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authorKévin Le Gouguec <kevin.legouguec@gmail.com>2019-05-04 22:39:20 +0200
committerKévin Le Gouguec <kevin.legouguec@gmail.com>2019-05-04 22:41:06 +0200
commitf925746e0959bbac13bef08fc70f326a8a58818a (patch)
tree4f26beb81e9b1df9e869795af10fc839ef900d07
parenta3bd3c43fa8faa9c0fe6aaa6dfa02e3d3d8bdbb9 (diff)
downloadmemory-leaks-f925746e0959bbac13bef08fc70f326a8a58818a.tar.xz
Add notes on (politically-charged) crypto articles
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# Peniblec's Memory Leaks
-## still reachable: 7415 words in 16 pages
+## still reachable: 7894 words in 17 pages
Hi! I am a software engineer interested in [a bunch of things].
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+# Phillip Rogaway - The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work
+
+:::: tags
+- Cryptography
+- Society
+::::
+
+An appeal to cryptographers to ponder on the [Russell-Einstein
+manifesto], consider the moral implications of their work, take a step
+back from "crypto-for-crypto", and focus on "crypto-for-privacy" (or,
+to name the threat more explicitly, "anti-surveillance research").
+
+Harps on FBI Director James Comey's "law-enforcement framing":
+
+> 1. Privacy is *personal* good. It's about your desire to control
+> personal information about you.
+> 2. Security, on the other hand, is a *collective* good. It's about
+> living in a safe and secure world.
+> 3. Privacy and security are inherently in conflict. As you
+> strengthen one, you weaken the other. We need to find the right
+> *balance*.
+> 4. Modern communications technology has destroyed the former
+> balance. It's been a boon to privacy, and a blow to security.
+> Encryption is especially threatening. Our laws just haven't kept
+> up.
+> 5. Because of this, *bad guys* may win. The bad guys are
+> terrorists, murderers, child pornographers, drug traffickers, and
+> money launderers. The technology that we good guys use - the bad
+> guys use it too, to escape detection.
+> 6. At this point, we run the risk of Going Dark. Warrants will be
+> issued, but, due to encryption, they'll be meaningless. We're
+> becoming a country of unopenable closets. Default encryption may
+> make a good marketing pitch, but it's reckless design. It will
+> lead us to a very dark place.
+
+This framing is dismissed as "inconsistent with the history of
+intelligence gathering, and with the NSA's own mission statement",
+without further explanation.
+
+I wish the author had spent some prose explaining how exactly this
+framing is fallacious. There is a footnote providing some references,
+but as far as I can tell these references mainly reinforce the point
+that the NSA's surveillance methods are a threat to privacy; it is not
+obvious how "the NSA overreaches" contradicts "it's harder to catch
+bad guys once they get better crypto".
+
+For what it's worth, I found that [Aaron Brantly's
+article](#aaron-brantly---banning-encryption-to-stop-terrorists-a-worse-than-futile-excercise)
+does a better job at showing the shortsightedness of this line of
+reasoning, as does this footnote:
+
+> When crypto is outlawed only outlaws will have crypto.
+
+[Russell-Einstein manifesto]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%E2%80%93Einstein_Manifesto
+
+# Aaron Brantly - Banning Encryption to Stop Terrorists: A Worse than Futile Excercise
+
+:::: tags
+- Cryptography
+- Society
+::::
+
+The debate can be phrased as follows:
+
+> Is increasing security in one narrow area worth degrading it in
+> every other?
+
+Answering "yes" overlooks two things:
+
+1. Weakening officially distributed encryption will not impact
+ terrorists, who will simply move to new, unregulated platforms.
+
+2. Once they have done that, we end up in a situation where lawful
+ citizens are stuck with insecure communication channels, and
+ terrorists are the only ones benefiting from state-of-the-art
+ confidentiality/integrity/authenticity.