thousands of years.&lt;p&gt;People with power pretend if they just had more power everything would be better.  But, reality is if everything on a computer where private not much would change.</text></comment>
<story><title>More encryption means less privacy</title><url>http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2904894</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rocqua</author><text>I think a very important point was raised though.&lt;p&gt;Before crypto, basically all guarantees where conditional on a judge&amp;#x27;s say so. With crypto this changes. The issue also comes up, in a clearer way, with crypto currencies. There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin.&lt;p&gt;That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it. Even though no government has given a satisfactory solution, that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean there isn&amp;#x27;t a problem in need of solving.</text></item><item><author>forgotpwtomain</author><text>I think this point of view isn&amp;#x27;t just wrong it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;actively harmful&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;It completely ignores what happened - which is that various government agencies skirted around constitutional law, subverted public discussion of the matter [0] and have still not been brought into adequate compliance (Since it&amp;#x27;s incredibly hard to demonstrate standing and not have the case squashed [1]).&lt;p&gt;And after all this the author is saying the problem is that the users aren&amp;#x27;t part of the political process? I would say until powers and programs employed by government agencies are brought into accountability (let&amp;#x27;s not forget the CIA monitoring the computers of it&amp;#x27;s own oversight committee [2]) and a transparent debate is allowed to take place, there is precisely nothing better to do and &lt;i&gt;encryption everywhere&lt;/i&gt; is precisely the correct populist and democratic way to fight it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Just this past week Kazakhstan announced that a &amp;quot;state root certificate&amp;quot; would have to be installed on all computers wanting to use SSL&amp;#x2F;TLS&amp;#x2F;HTTPS out of the country.&lt;p&gt;Yes backwards nations like Kazakhstan might be implementing &amp;quot;state root certificates&amp;quot; but this is just clearly demonstrative that the power is on the side of the users in this debate. Isn&amp;#x27;t having these kinds of crazy measures on ballot in Western countries precisely forcing the political process the lack of which the author of this paper is criticizing?&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;andygreenberg&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;watch-top-u-s-intelligence-officials-repeatedly-deny-nsa-spying-on-americans-over-the-last-year-videos&amp;#x2F;#521129b121d3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.forbes.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;andygreenberg&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;watch-t...&lt;/a&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eff.org&amp;#x2F;cases&amp;#x2F;jewel&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eff.org&amp;#x2F;cases&amp;#x2F;jewel&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theintercept.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;congress-intelligence-community-whos-overseeing&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theintercept.com&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;congress-intelligence-co...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cbsmith</author><text>&amp;gt; Before crypto, basically all guarantees where conditional on a judge&amp;#x27;s say so.&lt;p&gt;Sadly, they weren&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; With crypto this changes.&lt;p&gt;Actually, with crypto it is much harder to claim that a judge&amp;#x27;s authorization isn&amp;#x27;t required to even try to subvert the privacy intent.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s no way because legally the system (for the most part) considers it outside the scope of fraud laws.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it.&lt;p&gt;TLS doesn&amp;#x27;t create a real loss of intervention. It requires that the intervention be far more explicit and&amp;#x2F;or targeted.</text></comment>