Comment by rich_sasha
16 days ago
I don't know to what extent this is true. A lot of criminals strike me as good at chopping off fingers etc but not computer stuff.
There absolutely is a balance between Average Joe's right to privacy and privacy restrictions for fighting crime. Without undermining the former, I'm astounded how HN discounts the latter 100%. It is real.
I disagree. There should no compromise on my privacy ever. We are not (yet) in a dictatorship and I’m not a criminal. Why should I suffer because governments are incompetent?
Devil's advocate: we accept compromise of people's basic freedom of movement (via arrest) when under investigation. Even though we know a non-negligible amount are innocent, virtually everyone considers it a necessary compromise
Perhaps part of the difference is that the public acknowledge this as a necessary _evil_ and get rightly outraged when they hear of people being detained without good cause. But with privacy, especially electronic privacy, almost nobody cares when "we will only allow a small number of agents to use this for imminent terrorist danger" inevitably turns to "we will let any random council worker casually pull up every website you've been to with no warrant"
A compromise here is not technically possible. There is no half crypto. Crypto with a backdoor is not crypto.
Someone's encrypted files should be regarded to be in the same category as material they memorized in their brain. Off limits.
Find some other way to get evidence about their wrongdoing to convict them.
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In a situation where a criminal used Whatsapp and decrypting it is needed for the conviction, why should I suffer because of your absolute views on privacy?
I hold neither of the extreme views, and frankly I am baffled by anyone in either of them.
In a situation where an accused criminal used Whatsapp and decrypting it is needed to view the content which may or not lead to a conviction. This ridiculous idea that law enforcement knows people are guilty and it is these pesky rights that keep getting in the way is just false. Police regularly and consistently abuse their power to railroad people and take the easiest path to convicting someone.
Even in situations where citizen rights do “get in the way” of convicting the guilt, that is the price we pay to not be thrown in jail for crimes we didn’t commit. Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said “It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest.” He also said “Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order... and the like.”
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Because the latter are fucking pathological liars who maintain a rachet stealing away rights. They earned their reflexsive distrust.
Something something ounce of freedom something something safety something something deserves neither