Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by natch 2309 days ago
The part about tech geniuses being able to solve a problem that can't be solved without violating principles of mathematics.

You probably don't think you said that though, because you missed the point yourself. It's a common mistake. You're in good company, plenty of smart politicians and national leaders have the same misconception. It's often stated in terms like "if we could put a man on the moon, all the smart people in Silicon Valley should be able to put their heads together and figure this out." But it doesn't work that way.

Aside from being wrong, which in itself doesn't deserve a downvote, it's also poorly thought out and a seductive yet destructive line of thinking, which arguably does deserve one.

1 comments

I’m suggesting to rethink the problem fundamentally. Minimize abuses of an exceptional access system. The problem with purely technical folks is often an inability to socially transcend from their techno libertarian ideals

And my statement wasn’t entirely wrong. You can legally prevent large entities from using strong E2EE thus “stopping” the math to some degree - or minimize/isolate the usage of those munitions.

It might be more accurate to say “you can’t stop everyone from trying to use the known math”. And this is likely an acceptable compromise to LE. Reduce the entropy.

Still not clear what I’ve said that’s false.

And, as per another comment, you can claim that the problem isn’t solvable when a compromise aims to minimize the abuses not necessarily eliminate them (although that would also be acceptable).

As it’s possible this will be legally required it makes sense to work towards a compromise instead of arguing on principles that may be strictly true (3>2, how to trust the 3rd wheel, for instance)

>my statement wasn’t entirely wrong.

A ringing defense.

>rethink the problem fundamentally.

Any (yes any) exceptional access aka backdoor scheme will be a magnet for bad actors. So here's a rethinking for you: rethink the notion that privacy needs to be subject to compromise.