articles.org (3335B)
1 * The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work :crypto:society: 2 An appeal to cryptographers to ponder on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%E2%80%93Einstein_Manifesto][Russell-Einstein 3 manifesto]], consider the moral implications of their work, take a step 4 back from "crypto-for-crypto", and focus on "crypto-for-privacy" (or, 5 to name the threat more explicitly, "anti-surveillance research"). 6 7 Harps on FBI Director James Comey's "law-enforcement framing": 8 9 #+begin_quote 10 1. Privacy is /personal/ good. It's about your desire to control 11 personal information about you. 12 2. Security, on the other hand, is a /collective/ good. It's about 13 living in a safe and secure world. 14 3. Privacy and security are inherently in conflict. As you strengthen 15 one, you weaken the other. We need to find the right /balance/. 16 4. Modern communications technology has destroyed the former balance. 17 It's been a boon to privacy, and a blow to security. Encryption is 18 especially threatening. Our laws just haven't kept up. 19 5. Because of this, /bad guys/ may win. The bad guys are terrorists, 20 murderers, child pornographers, drug traffickers, and money 21 launderers. The technology that we good guys use - the bad guys 22 use it too, to escape detection. 23 6. At this point, we run the risk of Going Dark. Warrants will be 24 issued, but, due to encryption, they'll be meaningless. We're 25 becoming a country of unopenable closets. Default encryption may 26 make a good marketing pitch, but it's reckless design. It will 27 lead us to a very dark place. 28 #+end_quote 29 30 This framing is dismissed as "inconsistent with the history of 31 intelligence gathering, and with the NSA's own mission statement", 32 without further explanation. 33 34 I wish the author had spent some prose explaining how exactly this 35 framing is fallacious. There is a footnote providing some references, 36 but as far as I can tell these references mainly reinforce the point 37 that the NSA's surveillance methods are a threat to privacy; it is not 38 obvious how "the NSA overreaches" contradicts "it's harder to catch 39 bad guys once they get better crypto". 40 41 For what it's worth, I found that [[#banning-encryption-to-stop-terrorists-a-worse-than-futile-exercise][Aaron Brantly's article]] does a 42 better job at showing the shortsightedness of this line of reasoning, 43 as does this footnote: 44 45 #+begin_quote 46 When crypto is outlawed only outlaws will have crypto. 47 #+end_quote 48 * Banning Encryption to Stop Terrorists: A Worse than Futile Exercise :crypto:society: 49 The debate can be phrased as follows: 50 51 #+begin_quote 52 Is increasing security in one narrow area worth degrading it in every 53 other? 54 #+end_quote 55 56 Answering "yes" overlooks two things: 57 58 1. Weakening officially distributed encryption will not impact 59 terrorists, who will simply move to new, unregulated platforms. 60 61 2. Once they have done that, we end up in a situation where lawful 62 citizens are stuck with insecure communication channels, and 63 terrorists are the only ones benefiting from state-of-the-art 64 confidentiality/integrity/authenticity. 65 * [[https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.06171][The Usability of Ownership]] :rust: 66 I'm glad I learned "incompleteness" as a more concise way to express 67 "the borrow checker not being smart enough to accept code that does 68 not violate Rust's theoretical ownership rules".