Thank you, this is a perfect example of the type of inconsistencies I’m talking about when discussing these issues. The prior comment says encryption saves lives and that is accepted without question, but the idea that empowering law enforcement saves lives is met with a request for evidence. Why did you not reply to both claims the same way?
And if you truly believe that finding and arresting criminals does not make us safer, that is an indictment of our entire justice system. It would also make license plate cameras a rather silly place to draw the line.
Encryption seems highly likely to have saved many people from, say, losing their life savings by having their banking credentials hijacked.
I am less certain about license plate cameras. Hence, the ask. I will leave the questioning of encryption up to someone who actually questions its utility.
Can you genuinely not think of situations in which law enforcement being able to pin a specific vehicle to a time and place might help them catch dangerous criminals or be used as evidence in a trial to help get them convicted?
I think it's because you don't have to look too hard to find examples of authoritarian regimes leveraging information technologies for surveillance, censorship, and propaganda. Or how US government agencies use loopholes to get around the 4th amendment and buy sensitive civilian data from private data brokers. Or how data breaches are becoming larger and more frequent each year.
> The prior comment says encryption saves lives and that is accepted without question, but the idea that empowering law enforcement saves lives is met with a request for evidence. Why did you not reply to both claims the same way?
Even ignoring saving lives... encryption is how the entirety of societal interactions online work. Without it, we would not have _most_ of the things we rely on online, which is a large portion of things we rely on overall.
Saying that encryption is necessary for modern life is pretty much like saying food is necessary for modern life. Is it possible to live without it? Sure, but only by changing everything about modern life; for the worse.
Maybe I didn't make this clear enough prior. No one is arguing to completely remove encryption from modern life. I was criticizing how these issues are discussed. You are making an entirely different type of argument and therefore I have no problem with what you are saying here.
Thank you, this is a perfect example of the type of inconsistencies I’m talking about when discussing these issues. The prior comment says encryption saves lives and that is accepted without question, but the idea that empowering law enforcement saves lives is met with a request for evidence. Why did you not reply to both claims the same way?
And if you truly believe that finding and arresting criminals does not make us safer, that is an indictment of our entire justice system. It would also make license plate cameras a rather silly place to draw the line.
Encryption seems highly likely to have saved many people from, say, losing their life savings by having their banking credentials hijacked.
I am less certain about license plate cameras. Hence, the ask. I will leave the questioning of encryption up to someone who actually questions its utility.
Can you genuinely not think of situations in which law enforcement being able to pin a specific vehicle to a time and place might help them catch dangerous criminals or be used as evidence in a trial to help get them convicted?
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I think it's because you don't have to look too hard to find examples of authoritarian regimes leveraging information technologies for surveillance, censorship, and propaganda. Or how US government agencies use loopholes to get around the 4th amendment and buy sensitive civilian data from private data brokers. Or how data breaches are becoming larger and more frequent each year.
> The prior comment says encryption saves lives and that is accepted without question, but the idea that empowering law enforcement saves lives is met with a request for evidence. Why did you not reply to both claims the same way?
Even ignoring saving lives... encryption is how the entirety of societal interactions online work. Without it, we would not have _most_ of the things we rely on online, which is a large portion of things we rely on overall.
Saying that encryption is necessary for modern life is pretty much like saying food is necessary for modern life. Is it possible to live without it? Sure, but only by changing everything about modern life; for the worse.
Maybe I didn't make this clear enough prior. No one is arguing to completely remove encryption from modern life. I was criticizing how these issues are discussed. You are making an entirely different type of argument and therefore I have no problem with what you are saying here.