<story><title>The Next Front in the New Crypto Wars: WhatsApp</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/next-front-new-crypto-wars-whatsapp</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yazaddaruvala</author><text>Anyone have any insights into why the commonly used guns argument is not good enough for encryption? If we ban guns(encryption), only the criminals will have it.&lt;p&gt;The only thing I can think of is that the majority of people who advocate for encryption are anti-gun, and don&amp;#x27;t want to give strength to that argument?</text></item><item><author>jessegreathouse</author><text>If the government wins any of these court battles, it&amp;#x27;s only a matter of time until one-way encryption is outlawed. It follows logically that if criminals&amp;#x2F;terrorists can&amp;#x27;t use iPhones to securely communicate, then they&amp;#x27;ll just move on to the next convenient encryption app. The government will continue to order companies to break their one-way encryption until the government realizes they&amp;#x27;re playing musical chairs and then they&amp;#x27;ll issue an executive order to ban one-way encryption outright. The precedent allowing them to do so, will be all of these initial court battles vs Apple, whatsapp, and whoever else gets defeated. In the wake of these events regular people, like you and me, will be harmed by hackers and commercial companies exploiting this new world without one-way encryption.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LastZactionHero</author><text>The recent issues over encryption has actually changed my thinking on guns. I&amp;#x27;m not &amp;#x27;pro gun&amp;#x27;, don&amp;#x27;t own guns, and want nothing to do with them personally.&lt;p&gt;But as I think about my stance on the legality of encryption it sounds pretty similar to the argument for guns. Still don&amp;#x27;t want one, but it&amp;#x27;s harder for me to be dismissive of a point when I turn around and use the same point for another issue.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Next Front in the New Crypto Wars: WhatsApp</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/next-front-new-crypto-wars-whatsapp</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yazaddaruvala</author><text>Anyone have any insights into why the commonly used guns argument is not good enough for encryption? If we ban guns(encryption), only the criminals will have it.&lt;p&gt;The only thing I can think of is that the majority of people who advocate for encryption are anti-gun, and don&amp;#x27;t want to give strength to that argument?</text></item><item><author>jessegreathouse</author><text>If the government wins any of these court battles, it&amp;#x27;s only a matter of time until one-way encryption is outlawed. It follows logically that if criminals&amp;#x2F;terrorists can&amp;#x27;t use iPhones to securely communicate, then they&amp;#x27;ll just move on to the next convenient encryption app. The government will continue to order companies to break their one-way encryption until the government realizes they&amp;#x27;re playing musical chairs and then they&amp;#x27;ll issue an executive order to ban one-way encryption outright. The precedent allowing them to do so, will be all of these initial court battles vs Apple, whatsapp, and whoever else gets defeated. In the wake of these events regular people, like you and me, will be harmed by hackers and commercial companies exploiting this new world without one-way encryption.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>statictype</author><text>This is a very good point.&lt;p&gt;As someone who has been anti-gun and pro-encryption, I&amp;#x27;m now wondering how I reconcile these two stances that are at conflict with each other.</text></comment>