Nuts and Bolts of Encryption: A Primer for Policymakers [pdf]

Re:Nuts and Bolts of Encryption: A Primer for Policymakers [... by DarkKomunalec on Thursday February 23, 2017 @06:47AM (#13713165)

This seems useful, but I have to admit I'm dissatisfied with the tech community's response to government efforts to cripple encryption, specifically the "but then the -bad guys- will also exploit the backdoors!" stance. While true, the better argument is that keeping secrets should not be a crime, but a fundamental right - the right to privacy.

Government should not have infinite power to peer into the private lives of people.

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Re:Nuts and Bolts of Encryption: A Primer for Policymakers [... by post_meridiem on Thursday February 23, 2017 @09:04PM (#13720218)

The problem is that in the U.S., we don't have a fundamental right to privacy. Constitutional guarantees of privacy are either specific (e.g., to practice religion) or indirect (e.g., search/seizure).

But I do agree that it should be a more broadly defined fundamental right.

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Re:Nuts and Bolts of Encryption: A Primer for Policymakers [... by DarkKomunalec on Friday February 24, 2017 @03:50AM (#13722107)

In addition to the 1st amendment problems of banning certain kinds of code, I think forcing encryption to have a backdoor could be construed as part of a search, and so run afoul of the 4th amendment. Who knows what the courts might say though - I wonder if there's any precedent...

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Re:Nuts and Bolts of Encryption: A Primer for Policymakers [... by post_meridiem on Friday February 24, 2017 @11:22AM (#13724992)

The 4th does state that it is "The right of the people to be secure in their [...] papers [...]." I'd love to witness a judicial argument that seeks to extend this to code/binary 'goods.'

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