Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Facebook under fire over encryption plans as man jailed for abusing 52 children (theguardian.com)
4 points by ximeng on Feb 10, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


For people interested in maintaining access to end-to-end encryption for consumers, this is the type of argument that needs to be countered.


Counter:

There will always be monsters, and they will always find a way. That is why vigilance and law enforcement exist.

End-to-end encryption is important because the same thing applies; by creating a system to counter the pedophile, you open the door to other monstrosities through the abuse of that mechanism.

End-to-end encryption is not an inherent issue. Ineffective, untrustworthy, and overly violent/destructive law enforcement agencies, combined with victim disarmament are. End-to-end encryption does not render law enforcement ineffective. It merely means they have to resort to well established investigatory methods instead of getting a free pass in the form of being able to trivially access content that would have been secured in the first place.

You can argue that warrant-proofing is an undesirable characteristic, but at least in the U.S., I argue the 5th Amendment covers most cases where end-to-end encryption would normally apply.

The world was never open and unencrypted by default before the Net, there is no reason it should be now.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: