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Comment by uptown | Hacker News Reader

I consider the "50% of Americans" stat to be useless. This is a complicated topic for technologists to grasp. To expect the general public to understand the implications of what they're being asked in order to provide an informed answer is a stretch.

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especially when the answer is loaded (the think of the terrorist/children/drugs trick)

It is a complicated topic but we can't just ignore general public that takes on position without realizing its implications. For decades, general public had opposed marijuana, even when half of them have used them before.

Correct. The court of public opinion may not sway technologists, but it will determine what law makers feel the need to propose, based on their constituents demands.

We have to make it very easy for the general public to understand what's going on at an incredibly simple, "oh I get it" gut level.

Simple words communicated simply will go a long ways to showing the importance of keeping good security practices in place in our tech.

Do you really think that constituent demands are what drives law creation?

To a degree, yes. But even if you take a more pessimistic stance and assume that lawmakers have an agenda that is entirely divorced from that of their constituents, they still need to manufacture consent[1]. Which means that if you get enough voters to be strongly opposed to something, it does have an effect beyond what a small group of highly informed critics can have. The political system is neither perfect, nor useless, is somewhere in between, and I say so as someone who comes from a country with political process that leans way more towards 'broken' than the U.S. one does.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

> but it will determine what law makers feel the need to propose, based on their constituents demands.

Where can I sign up for that Congress? Is that opt-in? Because that sounds great.

Probably wouldn't have the effect you are looking for. Corporations are constituents, too, being legally a person. Even if not, the owners are certainly constituents, and most large public companies have a large number of shareholders. 55% of Americans own stock (down from 62% in 2008) [1] So if that 55% constituency demands laws that you don't want, the result is that you are outvoted.

[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/182816/little-change-percentage-a...

The way you can make your voice - and everyone else's - heard is in votes. Organize a coalition against a politician you think is bad. Get donations. Run ads.

Not saying it's easy, but when it comes to election day, that politician truly does hinge on the majority of people filling in the bubble by one name. If you can make that not happen a real threat in the candidate's mind, they'll listen to your desires.

A condescending attitude won't go far though.

Not everyone will agree with you, even if you use itty bitty words they can understand. I understand the issue, even when explained in grown up words. And I don't agree.

In this case, Apple already was not "keeping good security practices in place" because they made a weak system. If they had actually made a phone that kept good security practices in place, it wouldn't be possible for them to help the FBI.

They should comply with this and then fix their crap. Then you can worry about explaining the importance of fighting any law that would undermine strong security.

This is exactly why tech/internet companies should have been spending the last year educating people about why encryption is important and just how much of their lives relies on crypto.

The FBI has been running their own propaganda campaign, but when James Comey talks about the supposed "need" for backdoors, the common response by the people that understand crypto is to talk about how stupid Comey's suggestion was, sometimes with suggestions that he must not understand how crypto works. Meanwhile, the intended audience doesn't hear how backdoors aren't possible, and now have to unlearn the lesson that is "bad".

edit:

A suggestion on how to educate people about encryption: remember why[1] Philip Zimmermann wrote pgp - to provide an envelope for network communication.

[1] https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html

You have to dumb down some of the technical aspects but this isn't a particularly complicated topic.

Think about something like climate change or vaccinations. You probably have no actual idea how it all works. But with some explanations you can understand the gist of the technical sides of those issues.

The main disconnect between the tech crowd and the general public isn't technical knowledge but values. A lot of people in the tech community put a lot value on absolute privacy or secrecy. The general public doesn't. Especially in a case where the privacy or secret information is to a 100% certainty related to an actual mass murdering terrorist.

I'd bet if anything, the general public would overestimate the privacy risk the apple crack would cause. They don't know about signed updates, for example.

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