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Comment by inetknght | Hacker News Reader

> Secret police worked when criminals were put away with parallel reconstruction, for instance.

It wasn't the secret police which worked. It was the parallel construction.

> “You can’t stop math.” Not true, strictly anyway.

You can't stop math.

> Backdoors are an antiquated way of implementing exceptional access. The proper way is to provide third party access that is truly exceptional (living up to the name), and not based on flaws that a malicious actor or rogue nation can break.

This statement is a fantasy. There is no way to provide third party access that is "truly exceptional" that a malicious actor or rogue nation can't break.

> Instead of E2EE, how about building E2E2EE. Doesn’t need to be measurably weaker.

Anything weaker than E2EE is measurably weaker than E2EE. E2E2EE is measurably weaker than E2E2EE.

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It was the secret police with pr

You can stop math. Legally stop fb from using E2EE. You’ve stopped math. You haven’t stopped some people from using it. But you’ve prevented common people from having default usage of that math.

Disagree. Don’t use key escrow. Find a better way. Two parties or three parties; three doesn’t have to be significantly more susceptible than two

Apologies on the wording. Significantly weaker, not measurably. My mistake.

> You can stop math. Legally stop fb from using E2EE. You’ve stopped math. You haven’t stopped some people from using it. But you’ve prevented common people from having default usage of that math.

No, you haven't "stopped math". You've enacted a law and stopped Facebook from using end-to-end encryption.

Math is universal. Math is something that should never be outlawed. Math is a fundamental right, an irrevocable truth based solely in fact. You can sooner stop alcoholism by outlawing alcohol than you can stop encryption by outlawing math. The idea of outlawing math would put us hundreds of years behind today; to enact a truth based on the church's "do this because I tell you it's true" instead of "understand this for yourself, I cannot tell you what is true". Outlawing math is dangerous and I cannot believe you are trying to make such an argument in good faith.

> Find a better way.

I do not believe there is a better way. You don't understand the math behind it. Instead of even trying to understand the math which is already widely understood by many, you instead want to make that math illegal and create your own. You don't even want to spend the mental effort to do that much: you demand others to do it for you.

> Two parties or three parties; three doesn’t have to be significantly more susceptible than two

This is factually false. The third party is a moving party which changes every moment. You can not meet that and still be "secure". It is antithetical to the very notion of encryption.

Semantics aside, if FB isn’t allowed to use the math behind E2EE, they’ve effectively been stopped from using math. Just trying to avoid getting into the weeds.

Similarly to you questioning my faith in the matter, you’re ignoring my argument, ostensibly not in good faith, either. I’m suggesting to build a better mousetrap. It may not be perfect but might help maintain and improve civility in society.

Alcoholism and alcohol aren’t really a great analogy.

I understand math better than you may realize. You said that you don’t believe there’s a better way. You’ve effectively conceded that the existing key escrow solutions with the known risks are the best that can be done. I’m suggesting to do better. Find a better compromise.

Three party access in current incarnations may have flaws but the statement isn’t factually false. It’s simply undiscovered.

Conflating ideals with beliefs can be tricky..

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