> Law enforcement has more power than ever before because of digital technology.
When a fraction gets larger overall, and both the numerator and denominator have changed, it can be difficult to say which quantity is to blame.
Digital technology has given potential bad guys new powers too: you can get radicalised online, you can download bomb-making manuals (over TOR, if you have any sense), or you can get involved in phishing and ransomware and crypto rug-pulls and other cybercrime that wouldn't exist without technology. In some ways, law enforcement has much less power than ever before.
That does not automatically mean I'm for, or against, any specific bill. But it does mean that an intellectually honest pro-privacy answer has to acknowledge this and then make an argument why the benefits of end-to-end encryption outweigh the risks - which, personally speaking, I don't think is that hard an argument to make.
(Part of such an argument might be that, in areas where law enforcement has less power than before, it's because the crimes involve people or servers outside of their jurisdiction. Banning e2e whatsapp from e.g. one US citizen to another would do precisely nothing about that.)
Great. Ted Kaczynski and a host of other malfeasants were radicalized through books and philosophy but we didnt turn public libraries into listening posts or start banning books wholesale. since theres no tangible KPI it can also be argued most netizens do not get radicalized online. the best defense against radicalization is education and open discussion. prevention, instead of detection.
> you can get involved in phishing and ransomware and crypto rug-pulls and other cybercrime that wouldn't exist without technology.
confidence art is a tale as old as time itself. that somehow because criminal activity takes place online I am supposed to hand a duplicate key to all my locks over to the state is a pretty weak argument.
Your moral outrage is not a convincing argument to those who would consider the authorities having a master key.
Technology _does_ give criminals and terrorists new avenues and techniques to commit harm.
If you want to convince people who think "well I have nothing to hide from the authorities and I'm scared of terrorists so I'd prefer authorities be able to read what they need to keep me safe" then you need a stronger argument that acknowledges how technology also enables nefarious ones.
Because ultimately those are the people you have to convince, as there's a lot of them and they're ready to vote in favour.
Moral outrage just gets those of us who agree nodding along.
id argue no, ultimately the voice of cowardice and ignorance does not deserve equal vote. A child understands a kitchen stove, but isnt given wholesale authority to ban them when theyre burned.
people who cannot understand the implications of security outside of rare events and pop culture should not be invited to participate in the legislation of its outcome. its how you wind up with things like the TSA.
i acquiesce the reality of democracy is something entirely different though.
I am not, in the post, claiming either that we should or should not create a magical duplicate skeleton key. I am claiming that a rigorous argument against creating such a key would have to take into account online crime as it exists today, and argue why we still shouldn't attempt to create a back-door marked "good guys only". There are many forms this argument could take: that the back-door would be useless for its intended purpose; that the harm would outweigh the benefits; that it would be unconstitutional etc. etc.
The one argument I will not accept _against_ a back-door is that online crime is not a real problem. This just hands the pro-back-door community a massive stick to beat the other side with.
By the way,
> but we didnt turn public libraries into listening posts
As far as I know, my local library doesn't have Al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine, nor The Anarchist's Cookbook. I haven't checked for sure though, just in case it is in fact a listening post - people have landed on no-fly lists for stupid reasons before now.
(Weirdly enough, during the Cold War, Switzerland quite officially published a book called Total Resistance (Der Totale Widerstand) and made it available in at least some public libraries. It was a basically a manual of "how to become a ~~terrorist~~ resistance fighter if the Soviets invade".)
> confidence art is a tale as old as time itself
That is entirely true, but it seems to me there's a lot more of it around since the internet made it a lot easier to get in the business.
On the topic of "outside of their jurisdiction", one method used by overseas scammers is spoofing phone numbers to make calls and SMS messages appear local, providing at least an initial layer of legitimacy.
How (the actual fuck) can telecomms companies not have this under control? (I know it has to be much more complicated than I could fathom, but on the other hand, are they not in control of their own networks? If not, that's pretty scary given the telecomms industry is both highly profitable and powerful).
This problem doesn't need a master key, it needs appropriate regulation to bring said telecomms companies slightly further away from a status of complete dereliction of duty.
When a fraction gets larger overall, and both the numerator and denominator have changed, it can be difficult to say which quantity is to blame.
Digital technology has given potential bad guys new powers too: you can get radicalised online, you can download bomb-making manuals (over TOR, if you have any sense), or you can get involved in phishing and ransomware and crypto rug-pulls and other cybercrime that wouldn't exist without technology. In some ways, law enforcement has much less power than ever before.
That does not automatically mean I'm for, or against, any specific bill. But it does mean that an intellectually honest pro-privacy answer has to acknowledge this and then make an argument why the benefits of end-to-end encryption outweigh the risks - which, personally speaking, I don't think is that hard an argument to make.
(Part of such an argument might be that, in areas where law enforcement has less power than before, it's because the crimes involve people or servers outside of their jurisdiction. Banning e2e whatsapp from e.g. one US citizen to another would do precisely nothing about that.)