[Cryptography] propaganda on "hurdles for law enforcement"

[Benjamin Kreuter]

On Sat, 2014-07-26 at 01:01 -0400, grarpamp wrote:
> > I don't see any technical/cryptological way to defeat the
> > proposed US law;  it looks like a political problem that
> > needs to be dealt with by political means.
> 
> Proliferation is a political means. Keep on proliferating,
> proliferate widely, proliferate fast, get all your friends and
> business on it, get the public on it, remove the capability
> for legacy plaintext, and embed and entrench crypto
> deeper than the Marianas.

That is probably not going to work.  Suppose we lived in such a world
and the government established a "lawful intercept requirement."  Ten
years later all the newest software and devices on the market would have
back doors, and only a small group of hackers and activists would be
using good crypto.  Even that small group would have to use the
backdoor'd products for day-to-day things like banking.

The government has a lot of experience with phasing out products, even
when it requires coordinating individual households.  Analog TV is gone
despite the proliferation of analog receivers.  Tetraethyl lead is only
used for niche purposes like aviation, despite the fact that once upon a
time people drive cars designed for leaded fuel.  The government could
treat cryptography the same way if it wished.

> Also, call/visit/write your MP/congresscritter and give them your
> concerns about backdoors and your freedom/rights, your life being
> meta'd, recorded, analyzed and stored forever for no good reason (for
> which an interest in crypto and speech isn't one).

Yes, do this, but bear in mind that high-minded ideals carry less weight
than fear.  Here in the USA people are convinced that dangerous
criminals are lurking behind every corner, and so it is difficult for a
politician to explain why they voted against giving more power to the
police.  People keep hearing about child abusers that use cryptography
to evade capture -- how is a politician supposed to tell people that it
is wrong to create back doors when the police are saying that back doors
would help them protect the children?

The importance of privacy and related civil rights are hard to explain
to people who never lived under the Stasi or the Securitate.  People
have trouble understanding why it is a problem for the police to receive
help from the NSA.  The immediate threat of a child predator living near
a school is easier to comprehend than the long-term danger of tyranny.

Unfortunately some of the technical arguments made in the 90s are harder
to make today.  Hushmail has hundreds of thousands of users, despite
having an obvious backdoor that has been used on numerous occasions to
respond to warrants.  Lavabit had given plaintexts to the government
several times before its spectacular shutdown.  The government can point
to these popular services as successful examples of the kind of thing it
wants, and we are left talking about hypothetical dangers.

You should write to your representatives, because that is part of the
power you have.  I am not terribly hopeful, though, as the last time I
wrote to my congressman about this issue I received a generic reply
about the importance of keeping our communities safe.

-- Ben

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