[Cryptography] More magical encryption thinking from James Comey

[Henry Baker]

FYI --

https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/expectations-of-privacy-balancing-liberty-security-and-public-safety

Transcript

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

Video 30-minute speech + 50 minutes Q&A

(at the 74-minute mark, in response to a question, Comey admits that he put tape over his laptop camera!)

CSAD Conference Opening Address with FBI Director James Comey

Center for the Study of American Democracy Biennial Conference, Kenyon College
Gambier, OH
April 6, 2016
-------------
Example:

'every time you hear somebody making a slippery slope argument, an alarm should go off in your head. There is a reason your professors call this "slippery slope fallacy."  It could be that if you take one step you’ll inevitably fall down a slick slope, it could be.  It depends a lot on what kind of shoes you’re wearing, whether the slope is a stairs slope, and whether there’s a railing.'

(BTW, Michael Hayden wears lime-encrusted cleats on his shoes when slipping around on strongly encrypted slopes ! )
---

Even though the math community had been preparing itself for 20-30 years for the possibility/probability that arithmetic was undecidable, Goedel's results in 1931 still shook the community, and some mathematicians never recovered.

Obviously, Comey & friends are still in the "denial" stage of grief over the fact of strong encryption, and they may never come to grips with it.

Max Planck characterized this problem well: "Science advances one funeral at a time."