Except encryption provides a level of privacy that has never before been possible. Could you imagine a physical padlock that was unable to be cracked, cut, or circumvented in any way? It is easy to see how that would scare law enforcement. Imagine your job is to keep people safe. Now envision a kid strapped to a bomb inside a shack and the only thing preventing you from breaking in and saving that kid's life is that magical and unbreakable padlock. That is how many laypeople view encryption. It is hard to tell that person that you won't consider introducing any weakness into that lock.

That's a good analogy, but the padlock has already bolted!

Information about the uncrackable padlock is widely available. Bad guys will always be able to get these padlocks from the black market. The question is whether we want the good guys (i.e. us) to have the padlocks too.

This is a fair counter, but I feel like we already have examples of how the government would respond there. We might have to switch analogies, but wouldn't encryption then be like a weapon. The goal would then shift to being about deproliferation. The fact that nuclear weapons or AK47s already exist doesn't prevent the government from preventing regular people from acquiring or using them. Maybe preventing new products from entering the market and flooding the market with faulty products (encryption with backdoors) is a good way of combating what is already out there.

I don't think non-proliferation would be a good idea for encryption technology:

1. Depriving the the public of decent encryption does a lot of harm. If you let some people in through the backdoor you're going to let bad people in too.

This is different from nuclear bombs. It doesn't harm the public to deprive them of nuclear weapons. I like having my financial information encrypted, but I don't want a personal nuclear bomb.

2. Non-proliferation of encryption wouldn't work. The algorithms and ideas are already widespread. Every university teaches it. Millions of computers have the code already. The code and ideas can be proliferated anonymously, instantly, undetectably and cheaply.

This is different from nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs are much more complex and expensive to transport, manufacture and hide.

(I haven't mentioned AK47s, but I'd say they fall somewhere between between encryption and nuclear bombs in benefit vs harm to the public and in ease vs difficulty of non-proliferation, which is why there are more of them around than there are nuclear bombs.)

The terrorists will use encrypted, unbreakable methods no matter that Google or Apple use is their OS. That's really the only point that matters.

And I might be able to get my hands on an AK47 if I really wanted and had enough money to dedicate to it. That is the truth of the world. But do you believe that making it harder to acquire a weapon like that doesn't have some benefit?

Back to HN's world, one of the basic principles of human factors is "make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard." You might not be able to prevent people from doing the wrong thing, but there is still value in making it harder to do.

It's not hard to download some software while sitting in your house. Much easier than buying an illegal gun.

"Deproliferation" is impossible. It's not like banning guns. It's like banning the idea of how a gun works from ever being communicated, burning every book that contains the concept, erasing it from all electronic records, and strictly monitoring anyone with chemistry or metallurgy knowledge.

All you need to write an encryption program is an explanation of the concept behind a single algorithm, someone with math smarts, and almost any computer.

I think there would be an ever better angle to this. If the government can listen to any legally encrypted communication via their backdoors, then by definition any communication they can't listen to is illegal and they can focus their intelligence resources people communicating in such way.

But honestly, I think it'll result in bad guys using the same backdoored crypto that everyone else will be using, relying on steganography and disappearing in the noise - so basically, they'll do things in the same way as they always did, since assuming all communications is broken by the government is simply good OPSEC.

But those are not the same thing. Encryption in this case would be like the location of the kid and bomb being kept secret.

The bad guy may have told someone in person where the location is... or sent an encrypted email. But unless you were involved in either conversation, you are still in the dark.

Except the government also has stuff it needs to keep secret, so they have a vested interest in unbreakable padlocks existing. So they want a skeleton key for all civilian padlocks, but they will continue to use magic padlocks. That requires journals on padlock research, which probably won't themselves be kept behind magic padlocks.

Clever locksmiths will always be able to make powerful padlocks using that research.

>Except encryption provides a level of privacy that has never before been possible

Not really. It secures long distance communication, but I've always had the option of just talking to someone privately if I want something to be secret.

>The ability to create privacy should be a point of pride as not everyone has that luxury. It should be a human right.

I agree; so does the UN in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

The universal declaration of human rights doesn't grant you an unqualified right to privacy. Article 29, part 2:

"In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."

In addition to what torgo said, there are a few countries that have only upheld UN directives and treaties when it suits them. The US is a example of this.

Who exactly enforces the UN's Declaration of Human Rights?

Without power to back it up it means nothing.

Technically, each and every one of the UN member states should back these up.

Didn't they put the Saudi's in charge of that?

So, like the Tel Aviv airport where the main security measure for departing flights is a short chat with every passenger. The agents are trained to recognize red flags.

> It should be a human right.

It actually is a human right.

The right to privacy is one of the most fundamental ones that we have.

Not in the constitution, and the founding fathers clearly envisioned the modern world in perfect clarity so we'll just go with their words verbatim.