Most recently last weeks attack in Austria could have been avoided if the information the authorities received from a neighboring country of an attempt to purchase weapons by the attacker would have lead to actions. (I’ll try to find a link, apparently they had months to process and act)

So I think this makes the situation more unsafe in two ways - back doors will lead to all sorts of issues from leaking private communication to impersonation and authorities still don’t take responsibility and fix their processes so they can do their jobs.

"Fejzulai is also believed to have travelled to neighbouring Slovakia in July accompanied by another man, where he attempted to buy ammunition suited to the weapons he used in the attack, but the sale reportedly fell through after he failed to produce a firearms licence.

Slovakian authorities are said to have informed their Austrian counterparts at the time. The men travelled in a car registered in the name of the mother of an Islamist known to police."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/04/police-investi...

Unfortunately no actions were taken, there seem to be communication issues within and across the ministries involved.

As long as this isn’t fixed, more data won’t help, quite to the contrary it might tie up resources even further.

China has the same goal as the Western powers have: to be able to keep spying on anyone they deem enemy of the state.

The difference is who they define as enemy of the state. In China, that includes pretty much anyone that criticises the Government, as well as what they see as hostile nations (probably the USA, maybe UK, which openly call China their enemies mostly without real provocation, and perhaps Japan due to its closeness to the US and its past of barbarities committed during the occupation of nearly half of the Chinese territory).

In most western democracies, the enemy would be terrorists (they claim) and, as we now know, pretty much any other Government, ally or not... and that's what we currently know, there is probably a much wider reach still that we may never know for sure... the Snowden leaks show that they will collect mass surveillance not only on foreign heads of state, but on their own populations without any restrictions, just in case they need it later. Given that, I am not even sure China actually has more surveillance in place than the USA and the UK, for example. It's a huge disappointment for anyone thinking the western world holds the moral ground, we who live here need to get our Governments understand we will not accept this!

Europe and some developing countries did not really react when it was revealed the US was mass-spying on its Government officials because they obviously are doing the same, they just didn't get caught in the same way yet. The people behind all this spying believe they are doing good as they're keeping world peace. I think they do the opposite: because other governments' counter-intelligence probably know more or less who is doing what against them, they're kept in a constant state of readiness for conflict. True world peace can only come when there's mutual trust between countries... While everyone spies on everyone else, we'll continue to live in a world on the brink of WW3. You think WW3 is impossible? Well, read about WW1 and how basically no one expected it at all. Circumstances today are even more heated than at the time WW1 broke out. Funnily enough, the only thing that's holding WW3 back is the nukes behind the big armies which make full-on conflict a very uncomfortable prospect indeed.

It's not easy, but it's the only thing that will work.

The problem with applying this is that the violation of privacy is not arbitrary, from the draft:

> Law enforcement and judicial authorities must be able to access data in a lawful and targeted manner

So this is framed as an matter of lawful and targeted intercept, not blanket bulk access, like pretty much all of the mass surveillance creep.

[0] https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

As is the case everywhere, they claim to want lawful access. In reality that's a minor point, what they really want is access to information without the knowledge of its owner. They're OK with needing approval or getting a warrant to read your email just as long as it's some 3rd party granting access so you won't know. Otherwise just get a warrant for Alice and Bob's email and compel them to decrypt it. No new laws or systems are actually required for that.

Of course nobody will ever examine the warrants or the approval process to ensure that "lawful access" is only granted when even the minimal evidentiary standards they require are met. And if they do someday examine those warrants, and find out that they are riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies that resulted in unlawful spying, it will all be swept under the rug and nobody responsible will be held to legal account - as we have seen in the US.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/824510255/justice-department-...

Yet another reason they dont want to serve warrants directly on individuals. If people know it's happening they'll question it and make public anything corrupt in the process.

This means if not actively supporting a candidate or current representative who shares your views that you instead convince them your view is worthwhile. If not actively finding one who does. Then even once that is accomplished you likely will need to be involved in writing to other representatives as well and coordinating with similarly minded groups across your country.

Politics is all about the networking to get enough voices to be heard and for something as arcane as encryption; and yes it is arcane for most; will not have as many groups focused on it. So your work is cut out for yourself in finding such groups or forming one.

in the US we have EFF and others; I am found of cato but many here do not understand libertarians. the truly sad part is most people really would be happy living in a police state as long as you don't call it one. they don't recognize how they could be in one because their view of what a police state is very heavily influenced by the media and even hollywood. most of what hollywood presents is truly exaggerated dystopian types that are borderline absurd but in truth it is the slow chipping away if not giving away of rights that does the same

There doesn't appear to be an emotional argument the other way - I guess "so you're happy with random police officers[0] browsing your nudes, then?".

It needs to be framed as an emotional argument, because that's what cuts through to the audience these days. Only HN is interested in logical discussions ;)

[0] Actually, not even police officers - there is always an escalation of government departments able to access data that was originally captured to prevent serious crime.

Your kids’ photos.

Many people don’t have nudes on their phones. Most people do have photos of their kids and know their kids have sensitive photos of themselves. “Think of the children” can be flipped if you can get the public suspicious of spooks.

I agree with your point, but I think a lot of people aren't actually too worried about the specific case of random police officers seeing their nude selfies.

It'll start out with "we only need to break your e2e encryption for serious crime cases", but in 10 years your local council will be breaking into your dm's to see if you used the right recycling bin.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/arti...

The fear with this is that they will try and catch all messages and retroactively look for bad actors. And of course that the backdoors will be discovered and abused by bad actors.

that's a weak point, not a strength, in various scenarious

a) Agency XYZ files a motion to have a member of their legal team promoted to judge at the respective courts. Motion accepted, judge signs off on all requests

b) judge simply doesn't care for privacy, if it hinders the boys at work, signs off on it, gets appealed later, slap on the wrist, no consequences, learn from mistakes, rinse and repeat, obey formal obligations this time

c) Police and Attorneys construct evidence to construe threats, judge Joe Shmoe believes it, signs off on it

Besides, the whole system has been found to hinder investigation. The need for a warrant in night time emergencies is already relaxed in some countries, far as I know.

d) More over, the judge is bound by law, so you can trust as much confidence in the judge as you want. Once precedent is established at federal court level, because of your we can trust the judges, it will be a slippery sloapy down-wards spiral for more invasive access for less serious matters -- if it isn't already. This is effectively the federal judge signing off on all warrants, subject to veto by a lower judge, what can be escalated back up the chain due to the power of attorney. Vice-versa, the state attorney is bound by executive orders from the ministry -- as was surely the case after Snowden ("no evidence") -- which has been repeatedly red flagged by EU reports (that are otherwise quite benign).

The defense is the defense attorney. The precedent is frequently established because a single lawyer fails to make a case. Subsequent cases are only accepted on special occasion, otherwise declined due to precedent. Subsequently there is only limited control over a lower court's decision. The guideline cited in all commentaries on German constitutional law is, when the decision looks plain wrong. It is of course a little bit more involved in detail, but the principle is not a judge but one single judge gets to decide. Which lays a whole lot of preassure on them. Of course you get a second chance pretty much unconditionally, but that's a concern for later only if something was found, in which case the chances for an appeal on principle grounds are obviously against you. Eitherway a due notice remains at the secretion of the court (§101b (6) StPO), which may mean the judge presiding over the chamber, or the court, I'm not sure.

An ironic corralary is that, of course they will at least take a look, which has to sound but cynic in this scenario.

Wikipedia lists several points of criticizm against the new president of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (SCoG) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_Harbarth

> The fear with this is that they will try and catch all messages and retroactively look for bad actors.

Said Stephan Harbarth was in parliament and worked on a law for collective mass surveillance, which was subsequently called by the supreme court, in which he later went on to lead. Which is incomprehensible, because I was under the impression chief justices needed to climb the ladder first (ref, probably: BVerfGG).

Very similar, good ol' Mr. Biden signed responsible in 1991 on the American bill that is equivalent to the act under discussion here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/266 (see Title II, SubSection B: Electronic communication) not saying much at all.

This is entirely dystopic. The Bad Actors I have in mind are the good guys, I don't want to see the bad guys.

* Freedom of movement is clearly restricted for people on a jail sentence.

* We have secrecy of communication but also lawful interception.

But the term privacy is not very rigid. It can be taken and interpreted in various ways. It's certainly a good thing to mention it, but encryption needs to be mentioned explicitly, spelled out even.

There cannot be any room for interpretation: citizens have a right to encrypt their communication, end-to-end with their intended party.

People have a right to encrypt their communication, end-to-end with their intended participants, such that no one other than their intended participants can decrypt any aspect of their communication.

Let's give them a good fight.

Possibly the wrong goal.

How about "Let's win." instead? :)

Rights conflict. Every new right influences the others. It is easy to shorthand every problem to a human rights declaration. But just like the right to bear arms, that can have unintended consequences.

Do any of you have any insights into ways individuals can ensure they at least leave the culture less violent than they found it?

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence...

They also have vastly stricter gun regulation laws, and while ownership rates are high in some, the US is an extreme outlier and no other country comes even close.

Because nobody in any European country thinks they have a "right" to own a gun, most of them could if they wanted to, but they simply don't want to deal with the hassle that owning a properly regulated firearm entails.

As it should be, owning a deadly weapon is a lot of responsibility that not everybody is up for/actually wants. The importance of that responsibility gets completely lost when firearms are treated like cool toys that everybody should have and exist in abundance.

That's why headlines like "toddler shoots mother" or "dog shoots owner" don't exist in Europe, but are a sad somewhat regular thing out of the US. These toddlers and dogs didn't do that because they watched too much violent media, they did that because the actual owners of the guns where irresponsible individuals and never should have owned one in the first place.

This is fueled by movies and culture - have the gun in your possession and you’ll automatically win the fight - that was easy!

I’ve read countless comments from Americans that they have a gun to shoot intruders. Statistics telling you there’s a bigger chance someone else will get hurt be damned.

These ideas are have to be fueled by big money is my guess.

Also we humans really like our toys, so I can get that aspect of it. Wanna take my toy? Forget about it.

And the reason for that is simple - marketing.

Here in Switzerland I basically see no guns unless I go to the shooting club. There's none sold in the shops, there's none advertised in newspapers, tv or on the radio. And there is definitely no gun offered when opening a bank account.

Basically if you want a gun for whatever reason - usually for recreational shooting at the shooting club, then you have to go out and look for it.

In the US I have the feeling that they're marketed as a penis extension, and you're not a proper man unless you shoot things, with the view that you'd be quite happy to project a slug of lead into somebody else at high velocity to prove you're more of a man than they are.

To solve the problem in the US I think you need to ban the advertising - like cigarettes.

Caution: This weapon inflicts pain suffering and death to others. User may be incarcerated for murder if ever used. If in a situation of conflict, gun only increases likelihood of extreme violence - leave at home.

I think they have. I've also seen more gun stores opening, with provocative names.

I've no problem with firearms used responsibly for hunting or recreation, but in the very few cases I've seen someone open carrying a handgun (once at a very crowded national park, and once at a residential picnic area, both just this year) it was clear they didn't have a gun to defend themselves (if that were the case you don't need to show it off), but to threaten others. And for defending yourself against wild animals, bear spray is far more effective.

I figured that the US just seemed to get crazy around 2012 because I switched to primarily external news coverage of the U.S. when I moved abroad.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think I have seen TV ads for both Remington and Beneli shotguns in duck hunting and fishing shows in the U.S. But, I'm pretty sure I've never seen TV ads for pistols in the U.S., or long guns outside of hunting/fishing shows.

No. I've open carried. We do not do it to threaten people. There are many reasons to one chooses to open or conceal carry.

There have to be money involved.

It's an issue that won't be solved by banning weapons. Educating people (e.g. mandatory background checks, operation and safety training, and safe storage) and solving the underlying problems will work. I mean a lot cite defense from home invasions as the reason to own a gun. Why do people invade homes? If they had a reasonable income and comfortable life they wouldn't have a reason to.

This is only effective with a gun registry which gun owners will not accept.

> operation and safety training

Are you required to take civics to vote?

> safe storage

If you simply mean prosecution for being negligent, that's fine. If you mean it has to be in a safe unloaded, that defeats their use for self-defense in the home. It would likely be held unconstitutional.

Nobody believes the statistics are relevant to them. Statistics are about all those dumb other people; but I'm always the smart, responsible exception.

I think your claim about there being a higher chance of accidental injury vs. self defense is probably wrong. The issue is a little muddy, but there are only ~800 firearms accidental deaths per year (0.00024% of pop.) and about 50,000 self-defense uses per year (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf)

I'm also not convinced about movies. I bet other places have very similar mixes of actual watching and the same selection given the internet.

I still believe many people see guns as a solution to a problem and on top of that vastly overrate their own abilities in a pressure situation.

If you’ve not trained many many hours in a setting resembling this pressure to a high degree you really have no idea how you’ll react.

It seems really easy in movies!

Can’t speak for the source but first hit on google:

http://features.hollywoodreporter.com/the-gun-industrys-lucr...

No. It's not automatic. But my wife has a much better chance against a 250lb 6ft man with one than without one.

I’d love to see stats on these scenarios... are they common?

I totally agree about the responsibility thing.

Concerning the "dog shoots owner" headlines, you should ignore that sort of thing. Those sorts of incidents are super rare. They hit headlines /because/ they're rare and therefore interesting.

Which is exactly why the regulation in the US does not work; Anybody who disagrees with their states particular laws can just cross into another state to get their fix there.

That why any proper regulation needs to happen on a federal level so individual states won't act as a loophole.

> Concerning the "dog shoots owner" headlines, you should ignore that sort of thing. Those sorts of incidents are super rare. They hit headlines /because/ they're rare and therefore interesting.

It's something that should be non-existent, I haven't seen it anywhere else in the world. But only a couple of days ago there was yet another example out of the US [0].

These are the kind of absurd situations that simply do not happen in any other place as other places lack the "firearm saturation" that enables this in the US. So something that should be improbable, still ends up being a regular thing.

[0] https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/dog-accidentally-shoots-ow...

If you mean purchase something you cannot buy in your state, that's not true. Interstate handgun purchases are completely banned and long guns can only be sold if the sale complies with both state laws.

Here in Sweden we’ve seen a horrible development regarding gun violence - easy to chalk up to “immigration” and “soft laws” but in my mind it’s a lot deeper - interesting enough this is at the same time we have a record amount of dollar millionaires in the country.

We used to work as a collective but our economic policies are turning more and more neoliberal and thus individual. This exacerbates the issue of creating a new “class” of citizens already left partly out of the loop of riches.

If we take care of each other in a better way as a collective there’s a chance to turn things around. It’s all about increasing the chance of a good outcome per individual. This is the secret to a lot of the success in northern Europe - if you’re born here chances are great that you’ll get an education and that you live a long and healthy life.

Regarding crime and violence specifically I’ve read a lot about the “group violence intervention” program and a lot of it is about cooperation and taking care of people in a humane way.

Here’s David Kennedy speaking in Sweden where this has been worked successfully:

https://youtu.be/wu00H7eeWVM

In short - don’t be to afraid of taxes, and vote in a manner where money can be spent more wisely. Funneling tax money to havens by way of “entrepreneurs” seems less well spent... problem is that when such a system is set it will want to be conserved - looking at the US and it’s kinda dark over here as well.

All I can do is try to mold my children into caring human beings hoping to influence culture that way.

Stastistics about suspects are most commonly used in studies like these because the police, due to the seperation of powers, usually has no or at least less statistics of the actual results of charges.

That low resolution rate alone introduces a margin of error that is larger than the difference between immigrant and non-immigrant suspects. It is therefore possible that the much higher immigrant suspect rate is entirely a result of biases.

I’m not suggesting however that because they are immigrants they commit more crime. Note most violence is committed by 2nd generation immigrants - so they’ve been born here. How’s that for a failure of society...

They are simply people on the outside living surrounded by people leading lives they cannot relate to.

We’ve made it terribly difficult to attain this norm life as well making it even more unrelatable.

As the (still very low) income inequality is rising in Sweden(https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the...), it isn't surprising violence rises, too.

This has been 30-40 years in the making.

Yes - it is related, just as it is in the US.

If your goal is to prevent untimely, unwanted deaths there are oh so many other ways to apply your resources that will yield orders of magnitude more improvement per dollar / per minute.

People like to pay attention to it anyway for a few reasons. One is that we evolved to think specifically about interpersonal violence (~5-15% of prehistoric deaths, but way more than that for non-old people), which makes us good at luridly imagining interpersonal violence, and so comparatively we're bad at thinking about an early death due to diabetes and therefore bad at caring about it. Another reason is it's a hot-button red team/blue team political issue, so it's not so much about the issue per se but rather whether $OTHER_SIDE gets what it wants or not.

It sounds like somewhat of a stronger version than the US’s fifth amendment which says that you have a right to privacy unless it has to do with the crime currently being investigated. And come to think of it, encryption is unconstitutional as in because the government can subpoena or obtain a warrant to your information it may not be able to enforce it because of the encryption. So either the government has no right to subpoena or encryption is illegal.

Also, I guess I am storing all my keys at STL files that get 3D printed and destroyed upon first use. Hello protection from search warrants!

Courts have ruled, for example, that the police can compel a suspect to put their face or finger up to a phone to unlock it through biometric means, but a suspect cannot be compelled to divulge their PIN. That's why using biometrics, while convenient, is a bad idea.

No, you can't subpoena information from someone that doesn't have it. So the government can subpoena the cyphertext, but can't ask for the plaintext if the provider never had access to it.

That's the argument.

I prefer my conversations to be secret, not just private

We’ve been wargaming through all the various ways this could go horribly wrong (and have a few fun scenarii off the back of it - look for the GPT-3 example below), but on balance it feels a lot better than the Black Mirror episode where encryption is fatally weakened...

"Censorship", meaning: "malicious server or ISP silently blocks or withholds traffic from you" is a risk in Matrix today, completely independently of the reputation stuff being discussed here. The mitigation is to get rid of servers (and even ISPs), as per https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix/

"Censorship", meaning: "your server admin subscribed to a blocklist of child abuse content published by someone like iwf.org.uk" would stand out to users by the server publishing the names of the blocklists that their server admin has deployed. I'd call this server-side filtering or something instead, given the filters are visible. If the server admin withholds info about their filters, then you're back in the traditional sense of censorship from the prior paragraph.

There probably has been a recent surge of right-wing users and, the Matrix administrators, which probably lean left-wing, have seen that surge as a problem and have created the reputation system as a way to get rid of those users or, at least, to give them the hypothetical yellow badge. And if someone says "censorship", they will blame it on the "downvotes" those users got.

This proposal seems to address general abuse, spam, propaganda, filter bubbles, and so on. While these are worthy issues to tackle, the authors of the 7-eyes statement are not really interested in them.

What they say they want is for terrorism and child pornography to be detectable or meaningfully reduced. Do you think a relative reputation system will solve that problem?

So, just as in person you might stay away from a given political party / religious institute / youth club because your social graph has warned you that it might actually be a front for whatever obnoxiousness, the same approach can work online (or, conversely, could also be used to help hunt down abuse in the first place). It's then up to the authorities to investigate what's going on - which is quite possible through infiltration etc without having to go and blanket break encryption for the whole of society.

To be clear: this is still largely sci-fi, and we don't think this is a perfect solution, especially given this is a fundamental problem of the human species which nobody has yet solved. Our proposal doesn't solve lone wolf situations, for instance. So perhaps for that you need the ability to gather evidence from endpoints post hoc.

Unrelated: one particularly dark dystopian outcome we've been wargaming is: what if someone (not us!) used decentralised rep to seed a GPT-3 style bot to locate abusive communities, and then automated the process of infiltrating & investigating them... only to then end up ascending the ranks while preserving its cover and accidentally triggered some atrocity. So, um, let's not do that.)

I think you greatly overestimate the abilities of GPT-3. GPT-3's writable memory is short-term only – its long-term memory is read-only – so by the end of a conversation, it has permanently forgotten what the topic was at the beginning. Given its lack of writable long-term memory, it is completely incapable of succeeding at any tasks involving long-term planning, such as the infiltration and investigation of a social group.

Of course, you said "GPT 3 style bot", not GPT-3, but the AI you have in mind has significantly greater capabilities than GPT-3 has, so isn't fairly said to be "GPT 3 style" at all.

Good analogy, especially because governments themselves are living in the same walls (i.e. using the same apps) and this effort will hurt their own security.

I am in communities that don't use such tools and somehow there is no problem that would require any, but if that is the preference you have the option. I don't see further issues.

1)

a: It's really not that hard to think of ways to solve backdoor problems with a mix of technical and social approaches. For example, having shared keys burned onto silicon, making physical access mandatory, and split between both the law enforcement and the company, so that both parties must knowingly engage.

b: Most software already practically backdoored already, and it's really not that big a deal. Microsoft can push whatever updates they want whenever they want. They already have the keys to the kingdom! Google doesn't store everything E2E encrypted. They also already have the keys to the kingdom! Things have mostly worked out regardless.

2) That a measure will be imperfect is not an argument that it will be ineffectual. In fact it's pretty obviously false; making abuse harder on mainstream platforms will make abuse less mainstream.

3) This is like arguing governments shouldn't be allowed to regulate weapons, because it would be hypocritical, given they own weapons themselves, and it might normalize other countries taking away their citizens' weapons, which might prevent them fighting back. That seems like an obviously bad argument.

4) Yes, your platform that makes oversight impossible is not compatible with regulations requiring oversight. That's not an accident, in either direction.

The idea later in the post seems not really honestly engaging with the topic, that it's not about ‘someone who believes birthday cake is undesirable’, but about networks which are systematically and in actuality doing things like trafficking children for sexual abuse, and that there is a moral imperative for governments to deal with this beyond just letting people choose not to engage.

1b - If it's already backdoored then there is no need for such an act, the problem is already solved.

2 - It's ineffective for it's stated goal because the stated goal is not the real goal. The goal is to enable a continued abuse of power, one which is already ongoing, and one which produces no actionable results or meaningful outcomes. Five eyes & co is upset that they're losing some of their toys.

3 - Who says governments should be able to regulate weapons? Likewise these days, who is to say they meaningfully can?

4 - Sex trafficking existed prior to encryption. The government failed to stop it then. I strongly suspect that even if the government gets it's way and breaks encryption, sex trafficking will continue exactly at the same rate. Most sex traffickers are not technology ept, nor do they need to be - the track record for capturing them is atrocious. Epstein anyone?

This is a bad faith argument. "Protecting children" and "stopping terrorists" are the siren's song of every government overreach basically since the dawn of time and yet the government remains terrible at solving either problem. I don't think encryption is really the issue preventing those things from getting resolved. I do think encryption is very inconvenient for a very snoop heavy government.

People in third world countries are poor, and may be desperate. A purely technical solution is not going to address this. Rather, we need ways to lift people out of poverty, and improve their standard of living. No one should ever have to live like that to survive.

I don't know if it is possible to stop child pornography (anyone anywhere in the world can create it and anyone anywhere can view it), but it should be able to reduce the amount of sex abuse in the world, if the government were to pursue prevention initiatives to stop it where ever possible.

You don't kill the cash cow.

This is a completely different context to having one copy (or a small number) of said low-bandwidth silicon held exclusively by an agency vested in keeping it exclusive, plus another copy held by the company themselves, such that both copies would need to be broken for security to be weakened.

> If it's already backdoored then there is no need for such an act, the problem is already solved.

Seriously? Microsoft having the ability to install a keylogger on any random person's machine is not the solution to finding networks of criminal activity.

> [government bad]

I'll debate the technicals but I'm not going to argue politics here.

+ TSA keys

+ OPM (all of it)

+ NSA's hacking tools

Were these incredible skilled sidechannel attacks? Movie esque infiltrations?

+ TSA accidentally published the keys

+ OPM was a master password from a contractor who was bribed for about the cost of an ipad

+ NSA hacking tools was.. an email trojan? A CD walked?

Do you really trust these people with anything?

Putting a backdoor into encryption is less secure than a random Microsoft employee backdooring me. At least I know it's Microsoft who will be doing the backdoor...

This isn't politics, this is history. This is not the first time, nor the last time we've seen these moves. We know 5 eyes have had major incidents of internal abuse because we have their own documentation on it - and we have their own documentation that they decided to do nothing about it.

It requires external oversight for any organization to truly follow compliance, otherwise the incentives to cheat the system are overbearing. If they won't take us at our word, why would we take them at theirs?

My point isn't about how much you trust Microsoft, but that Microsoft has keys, which are more easily stolen and in many regards more valuable than the scheme I gave.

> TSA keys

Not remotely comparable. These were never designed to be secure in the sense we're talking here.

> OPM (all of it)

> NSA's hacking tools

Hence the scheme I gave, which isn't vulnerable in the same way.

We had security agencies that had the info but didn't act in case of Vienna. Encryption wasn't the issue here, this is an incontinent case of saving face at best, a deliberate attack against civil rights at worst.

> These were never designed to be secure in the sense we're talking here

Encryption today is a protection against access for a limited amount of time. It is an intrinsic rule about every encryption algorithm. It is fundamental property and widely known.

Making a political comment but then trying to shut down discussion of it by stating that you will not participate in political discussions is a double standard, though perhaps you were unaware that you were doing it.

I think what prompted me to react was mostly your `[government bad]` blurb. It felt like you got to state your political position and caricaturise the political position of the responder while avoiding further discussion. That felt wrong.

The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation. --Adolf Hitler

It's also a morally horrific line of argument. Like saying you shouldn't care about shooting civilians because bad people in the past have used human shields as a war tactic.

These are not imagined people being hurt, spun out of whole cloth.

It is a legitimate known translation, not a misquote from the Ralph Manheim translation of Mein Kampf (ISBN 0395078016 / year 1943), page 403. Other translations have similar wording on the page, although not in such a nice succint sentence.

Manheim was known to have gone into great effort to create an exact English equivalent of Hitler's work for Mein Kampf.

> It's also a morally horrific line of argument. Like saying you shouldn't care about shooting civilians because bad people in the past have used human shields as a war tactic.

The point of the quote is to show there are no limits curtailing liberties, not an absolute we shouldn't bother. The attempt to spin the quote into something else, probably because, you wish to "protect the children" is proving the point.

This is not even remotely how you used it. My argument is one where there are obvious checks and balances, where government power is clearly and significantly limited, and little is left exclusively to government trust.

Yet because I mentioned that there are actual people being actually raped, I get Godwin's Law'd. Not because I advocated for Chinese style state control. Not because I took away liberties that most people even care about, given most people are perfectly happy using Google services. But because I dared mention that real people are suffering.

This happens every time on HN, no matter how moderate my position. Anything even remotely compromising the Bottom Line (universal perfect cryptographic security) is Hitler.

I looked at your posting history, not much Hitler mentions in responses relating to those topics. This is hyperbolic.

> no matter how moderate my position

If your position was moderate then "Most software already practically backdoored already" would have been sufficient.

> Anything even remotely compromising the Bottom Line (universal perfect cryptographic security) is Hitler.

You're way too focused on Hitler. Pretend it's not Hitler, the point is still valid.