<story><title>Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones</title><url>http://jonathanmh.com/re-obama-on-fetishizing-our-phones-yes-we-can/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cromwellian</author><text>Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;ll be no paper trail.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t have to agree with Obama&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>studentrob</author><text>This is not a debate about privacy vs. security.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s about security vs. security.  [1] [2] [3]&lt;p&gt;On balance, putting backdoors in phones will make us less secure, because criminals will just use other methods to communicate, and the public will be putting their data within reach of every hacker in the world through a government-imposed weakness.&lt;p&gt;The administration is unlikely to understand our privacy concerns.  They &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; understand economic and public safety issues, and it is the facts around these issues that we must share with them.  President Obama himself told President Xi last year that introducing backdoor legislation would hurt his economy [4].  Let&amp;#x27;s make Obama&amp;#x27;s argument back to him&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h35m52s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h35m52s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h11m46s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h11m46s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h19m39s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;g1GgnbN9oNw?t=3h19m39s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY2H520150302&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;us-usa-obama-china-idUSKBN0LY...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones</title><url>http://jonathanmh.com/re-obama-on-fetishizing-our-phones-yes-we-can/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cromwellian</author><text>Obama has a meta-point however that proponents of the absolutist position don&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;ll be no paper trail.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;You don&amp;#x27;t have to agree with Obama&amp;#x27;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.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattmanser</author><text>They can still plant bugs in offices, cars, homes, etc. That&amp;#x27;s specific and targeted and proportional, but expensive and hard.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s no good reason they &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; to have access to electronic devices, they can install cameras and mics. It&amp;#x27;s just easier going straight to the phones and emails.&lt;p&gt;But they had that power and they abused it massively, and are now suffering the backlash, and why should privacy stop given they&amp;#x27;ve demonstrated they can&amp;#x27;t be proportional in their surveillance?&lt;p&gt;They were not specific with what they got from the phones and emails, so they&amp;#x27;ve demonstrated they&amp;#x27;re not responsible or measured and now strong encryption is necessary as government has clearly shown that secret courts === warrantless mass surveillance.&lt;p&gt;The other thing that&amp;#x27;s clear is that the US couldn&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>