[djillionsmix]

>These are new powers that the government started to acquire

Why do people here persistently insist, even after being corrected, that the government's 228 year old authority to conduct warranted search and seizure is some kind of shadowy and scary "new power"?

The government has always had the right to look at your photos, listen to your calls, and read your mail, when you are legitimately suspected of a crime.

Nowadays all those things are on your phone, so the government has the right to search your phone, when you are legitimately suspected of a crime.

Nothing about this is in any way new, and it's grossly dishonest to continue to claim that it is.

>By definition of guaranteeing access to encrypted data, they will be required to maintain such weaknesses. It'd be catastrophic for our tech industry and my future as a software engineer.

Maybe it legitimately is the case that it's impossible for techies to ensure warranted government access without guaranteeing that same access to any and every hacker on Earth.

But the more I read these doomsday scenarios from people who are mystified by the one-sentence, 64-word text of the 4th amendment, the less I'm able to believe them.

[hamburglar]

I'm within my rights if I write a bunch of jibberish on a piece of paper which represents some secret coding of my personal thoughts, and I refuse to tell you how to decode it. The government can get a warrant allowing them to look at that piece of paper, but as far as I know, they have never had the ability to compel me to explain how to interpret it.

In my opinion, encrypted data should effectively be treated like secret thoughts you may or may not reveal to others or something you've hidden so well nobody will find it. They can analyze the ciphertext, and they can attempt to use surveillance techniques to get you to reveal your secret/key/hidingplace, but compelling you to help them get those things goes too far.

[studentrob]

> Why do people here persistently insist, even after being corrected, that the government's 228 year old authority to conduct warranted search and seizure is some kind of shadowy and scary "new power"?

I'm not talking about the 228 year old law. I'm talking about the government's ability to collect information about conversations you had 10 years ago after a suspected crime which occurred, say, last week. This massive collection of data creates an imbalance between safety and potential data breaches and abuses.

> Nothing about this is in any way new, and it's grossly dishonest to continue to claim that it is.

Please read my comments carefully. You misunderstand my meaning

> But the more I read these doomsday scenarios from people who are mystified by the one-sentence, 64-word text of the 4th amendment, the less I'm able to believe them.

You can educate yourself and make up your own mind. You shouldn't believe or disbelieve a certain position based on the attitude of the person from whom you get your information. It's as unfortunate to miss the truth because of a terrible presenter (think of your worst science teacher) as it is to gulp down misinformation because it is presented in simple terms (think Trump). I've written tons of comments on HN about this issue with many citations. Here are detailed responses to Sam Harris [1] and President Obama [2]

To date, I feel the most compelling argument comes from Senator Lindsey Graham's position. He was initially very supportive of the DOJ's position, and publicly called for Apple to comply. Later, after researching the topic and questioning Attorney General Loretta Lynch, he found his view changed [3]

I also have a summary of recent events here [4]

[1] https://pastelink.net/151k

[2] https://pastelink.net/1555

[3] https://youtu.be/uk4hYAwCdhU?t=1m44s

[4] https://np.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/49otvu/...

[djillionsmix]

>I'm talking about the government's ability to collect information about conversations you had 10 years ago after a suspected crime which occurred, say, last week.

You know that people used to put a lot of their conversations onto paper, right?

If you kept your ten year old letters, and the government had cause to believe you'd committed a bunch of crimes (maybe you hadn't? you seem like an all right guy, the government probably just goofed, these things happen), it could go and search your ten year old conversations and see if they contained proof of you committing a bunch of crimes.

The fact that we uses electrons and binary math instead of paper and ink doesn't change anything at all.

>Here are detailed responses to Sam Harris [1] and President Obama [2]

I appreciate the effort but these read like the same doomsday scenarios where it's just treated as an inevitable given that providing a method of government access is directly equivalent to providing access to any and every hacker.

>there will be data breaches, people will be upset, they won't buy iPhones, and this industry will disappear from the US overnight

This is the kind of doomsaying I'm talking about. Most people don't buy iPhones for their disk encryption, they buy iPhones because they're shiny and have the apple logoand you can do facebook with them. The PSN breach didn't stop Sony from selling 35 million playstation 4s; an iPhone breach would inconvenience some people, be embarrassing for apple, and then everyone would continue on buying iPhones because the alternative is to not buy an iPhone, which most iPhone owners would consider about as acceptable as cutting off one of their own hands.

[studentrob]

> You know that people used to put a lot of their conversations onto paper, right?

We're talking past each other. Sorry, I did my best to explain another perspective for you.

[justaaron]

You are completely ignoring the singularly unique aspect of digital communications which enables unprecedented new powers, period:

Storage. History. Digital communications like email are stored, and can be stored FOREVER... with just a flip of a switch, a word, an order, a warrant...

One does not have a pile of previous analog telephone calls just waiting to be scooped up and analyzed retro-actively

Anyone can see that if I can run all your data backwards through retro-actively invented filters, I have a power that has no parallel in the analog world: For example: they didn't stop the Boston Bombers, so they change the algorithms until when they run everything again, it lines up.

This is seriously scary stuff, and it's a double-edged sword. I feel that it goes too far in giving power to these wanna-be-omniscient agents.

I'm not comfortable having ANY human omniscient agents. I don't give a rat's behind how "noble" or "sacred" their mission statement is... bad people will abuse such powers and they already are doing so...