[9rx]

> It's not a crime to lock your home's door for protection, why would it be a crime to lock your digital door?

A locked home's door is still trivially opened. You can pick the lock or even apply simple brute force, neither of which all that difficult, and open happily it will. Similarly, I don't suppose anyone would be concerned about you using rot13 encryption. If a home could be sealed to the same degree as strong encryption, absolutely it would be a crime, for better or worse.

[kube-system]

Under what law? High security vaults are not legally controlled or prohibited in the US.

[9rx]

Which high security vault can the government not gain access to under any circumstances? I expect you'll find decent explosives or a bulldozer will get them in just fine.

[like_any_other]

So will a hardware backdoor planted by your maid, or a telescopic lens pointed at your screen, or laser microphone on your window, get them into your e2e encrypted chats.

[9rx]

Huh? The encrypted data is at rest and the only person who knew the key is dead. Your plan makes no sense.

[kube-system]

Generally the set of people who are relevant in the debate of the balance of privacy rights and criminal prosecution, are living.

Dead people are distinctly immune to prosecution, and generally granted fewer rights.

[9rx]

If you intended to reply to a different thread and accidentally ended up here instead, there is truth to what you say, but it has nothing to do with this one.

As it pertains to this thread, where the sole key holder is dead and took the knowledge with him, how do you anticipate to carry out gaining access to the data using live attacks? There are plenty of reasons why the government wants access to data even where prosecution isn't necessary.

[like_any_other]

Is encrypted data at rest belonging to dead people such a problem, that it's worth sacrificing everyone's privacy?

[9rx]

> that it's worth sacrificing everyone's privacy?

Is the appeal to emotion really necessary? Surely we can discuss the facts without devolving into some kind of "But I want that!!!" toddler behaviour?

[15155]

The issue isn't "gain access to" - it's "gain access to without destroying the contents."

Explosives and bulldozers are likely to harm whatever was motivating the entry in the first place. The vault system can be engineered to ensure this conclusion, as well.

[9rx]

The question specifically asked which one(s) you are talking about, not about your dreams. Which high security value is the government not able to gain access to?

And, sure, if enough perfectly engineered vaults were impeding the government from carrying out the activities it wants to carry out, there would be calls to make building/using such a vault illegal too. In the real world, such vaults, if they exist at all, don't meaningfully get in the way. Thus there is no reason to think about it. We don't create laws on what theoretically might be a problem in some magical imagined world. We only create laws after something is identified as an actual problem.

[15155]

> The question specifically asked which one you are talking about, not about your dreams. Which one is like that?

After your five ninja edits, it's been hard to keep up:

Glass relocker mechanisms have existed (in reality) on safe doors for decades and will often result in the destruction of contents if triggered and opening is still required.

Governments are normally seeking evidence: a stack of cash or a quantity of bulk substances are substantially harder to rig to destroy (obviating evidence gathering) than documents or data.

[9rx]

> After your five ninja edits, it's been hard to keep up

No need to reply within the first second. Take your time.

In fact, consider taking a lot more time as you still haven't named the specific vault, or set of vaults, that is causing such a big problem for the government. If we don't know what vault it is, even if your description is vague, how would anyone come to think of it as a problem? Laws are not created by some all-knowing deity. It is just people.

That such a vault might be theoretically possible to build is irrelevant.

[kube-system]

With physical access, global superpowers can break both vaults and strong encryption.

[socalgal2]

That analogy breaks because a home's locked door as the constaint that it can effectively only be visited by someone coming to that door physically. On the internet, multiple crimimals can attack all doors at all times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPBH1eW28mo

[markhahn]

This!

Scalability is the crux of why encryptions must not be infringed.

The claim that LEOs need to break encryption is based on laziness: they want to easily obtain access to communication, and at scale. They've always been able to obtain communication the hard way, and one-at-a-time - encryption doesn't change that.

[pyfon]

So in general, shit security is legal, good security is a crime?

A warehouse with shutters and bulky padlocks, a night security guard and camera system is a crime? A bank vault is a crime? Safety deposit boxes?

[9rx]

> A warehouse with shutters and bulky padlocks, a night security guard and camera system is a crime?

No, why would it be? The security guard isn't going to wage war with the police/military when they want in. The guard will politely comply to any legitimate (and probably even illegitimate) request for access.

> A bank vault is a crime? Safety deposit boxes?

Banks are heavily regulated by the government. They especially aren't going to impede access if push comes to shove.

Laws aren't created on purely theoretical grounds. They are created only when a problem that needs to be solved is identified. The government has never had much trouble accessing physical spaces when they feel a need to. They have had trouble accessing encrypted data.

[pyfon]

Ok you make good points. Now for the doozy: is thinking (without transcribing for the government) illegal.

[9rx]

> is thinking (without transcribing for the government) illegal.

Thinking without a willingness to share what you thought with the government when it feels it needs to know (e.g. in court) is illegal. Full transcription is not always legally required, but it is in some specific contexts where there have been problems getting proper disclosure. Again, laws are created to deal with actual problems, not imagined problems.

I'll note that encryption isn't illegal today. While there are some outlier cases where it has been a challenge to government, it hasn't become a big enough problem to do anything about yet. But if it reaches the point where it is deemed sufficiently problematic, it will become illegal in some kind of fashion. What that looks like is obviously to be seen. It won't necessarily be a blanket ban on all encryption, or even a ban on encryption at all, but most people are not capable of imagining anything else, so here we are.