
Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators - pabs3
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-interpol-encryption-exclusive/exclusive-interpol-plans-to-condemn-encryption-spread-citing-predators-sources-say-idUSKBN1XR0S7
======
snowwrestler
This is a good time to remember that police forces work for governments and
not the other way around.

 _Of course_ it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had
full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That
doesn’t mean it is a good idea. They’re asking for something to make their job
easier... can’t blame them for trying, and of course who doesn’t want to catch
people who harm children?

But it’s not their responsibility to account for negative side effects. That’s
our responsibility, as citizens who are in charge of our governments. And we
have to remember that governments and police can hurt children too. Look at
what the border police in the U.S. are doing right now. And when it comes to
fighting that sort of thing, encrypted comms are essential for political
organizing.

This is on top of the obvious and many benefits of encryption in protecting us
all from crime.

~~~
tqi
I also this is a good time to remember that not every citizen has to have the
same values on this. Some people might think the tradeoff in terms of freedoms
vs security is worth it.

It seems everyone is so eager to paint the other side as objectively wrong /
motivated by bad intentions, when in reality I don't believe this is an
objectively right answer. As a society we have to decide how much freedom and
security we want at this moment in time.

~~~
sneak
Privacy is a human right. Encryption backdoors for governments are human
rights abuses.

It has nothing to do with safety; it is not a debate about “how much safety do
we purchase with reduced privacy”.

It’s just as firearms rights have nothing to do with hunting, or a militia.

~~~
ggzgd
Human rights are man-made and arbitrary. They aren't some kind of holy text
that must be protected at all costs. They must be bent and ignored if
necessary. You can't just say "this is a human right" to shut down any
discussion.

~~~
Koshkin
Human rights were fought for an won in bloody struggles. We do not want to
lose them again.

~~~
matz1
Thats true if we assume that every human want the same thing. But the reason
there is bloody fight in the first place is not all human want the same thing.
Is good _for you_ if you are in the winning side, you certainly don't want to
lose them but you can't say the same for the other side. They too want to be
on the winning side.

------
cmdshiftf4
Sigh. What we can basically tell from this is that the Five Eyes crew have
joint legislation ready to go on this and are now going to insert an easy-to-
digest and appealing narrative into the mainstream ahead of the release of
that legislation.

The combination of "But the children! You don't support child predators, do
you?!", low general technical understanding and overall apathy to the removal
of our rights (in the name of "progress") means that this is basically
destined to succeed.

Might be time to really re-evaluate our personal relationship with technology
and make the appropriate moves to isolate it in our lives. If/when this goes
through, technology will essentially have us under surveillance in every
aspect of our daily lives.

~~~
coldcode
I for one are ready to give up my encryption when the politicians do it first
and we see how well that works.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
Next time someone tells me "Why would you need encryption if you have nothing
to hide?" I'mma just answer with "Why do you need clothes then?"

~~~
commandlinefan
> when the politicians do it first ... > "Why do you need clothes then?"

I've seen politicians. I know why they need clothes.

------
nayuki
Look at the government repression on the Hong Kong protesters, who are
fighting for freedom and accountability. That's a good reason to support
encryption technology.

------
etaioinshrdlu
Imagine for a moment that ssh became illegal.

Is it even possible for the tech economy to continue? What would that look
like?

My head hurts.

Actually, think of what Attorney General Barr said: Corporations should have
access to strong encryption, just not little people.

In that horrifying sort of world, there would be encryption licenses perhaps.
And general purpose computing would be under a large threat.

It is so absurd that it would only work under a totalitarian system. Maybe
that's what we'll eventually get.

~~~
m0dest
It’d probably be some new PKI on top of SSH where your private key would be
held in escrow by an identity provider. e.g. Your username is your email
address, and your email provider retains your key pair. It’d probably be
portrayed as an improved key management solution that allows more frequent key
rotations and revocations. Might even start with being required for government
projects, resulting in supported implementations by cloud providers that want
lucrative government contracts. Then they just wait for a crisis opportunity
like a cyberattack to force ISPs to block non-PKI-based SSH traffic in the
name of national security.

And the largest and most paranoid companies that host their own mail and
authentication services on-perm would probably be allowed to use those. But
most everyone else is left doing key escrow with Google and O365 for their
work and personal accounts...

~~~
GordonS
Forced key escrow was actually floated before, when I was a kid in the late
80's/early 90's.

Even as a child it seemed like a terrible, dangerous idea.

~~~
x220
But think of the children! Do you want to help the terrorists? What's so bad
that you want to hide it?

America is looking more and more like a Soviet style dictatorship every day.
The United States' propaganda machine is so well tuned that they don't need to
physically oppress us with secret police on every block. We oppress ourselves.

------
skokage
Any time these topics around weakening privacy or removing encryption comes
up, it's nearly always presented with a save the children type of argument. I
mean, who doesn't want to protect children from child abuse and predators? The
problem however, is that most children that are abused are done so by family
members or people already close to them (like maybe their priests), so with
that in mind I don't really understand how weakening encryption will help
protect children from predators.

~~~
newguy1234
That's because there is a deeper agenda than just "protecting children". If
you read the Edward Snowden book (permanent record) then you'll note that he
talks about what the NSA/CIA is actually doing with their signals intelligence
programs. It isn't about national security, it is about espionage on a global
scale. They want information on what foreign governments, journalists,
domestic organizations (not just terrorist groups as they claim) and
corporations are doing. For domestic citizens, they want to know if you are a
threat to the United States or violating laws.

The second strong end-to-end encryption is implemented, the whole system
simply fails to operate. Instead of having a massive data collection system,
you now have to go back to more traditional methods that require much more
effort to implement - like hacking a target's computer directly. If that
happens then the USA will lose its edge in terms of obtaining critical
information and that will be a treat to their global dominance....hence the
reason they mention national security. Of course, you can't just come out and
say this is the reason so they mask it in "fighting sexual exploitation" etc.

The truth is end-to-end encryption and fighting sexual exploitation are not
mutually exclusive. We can have both.

~~~
saagarjha
> Instead of having a massive data collection system, you now have to go back
> to more traditional methods that require much more effort to implement -
> like hacking a target's computer directly.

Which is more amenable to accountability. Usually this requires a warrant or
approval of some kind.

> If that happens then the USA will lose its edge in terms of obtaining
> critical information and that will be a treat to their global dominance

How does the US banning encryption help it on the global stage where other
countries continue to encrypt their messages?

~~~
Mirioron
Because the US will pressure other countries to do the same thing. If enough
countries agree then it'll be easier and easier to push it onto the rest.

------
DarkWiiPlayer
You know what else protects criminals? Walls. Seriously, wouldn't it all be
much easier if the police could just look into your home from the outside
without those pesky walls around it?

This constant war on encryption is getting so absurd lately. The kind of
people who are pushing this should just be fired if not thrown into prison.
It's just a blatant attack against human rights and the public should finally
start viewing it as such.

~~~
schwede
What about warrants? The police can get a warrant to look inside your walls.
You can’t do that with encryption.

~~~
vcavallo
do you think warrant should also extend to the walls of your skull? should
police be able to access your thoughts, given the correct warrant?

the “walls” analogy is sort of unfortunate because it doesn’t apply evenly.

------
leftyted
I disagree with the tone of the comments here.

Encryption is scary. Of course law enforcement is dismayed by the possibility
that certain kinds of crimes could leave behind no trace at all. What these
people, who want to regulate encryption, don't seem to understand is that this
is the downside of living in a free society. In a free society, people can
commit crimes, and sometimes they can get away with them. We've made a
deliberate choice to structure our society this way rather than optimizing for
preventing crimes or punishing criminals. This is the right choice.

At the same time, you have to understand the temptation of structuring your
society in a different way, in order to punish the guilty and protect the
innocent. That perspective truly has massive appeal. Comments that fail to
acknowledge this and boil down to "you can't regulate math" are not good
arguments. They're condescending and far too dismissive of a facet of human
psychology that is actually admirable (a strong preference for justice). A
better argument acknowledges these things but reiterates the liberal arguments
that undergird our societies (which have turned out rather well, if you ask
me).

~~~
commandlinefan
> don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free
> society

No, what they don’t understand is that the cryptography that protects your
bank account is the exact same cryptography that (supposedly) makes law
enforcement difficult. There’s no way to separate the two, any more than you
can separate the arithmetic that is responsible for updating your bank account
from the arithmetic that is responsible for updating the bank account of a
Colombian drug lord.

~~~
leftyted
Of course there's a way to separate them. Let banks do what they like and
obstruct everyone else in some way. As another poster phrased the argument:
"Corporations should have access to strong encryption, just not little
people."

~~~
carlosdp
Sure except that's like trying to ban alcohol, and we all know how that worked
out. It's far too easy to get your hands on, especially for criminals who are
sufficiently motivated.

------
RHSeeger
> The international police organization Interpol plans to condemn the spread
> of strong encryption in a statement Monday saying it protects child sex
> predators, three people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Let me fix that for you

> it protects nearly every single person on the planet.

~~~
noobermin
This is close to saying child rapists rape children behind closed doors so you
shouldn't have locks, ignoring that well locked doors benefit everyone who has
a house. It's disingenuous.

~~~
goblin89
While I support the sentiment that privacy is important, comparing encryption
to locks in this ghastly context is self-defeating.

Recall that there were more than one instance where critical evidence against
a wealthy person, required for the prosecution to make a compelling case in
court, was obtained by force with a police raid. At least one such instance
happened in the US in 2019 and was well-publicized.

Now imagine a real-life security system that is absolutely, one hundred
percent immune to unauthorized entry, even if it is attempted as a part of law
enforcement raid.

It is possible to identify with the argument that everyone _should_ have
access to such an impenetrable lock. However, it’d be really hard to argue
that widespread access to it wouldn’t create a radically new situation.

~~~
boomlinde
_> It is possible to identify with the argument that everyone should have
access to such an impenetrable lock. However, it’d be really hard to argue
that widespread access to it wouldn’t create a radically new situation._

With regards to communication, we already have that impenetrable lock built
in. I can say something incriminating to someone else in private, and the only
way law enforcement will ever know what is if either party involved in the
private conversation agrees to divulge it. Traditionally, the means for law
enforcement to address this is to be part of the conversation.

~~~
goblin89
In your example, law enforcement can force itself into the conversation in
multiple ways (without compromising your counterpart), including listening
devices or a break-in.

Most real-life analogies to encryption are not good enough. A smart layperson
can easily spot issues with the “if crime happens in private, you shouldn't
ban privacy” type of argument.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
I wish these people who say privacy is dangerous would commit to having all
their communications and movements published for all to see. Or something
similar like that. At least then they wouldn't be such hypocrites.

For example, there was an interpol bribery scandal a year ago. Maybe it could
have been prevented if that person had to communicate fully in the open.

------
protomyth
Encryption is math, and not even hard math at that. You have as much chance of
stopping evil people from using encryption as you have of stopping them from
doing multiplication.

Make every politician who opposes encryption feel like an idiot for thinking
they can stop people from adding and multiplying.

~~~
wruza
Sadly, courts will laugh and proceed. The same argument could be done for
firearms – it’s just physics, and not even space/quantum physics. Really, a
device pushing a small body to some direction via expansion of another body.
It’s all bodies, you can’t stop people from surrounding them with these.

If adopted, a law will state “the piece of information for which format and
representation cannot be detected in a considerable amount of time” and then a
judge to decide. Send some random bytes and you’re in trouble.

~~~
protomyth
Courts are not our worry. Politicians making the laws are the problem. We need
to focus on those passing these laws and make them fear any law limiting
encryption. Encryption isn't even complicated math, and can be done with a
deck of cards.

We need to emphasis there is no safe backdoor, and all politicians are doing
is ensuring our money will be stolen and our pictures of our children will end
up in the hands of perverts and freaks because of unencrypted data breaches.
"Why do you want your constituents ripped off?" "Why do you want little
Timmy's picture stolen by perverts?" Turn it around, make them the evil ones.
The only real way to protect ourselves is to actually make this a voting issue
and make the other side out to be the villain. Its been a while since politics
was logical arguments and being a victim of these idiots is getting old.

------
turc1656
I love how governments love to pretend that either none of these crimes
happened prior to the digital communication age or that they never caught
anyone prior to it (which they definitely did).

Let's also take a step back and consider the series of events and how this
would play into that. Under normal circumstances, you need a warrant/reason to
look at such data and communications. The theory here is that if they could
decrypt everything that would make their job much easier. Fair point. But in
the world 20-30 years ago these tools never existed so there was no such
communication to capture. Which means the evidence was non-existent.

Yet, through other means of investigation they were able to identify and
gather evidence against these criminals and prosecute them. How did they do
that? It's because these are real world crimes (meaning not purely residing in
the digital world) so there is real world evidence to be gathered. And all the
_other_ methods they have without decrypting data still applies. That can mean
tracking credit card charges, phone calls, cell tower pings, etc, etc. As we
know, they can build out quite a substantial profile of a criminal network in
that manner. They can correlate all sorts of things and gather insights into
the data.

This is just government pulling a classic fear-mongering bullshit tactic
wrapped in a "think about the children!" plea to simply make their lives
easier while simultaneously trying to whittle down our privacy rights even
further.

------
Roark66
Interpol is a bloody joke. Recently they accepted a submission from Russia to
put an international arrest warrant on an activist named Ihor Mazur right
before he was going to EU to appear at some conference. The guy, is not a
terrorist, nor an extremist, but he was arrested on the Polish border and it
took 2 days of effort from Ukrainian and Polish embassies for Interpol to
finally accept the Russian claim as bogus and withdraw the warrant. He was
eventually freed, but for Interpol to even accept this from Russia on their
word alone was insane.

------
andy_ppp
The weirdest part of this argument is that law abiding people get no
encryption while people who break the law will still have access to
encryption, so how does it help you catch pedophiles?

I don’t really understand how this will work in reality for things like SSL or
ssh.

~~~
saint_fiasco
The idea is that if only criminals use encryption, they can go after every
user of encryption and do some enhanced interrogation on them, since they are
obviously up to no good.

But I also don't understand what they plan to do for online shopping and so
on.

~~~
specialist
Yes, and the criminals just go out of band, further evading detection.

Law enforcement's over reliance (obsession) on SIGINT at the expense of HUMINT
is self-defeating.

------
noobermin
This is such a tired argument but is becoming more and more widespread. It's
time for IT professionals beyond just the activists like the EFF to stand up
and explain how encryption is good and necessary.

~~~
carapace
It's not like this BS is new BS.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_wars)

Everyone who _wants_ to know _knows_ or is a newbie.

However, if newbies come into the discussion faster than they can be brought
up to speed there's a risk of an "Eternal September" effect diluting common
sense, so you're basically right about how we should all be explaining it to
our friends and family and whatnot.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

------
qwerty456127
Every time somebody tries to exploit the children protection narrative to
justify a privacy/freedom withdrawal it's a huge red flag.

E.g. at the time when the government was introducing the websites blocking
system in Russia they spoke about blocking underage porn but as soon as the
system was deployed they started to block whatever sites they dislike (for
political reasons or for money) every day.

------
neiman
So in the same time they should condemn democracy and freedom, as they're
having exactly the same effect. It is much easier for police in authoritarian
countries to prevent crimes and find perpetrators.

But if they don't condemn democracy and freedom, they should also not condemn
encryption. The ability to communicate privately, or saying things outside the
consensus anonymously, is an important tool for citizens to protect democracy.

The Interpol job is to protect the law under the settings of democracy and
freedom, not to try to change those settings in order to make their job
easier.

~~~
glangdale
"It is much easier for police in authoritarian countries to prevent crimes and
find perpetrators."

Is this actually true? This sounds like one of those bits of received wisdom
(like the trains supposedly running on time under Mussolini) that turns out to
be bogus. I'm not sure that the expansion of police powers under authoritarian
regimes has anything to do with making them more efficient at preventing or
solving crimes that are crimes in all regimes (e.g. murder, rape, etc). I
would at least need to see some evidence that clearance rates are better in
authoritarian countries.

~~~
danielrpa
Authoritarian states tend to be not as advanced technologically (one
consequence of authoritarianism!), thus their police forces should be less
efficient in general despite the increased powers.

But controlling for other factors, why wouldn't enhanced surveillance help
catch criminals? It's a pretty logical claim.

Perhaps you should look for the evidence and bring back to us. For now, it is
reasonable to accept the common sense statement.

~~~
Nasrudith
Given the needle in a haystack effect? Common sense has proven itself wrong
repeatedly It was "common sense" that merchants had to be frauds because the
value of goods was universal and they had transport labor.

Besides just because they can doesn't mean they will. Authoritarians are also
infamous for both corruption and finding rooting out dissidents a higher
priority than what most would call actual crime. All other things /aren't/
equal.

~~~
danielrpa
Common sense is an useful tool. It helps us estimate outcomes when data is
absent or scarce, even if it's frequently unreliable. When I leave my desk to
go to the bathroom yet again, I expect it to be there. Can't prove it, but
it's a reasonable assumption. Without it, every human action would require
scientific studies and high quality measurements.

The way to contest common sense isn't to point out that common sense is often
wrong; instead, it's to provide data. My assertion is that when going against
a statement strongly rooted in common sense and, YOU are the one who has the
burden of proof.

Yes, perhaps authoritarians would do a _worse_ job at catching criminals if
they were omniscient? I'm not saying that you ARE wrong, just that you are
LIKELY wrong and thus you should provide data to support your claims.

------
paulmooreparks
“Tech companies should include mechanisms in the design of their encrypted
products and services whereby governments, acting with appropriate legal
authority, can obtain access to data in a readable and useable format.”

Yes, because governments always act with appropriate legal authority, by
definition, right?

~~~
GoblinSlayer
As soon as it's legally allowed, it's not illegal anymore.

------
ajb
It's so obvious to many of us that 'think of the children' is a disingenuous
argument, that it's difficult to articulate a counter-argument which would be
emotionally valid to someone for whom this is not obvious. Here is my attempt:

Someone whose child has been kidnapped, would sacrifice a great deal to get
them back. A lot of the things which we hold dear, our dignity, privacy,
democracy, even rule of law - would pale into insignificance to against the
loss of a loved one. But for that very reason, we should not look to victims
for a standard of how much the police can override our civil rights. The
standard of 'what the police can demand from honest citizens' cannot be 'what
a mother would sacrifice for her child'.

~~~
vcavallo
it’s a good attempt, but i think it still won’t appeal to those on which the
previous argument didn’t work.

------
octosphere
Recycled comment from an article a few weeks back about Former FBI General
Counsel Jim Baker Choosing Encryption over Backdoors[0]

[0]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/former_fbi_ge...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/former_fbi_gene.html)

You can read the discussion on HN here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21377093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21377093)

_________________________

This is why Tor and onionland is a lawless wild west. All so that journalists
can report and trade documents, and so that repressive regimes can't easily
censor access to news and information. This is the cost of encryption: you get
all sorts of scoundrels in the mix in the name of privacy and security for the
masses. Some might say this cost is too high: that scoundrels are running
rampant and won't stop their criminal actions. But without this we get a
broken backdoored Internet where no such privacy/security exists and could
actually cause more damage to society since spying would be rampant.

------
glitcher
Reminds me of the old saying, if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have
guns. Maybe this would be an analogy politicians could understand better when
it comes to encryption!

Surely the analogy would break down quickly on closer inspection, but
politicians live and die by sound bites, not by thoughtful consideration and
debate of all points of view.

So to fight fire with fire, when faced with the "protect the children"
argument that stifles debate, counter with "a government who takes away
everyone's encryption is one step away from taking away everyone's guns". Then
see how that plays out with their constituents.

------
danielrpa
After normal citizens stop being able to use "unbreakable" encryption, _only_
criminals will be able to use it.

So you will get the same "terrorism" and "child pornography" as you do today,
but we won't be able to protect our privacy from state actors (or from tech
companies and their employees) who will develop the upcoming wholesome, good-
enough-for-you encryption.

By the way, is XOR considered "strong encryption"? Is it if an one time pad is
used? Just asking :).

~~~
sdfsafsawe
XOR is very strong encryption, therefore it will be illegal. And easy to
detect (random looking signal)

------
andai
Let Interpol set a good example then and voluntarily give up all their
privacy.

~~~
Razengan
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance)

------
roenxi
The issue here is that you can't stop people from using encryption; they'll
just start using a combination of encryption and steganography for example.

It isn't like we are dealing with people who are afraid to break the law.

~~~
lolc
I don't follow this argument. Compromising commonly used encryption means less
people will use hard encryption. That goes for criminals too. They won't all
just switch to a hardened scheme. Some will switch, some will go with the
compromised version, and some might even stop the criminal things they are
doing for fear of detection.

The question is whether this means it's worth compromising encryption.

~~~
hellotomyrars
I can’t imagine that a significant number of criminals who are involved in
sexual exploitation of children would suddenly be unmasked due to any
government imposed rules about encryption. At best you’d have a small wave of
folks caught off guard.

The "question” is a false premise. You can’t stop people form using
encryption. The people who are strongly motivated to use it to cover their
criminal activity (the more heinous the more motivated they’re likely to be)
are still going to. The knock-on effect is that you give the police and
governments the keys to the kingdom against people who are probably not
committing heinous crimes.

The abuse potential increases with little to nothing gained for the rule of
law and the common person.

People have been committing crime and hiding them (the key component to not
getting caught it turns out) since humans decided to implement laws. Weakening
encryption isn’t going to stop that and it’s a hollow argument.

~~~
lolc
> You can’t stop people form using encryption.

This is repeated often but that doesn't make it any truer. Legislation can
make people use ineffective encryption, or prevent the use of it. Remember
when SSL certificates had 48 bits effective key length? It was legislation
that caused this. People used bad encryption because of the legislation.
Remember when PGP was the only end-to-end messaging scheme widely available?
Only very few people used it. Its reach was hampered by legislation. (In part;
let's not forget bad usability.)

Most people are unaware how the services they use are protecting them from
eavesdropping. Sure some are careful and research the failure modes in the
security of their communications. And some would go to any length to keep
their communications encrypted. But the less mainstream it is, the easier it
is for them to fuck it up. Suppose due to legislation no apps in the Google
Play store can do reliable end-to-end: Suddenly you have these "privacy
conscious" people downloading an App binary from some random site because they
heard it was "good". Yeah right we know how that story goes.

By all means, argue that ubiquitous encryption increases security for all of
us. And I'm your friend. But don't go claiming that compromising mainstream
encryption wouldn't hamper security for the bad guys. Because it absolutely
would. Like for the rest of us!

------
t0ddbonzalez
A predictable call to arms - only criminals use encryption, right?

The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers and
money launderers

[https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1999/1...](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1999/1874)

------
mirimir
I bet that Interpol uses VPNs without backdoors.

~~~
newguy1234
They probably use TOR.

------
boomlinde
Of course, if a child predator really wants to conceal their communication and
it's not built into the chat service, they can do so using, say, PGP and some
sort of steganography.

On the other hand, that law enforcement agencies can catch criminals today
using e.g. Messenger means that there are criminals that are not careful or
savvy enough to do so.

IMO end-to-end encrypted chat should be regarded as private eye-to-eye
conversation. It's understandably convenient for law enforcement if it isn't.
In the end, that a criminal can say something incriminating to another in
private is not a new problem.

~~~
koheripbal
I understand that child predators are thrown around a lot as an example of why
backdoors are needed - but, in reality, it's the worst example.

The crimes that warrant a violation of public privacy would need to be those
that create _systemic_ risk. Like on the order of the 9-11 attacks that were
so disruptive to the entire country that they merit a (temporary) privacy
sacrifice.

Child predators are used for their emotional bait, because everyone agrees
they are hated, but for all the horror they inflict, they do not cause a
systemic problem.

------
rootsudo
If it wasn't already posted:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse)

------
self_awareness
Next step:

"Is he using encryption? If yes, he might be a child predator!"

------
prirun
IMO, the reason they always use the child abuse excuse for encryption
backdoors is evident in this thread discussion.

Nearly all people are against child abuse / porn. But if a person says "I'm
not willing to give up secure encryption worldwide just because it is used for
child abuse / porn", a pile of people will say "It's not acceptable for one
child to be abused!"

Of course it's not acceptable. But should everyone in the _entire world_ lose
their privacy, even if it eliminated all child abuse, which obviously it
won't?

To me, these encryption backdoor ideas are rarely about law enforcement. They
are about people in power wanting to maintain and extend their power.

Criminals who want to use unbreakable encryption will _always_ have easy
access to it because encryption is an easy technology that anyone can use.
Governments can make whatever laws they want, but it will mainly affect law-
abiding citizens. The criminals will just ignore them, as always.

The people pushing this backdoor encryption agenda are not stupid. They know
that criminals will ignore these new backdoor rules, which is why I believe it
is really about power, not child porn.

------
Iv
Fight against pedophilia has always been one of the common excuses (the other
being terrorism) used to install spying devices everywhere, even despite very
few actual organizations that fight the problem actually asking for such
things.

I would be sad to hear that it would indeed be a useful tool, because the
behavior of western government in the last 20 years at least makes it
impossible to trust them on that one.

~~~
AdrianB1
There is a huge part of the public that does not understand the implications
of encryption, but they are moved by any mention of fighting against evil (and
pedophilia is a scare for most) and these people have the right to vote. With
enough propaganda, they would vote happily on anything, so this particular one
is an easy one.

------
AndrewBissell
"citing predators"

So, where is Ghislaine Maxwell? Shouldn't the all-seeing panopticon we've
_already_ constructed be able to pinpoint her location at a moment's notice?
I'll believe all this surveillance is really about "predators" the day I see
her taken into custody.

------
rebuilder
Have any of these proposals to require companies to provide access to law
enforcement included any concrete suggestion of how, exactly it should be done
without also providing access to bad actors?

It sounds like Interpol et al. are just saying "make 1 + 1 = 3" and expecting
the nerds to figure it out.

------
peterwwillis
There must be an algorithm that we can apply to show what such a change will
have for society. If the probability is that the change is negligible, we
should consider allowing it. But if the probability is that the change is
overwhelmingly "bad", we should not allow it. Let's not argue from ignorance.
What are the numbers? What are the ethics?

For example: Say if we listened in on all connections, we would catch an extra
200 predators. But we also know that several hundred million people's private
conversations would be scrutinized by government(s). We know from historical
precedent that letting child predators go unnoticed means more children get
abused. But we also know from historical precedent that governments
scrutinizing otherwise private information about citizens leads to abuses of
government's powers, and of citizens' rights.

An algorithm could show estimates, such as "for this given change in the US,
1,750,000 people's rights may be potentially violated for every 1 new predator
arrested". But if the value was actually 5,000 additional predators caught,
this would become "70,000 people's rights potentially violated for every 1
predator caught". This is of course a very wacky over-generalization based on
some ballparked numbers, which is why an algorithm with more data could give
more realistic probabilities.

But also from the other side of the algorithm, you could look at our
historical access to privacy. Telephones and mail have been monitored in the
past by law enforcement. Now that we have privacy, we don't want to give it
up. But would it actually benefit society more to have less privacy? Again,
you tune the algorithm to take data about when we had privacy and when we
didn't, what the outcomes were, and what the potential new outcomes are from a
change. It could be that as a society, we actually don't significantly benefit
from, or could do without, total privacy of remote communications. But then
again, our transactions weren't all remote. All of these considerations (and
more) if compiled in some way that could be easily analyzed, may lead to a
conclusion that is easier to reason about.

~~~
raxxorrax
> Telephones and mail have been monitored in the past by law enforcement

But is that in any way comparable with automated surveillance? I think a
fitting analogue would be having every mail scanned and archived. Different
circumstances...

I doubt the numbers game you are proposing would net any insights, since it
has a hidden premise that child trafficking can only be prevented with
restricting encryption.

------
tehjoker
We need to solve child porn, but law enforcement always uses this example when
talking about encryption to help us forget that the state is the enemy. When
people start demanding concessions from the state in the midst of an economic
crisis, the state will use its powers to suppress protests and ensure wealth
continues to concentrate in the upper strata.

We see this in revolutions all over the world at this very moment. The state
is dangerous and the police are not to be trusted in this way. The police
stand against a democratic and equitable society. We must never forget this.

------
LeftHandPath
Banning encryption is like requiring that all your walls be made of glass and
that the police can search your home at any time, for any reason, without
warrant.

A personal electronic device, and the connections made with it, are extensions
of the person and their respective home. A literal ban on encryption is
probably the single largest step any government could take towards becoming a
dystopic, tyrannic, borderline-criminal entity.

(I originally posted this comment under my reddit account, /u/lovecars.)

~~~
cr0sh
Note that the politicians and the law enforcement people (and the government
by extension) will have walls built you can't see thru...

...gee, where do you think all the criminality will be occurring then?

In a way, they'd be figuratively shooting themselves in the foot. Right now,
they can somewhat get away with their criminality, because they are more or
less noise in the signal - since everyone has "walls" that can't be seen thru.

If they get their way with this kind of legislation, you know there will be an
exception for them.

Once the people realize that the criminality continues, they will look around
and say "well how's that possible? if only criminals use
encryption...<lightbulb turns on>" \- and then they become the targets of the
people.

Of course, the people should have realized this NOW - not later...

------
microcolonel
Criminals lock their doors, you're not a criminal, are you?

------
upofadown
The "going dark" issue has been known for something like 30 years now. Law
enforcement has had a _lot_ of warning. Instead of modifying why way they did
things they instead wasted their time by buying various sort of cracking
technologies. Any idiot could see that such technologies were a stopgap
measure. Now those technologies are not working very well, or at all, and law
enforcement is acting all surprised and outraged.

------
pacifika
On the other land, do you want to live in a lawless society where there is
freedom but no personal safety, and why would the internet be any different in
that regard?

The assumption is to let law enforcement do their job with safeguards in place
to prevent overreach. The tech community are in a good position to monitor
overreach and provide transparency, right?

------
danesparza
This reminds me of the cypherpunk movement in the early 1990's (more
information:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk)
). We have seen this kind of threat before. We need organizations like the EFF
and ACLU more than ever.

------
tanto
Are they not aware that could equally condemn walls as having 4 off them at
night protects predators equally? /s

------
CryptoPunk
I see this as an existential threat to human civilization. It poses a very
significant risk of creating power asymmetries between the politically
connected elite and the masses that lead to highly unstable social hierarchies
where states have total control over their population.

------
journalctl
You can do encryption with a pen, paper, and a calculator. The genie is out of
the bottle at this point.

------
specialist
I'm unclear how this could help law enforcement deter or solve crimes.

eg Why does the FBI need to unlock a spree shooter's iPhone _AFTER_ the mass
killing? What new information could they possibly learn? That the now dead
murderer had mac & cheese for dinner beforehand?

------
GhettoMaestro
This is nothing more than an extension of technology enabling both good actors
and bad actors. I refuse to penalize/water-down technology solutions available
to good actors because there are a handful of bad actors that make some of us
clutch our pearls.

------
eternalny1
How can they prevent this?

What if I secure my messages with a known passphrase inside a picture of a
rainbow using steganography?

Are they just talking about decrypting the big players like Facebook Messenger
and iMessage? Because you can't "prevent" encryption.

~~~
tasubotadas
They can't. That's why legitimate users won't be able to use encryption
(because it's against the law) and criminals will still continue using it
because they can and they don't care.

------
lunias
This ask presupposes a huge amount of trust which simply isn't justified
considering the history of governments. I prefer my trust to be guaranteed;
with like, y'know, cryptography.

------
shrubble
Look at the Marc Dutroux case, where evidence clearly suggested that the
predators' network was located inside the government itself... gives a new
light to Interpol's views.

------
juskrey
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pedophrasty](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pedophrasty)

------
jonny383
I hate to say it, but us (citizens of the internet), are fighting a losing
battle. Gone are the days of the internet being an open, connected hub for
worldwide culture.

------
deogeo
Dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21559957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21559957)

~~~
tomhoward
It's only a dupe if another submission of the same article/topic already had
solid upvoting and discussion:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20significant%20attention&sort=byDate&type=comment)

------
aussiegreenie
I always like to quote the Golden Thread of British Justice, "It is better ten
guilty men go free than one innocent man goes to jail"

------
vcavallo
throughout history, bad people protected themselves from good people using the
same technologies by which good people protected themselves from bad people.

if you remove the former, you also lose the latter. there’s nothing more to
it. anyone advocating for removing the former must first be clear that they
are abdicating the latter. any other framing is a lie.

------
commandlinefan
"It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect
ourselves with mathematics." \-- Bruce Schneier

------
danmg
Jeffery Epstein used unencrypted burned CDs/DVDs for his child porn.

Also, did Interpol ever ground his plane---the Lolita Express?

------
Gatsky
Lots of criticism here, fair enough, it’s very worrying to give non-
transparent institutions this kind of power, not to mention the technical
feasibility.

But... what should be done about child pornography, then? The ability to
disseminate it with impunity is a problem we can’t just pretend doesn’t exist.
Using online platforms pedophiles can monetize and go full time professional
in countries where children are easily exploited. Nobody is coming to save
those kids.

~~~
pixelpoet
If we're going to throw out anything and everything to win that unwinnable
battle, first goes encryption, then cameras, then computers, and then finally
all humans after puberty.

Obviously there must be some reasonable limit, and making all encryption
illegal (or just for civilians, and then shady stuff will start happening
under govt and corporate encryption) is truly throwing the baby out with the
bathwater, in that digital society can no longer function.

We don't stop selling knives because some people get stabbed with them, they
still sell AR-15s in America despite ridiculously frequent mass shootings, so
I can't see where the logic is coming from for making encryption illegal.

~~~
Gatsky
Yes I agree with you. But at the same time, I don’t feel comfortable knowing
what is going on and just accepting that it is a cost of liberty. We are
talking about the worst, most harmful most exploitative human behaviour that
destroys lives. If we can’t introduce some nuance and proportionality here
then well I think we are doomed.

Guns aren’t a good example... I mean guns are regulated? There isn’t total
liberty there.

~~~
soraminazuki
Well, encryption doesn't cause child exploitation, very much like how the air
we (and criminals alike) breathe doesn't either. Limitations of police powers
are there for a very good reason, and it's not like there wasn't much crime
when they were introduced. I think it's short-sighted to give up our civil
liberties because of crime.

------
ars
I had an idea that a decent compromise is to limit keystrength, but not have
any kind of backdoor.

This way the vast majority of communication is protected, and the government
can't just spy en mass.

But, if there was some specific target they could throw a lot of computing
resources at it. But they would need to know in advance who to target, they
couldn't just have a wide dragnet.

Thoughts?

~~~
ffe44
If a cipher can be broken by the government, it can also be broken by narco
cartels or mafia states. The targets will be key decision makers, not regular
citizens, but their decisions, coerced by those mafia states, will harm
regular citizens.

Unlike physical locks, breaking encrypted data doesn't need physical presence.
This means that not just local authorities under an elected Sheriff can break
into one's house, but also completely random people from say China or KSA can
teleport in, break in and kidnap the data.

In the near future we'll have a brain-to-computer-to-internet interface. This
will be a big leap forward or backwards as it can be used for rapid
collaboration or total undisputable survelliance for a greedy dictator. The
crypthography case today will set the precedent for tomorrow. Btw, even the
24/7 thoughts monitoring can be used for good: someone really advanced, a
saint-like person, could be giving advice on what's wrong with your thoughts.
But we understand that the humanity is far from this level of maturity.

------
growlist
If only the police would show as much enthusiasm towards catching low-tech
predators.

------
stevefan1999
Sigh. They use child sexual abuse as a scapegoat again.

------
moomin
The link provided, of course, is https.

------
sgjohnson
They could have simultaneously wrapped it in "protect the children" and
"national security"

------
auslander
I will continue using strong crypto for all my data even if it will be
illegal. Cyberpunks not dead.

