Comment by MayeulC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MayeulC | Hacker News Reader

This is madness. Oh, of course, it's much easier to put a wrench into some gears to show that you are actually working at "solving the terrorism problem" than shaving the yaks, but that machine is actually important for other things.

We live in a dangerous world. We cannot control everything. I don't mind a slight risk of terrorist attack on myself or my family (caveat lector: I am young), if that means greater freedom.

In my book this is the first step towards authoritarianism: ensure that the state survives at all costs. And being able to spy on the whole population to track outlaws and dissidents is part of this. There is an invisible barrier between what's legal and what's not. Crossing it isn't hard, look at extinction rebellion and other civil disobedience protestors. Yet, on the other side, your trusted options are very limited, and encryption is one of those. I'd argue that letting citizens communicate and organize privately is a vital component of democracy, even allowing citizens to seize control of the state if they deem it necessary. More so than U.S.A.'s "Second amendment", encryption is an arm citizens should legally be able to bear.

Now, it is obviously hypocritical to offer such a thing, as politicians certainly wouldn't want their texts to be snooped on, would they? Any bill that requests backdoors should request them from everyone.

And don't get me started on how governments recommend their own to use Matrix and Signal, the very apps they aim to backdoor, because they are secure. You can't both have your cake and eat it, too.

A useful thing to explain encryption backdoors is the TSA master keys: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12177079

Their very existence made locks less secure (possibility of a key leak), and those are worthless against thieves now that master keys have leaked (you can 3D print them).

>We live in a dangerous world.

No we don't, but that's what the Politicians try to implement in our brains.

exactly; the terror... stop being afraid and we avoid the collective need to sell our souls and those of our children for the protection of the state

Yeah - it is goddamn tiring can't the professional emotional manipulators that call themselves politicians play on any other emotion than fear to get elected?

They do, but they don't get elected.

The vast bulk of the fear mongering I see is coming from the mass media, in an attempt to drive clicks and sell newspapers, and get their preferred candidate elected.

For example, in the weeks leading up to the election, CNN ran a sidebar on the screen to continuously show current statistics on covid deaths, all day. The sidebar vanished on election day, and has not returned, even though covid death rates are worse than ever.

>covid deaths

You mean cases? They usually go for the biggest number they can display rather than the most informative.

It's easy for people to lose sight of this with all the bad news we're seeing in 2020, but the present is the safest time in history when zoomed out to a scale of decades. The decline in violence since the 1900s to today is essentially global and scales from bar fights to wars.

Is it safer than 2015?

2020 may not be safer than 2015, but 2010-2020 is safer than 2000-2010. You might be able to find a recent 10 year period that beats the exact past 10 years by a slim margin.

On any scale between a human lifespan and the whole of human history, now is a pretty safe time to be alive.

Easy to lose sight that whatever safety we have is because we are actively trying to make it safe. We are at a point of development where if it wasn't safe, it would be the polar opposite and be the most unsafe time in history, everything happens on a global scale. What levers we need to maintain safety as technology moves forward is a tough thing to work out. Mucking with encryption doesn't seem like a good way to go though.

You are wrong. We live in such a dangerous world that the biggest reason for cause of death in many developed countries is suicide, obesity, diseases, etc.

The world is so safe that instead of dying from war, famine or untreatable infectious disease, those in developed countries are dying from diseases of wealth and comfort.

Suicide is not a disease of comfort. Obesity is not a disease of wealth, for food (and junk food) is incredibly inexpensive in the developed world today, likely no more expensive than heavy smoking, alcohol, cocaine or opiates.

These are diseases of overpopulation, loss of freedom and control over one's life and general lack of anything to live for in the future. Mouse utopia comes to mind.

I vouched you up; I appreciate good discussion.

It's true that obesity is an affliction related to poverty; but it is related to poverty in nations of relative wealth and comfort. Access to that cheap and terrible food relies upon a logistics system that is heavily resistent to famine and blight.

Those in poverty who are dying from obesity related diseases are not dying in work place accidents, and are not dying in war or from untreatible infections. They didn't die in a pandemic.

The opportunity to die of obesity related diseases is tied to the relative safety and comfort of the nations in which the late individuals were impoverished.

Obesity does not imply over-use of food with high nutritional value.

In other words, obesity comes from worse diets. The working classes are bombarded with corporate foods that contain way too much sugar, etc.

You still have to overeat to become obese. It does imply over-use of food, and at the same time diets may have gotten worse.

Not sure why you're gone all grey there. This is the prevailing thinking in obesity research at the moment. You're more likely to be obese if you're poor than if you're rich.

You don't get as much chance to die from obesity related diseases if you've died in a war, famine, pandemic, or from coal lung or crushed to death in a factory accident.

It afflicts the poor in relatively comfortable and safe nations.

We do live in a dangerous world. Pretty much everybody loses their life somehow. It's amazing to me that so many of my peers survived childhood.

It is pretty stupid to try to jump a car on your bicycle without a landing ramp. Or play catch with lit M80s. And those weren't our dumbest ideas.

When I was a kid every 8-year-old pushed a lawn mower around once a week. And rode in the back of a pickup truck. Today I don't let my kids ride in the back of pickup trucks, and I'm nervous about the lawn mower. Or rather, I'm nervous about trusting my kid not to be careless with the mower.

But when I see the metal detector at the door of my kid's school I wince. Some dangers and some fears need to be met head on. For some people, those include riding in the back of pickup trucks. For some it is the school's metal detector. If only we could make those choices for ourselves and our children without forcing our fears onto our neighbors.

Edit: clarity

>Pretty much everybody loses their life somehow.

Yeah that's called life.

>Today I don't let my kids ride in the back of pickup trucks, and I'm nervous about the lawn mower.

That's because you already infected with fear. It's not your Children's fault that you don't trust them with a lawn mower..it's you and probably your society that is the problem.

>Some dangers and some fears need to be met head on.

Yes like wear a helmet on a Motorbike, but you need to dig much deeper, that a society needs a metal detector in schools.

And again the World IS much safer today...but remember the more you have the more you fear loosing it...it's the perfect setup to give up your freedom because you think you "win" some safety.

Perhaps you missed my point. Lawn mowers didn't get more dangerous. The level of danger hasn't gotten worse in that one respect. The level of trust might have changed. The acceptance of risk might have changed. I don't think that keeping my kid away from the lawn mower in order to protect them makes their life overall better or even safer.

Lawn mowers are dangerous. But that doesn't mean they should be banned. As you wrote, that's life. The solution isn't to think they aren't dangerous. The solution is to recognize the danger, then act appropriately. We just all have different ideas of what's appropriate.

If you're nervous about your kid being reckless with the mower, you teach them not to be reckless. That's all there is to it.

How many people are killed by lawnmowers on a yearly basis?

Very few and I'd say, without checking, that it's probably much more common to lose a finger or a toe. That's a better analogy in this case too; it's unlikely that a mishap caused by the absence of encryption or the presence of a back-door will kill you. You might have to live with their consequences for a very long time though.

Arguing whether the World has suddenly become more dangerous is counter-productive in that aspect. In the end, we keep becoming wiser, technology evolves, and the World changes because of it. It doesn't matter if things actually got more dangerous or if we just got more afraid of them; it's the outcome of our actions that we need to focus on.

There is something to be said in comparing encryption to what usually amounts to spinning blades connected to some kind of engine; abusing any of those technologies can result in outcomes that are undesirable from society's point of view, and potentially from the users' point of view as well. Because, you know, fingers and toes.

The main problem is that just as if you outlawed the sale of lawn-mowers without specific features, there's nothing stopping people from using their existing lawn-mowers (or even building their own ones)anyway, the current encryption technologies won't go away. There's nothing stopping anyone from saving existing tools, or the source-code of existing tools, and keep using then. The only difference would be that such encryption, and the protection it brings with it, would now be restricted to the very criminals that the outlawing of the tools meant to stop in the first place.

Arguing whether the World has suddenly become more dangerous is counter-productive in that aspect. In the end, we keep becoming wiser, technology evolves, and the World changes because of it. It doesn't matter if things actually got more dangerous or if we just got more afraid of them; it's the outcome of our actions that we need to focus on.

Edit: As for the outcome, keeping encryption from everyone but criminals is outright ridiculous. It might get to some of the businesses selling specialized solutions catering to the people law enforcement is after, but in the end it will just result in the baddies simply moving away from those platforms and onto other platforms that are out of reach of EU law-enforcement. That leaves us with everyone else having a big target painted on them because this time we know there's a backdoor in their product.

Lawn mowers are safer today than they were 30 years ago. Still potentially dangerous. You point out to the kid: never let your feet go under there. Never reach your hand in here. Maybe throw an apple in to illustrate the effect. They get the message.

All that said, 8 might be a little young. I think I was around 10 when I started cutting the grass, but I don't really remember.

I really missed your point a bit.

But i watched a documentary about the US, where Children's under 12 are not allow to play outside without supervision, they get picket up by the police and the parents got big problems.

Here, they run around the hole day in the forests with Swiss or Scout-knifes and lighters and some sausages in the backpack. It's just terrible to think that your children's are safe because they sit hole day in their rooms and play games.

I don't get it how we got here. We were allowed to play outside (East Europe) near the house when we were six. Gradually increasing the comfort perimeter as we grew up. Twelve? I could have roamed the entire city if I had enough time to get back for lunch.

Maybe listen to too much Media/News etc, when you hear just bad things happening, you think it's just a matter of time until that happens to me or my family.

So you close your mind (because everyone else is bad, and every Adult that speaks with my children is a pedo) then you buy a gun (even if the chance is much higher that exactly with that gun something bad happens) and your Children's needs to be under constant observation and they need to learn that one should trust no one, you life in constant fear and because of that you vote for trumps.

>if I had enough time to get back for lunch.

Exactly that was my biggest fear, to late for lunch meant grumpy Mum and Dad..and no roaming for the next two days.

I think what you are alluding to is the key, life has gotten so good that people get into extreme loss aversion. In my opinion the key to a decent life is to take calculated risks and if that goes wrong, then oh well that was unlucky.

There are a lot of risky things we do all day anyway, like driving any car or walking close to road. Those things are still incredibly safe.

> Pretty much everybody loses their life somehow.

Everyone. Everyone dies. That includes you and me. The question is not if but how and what you do with the time you have.

So far only about 92% of people have died.

By the numbers, this is the safest the world has ever been. The fact that you literally don't know anyone who has had smallpox attests to that.

Perception of risk is not actual risk. Yes, everyone dies, but that's more of a biological fact than a statement about how safe this world is. If you're really worried about you and your family, watch what you eat and hit the gym a bit, because statistically it's going to be a heart attack that gets you.

We do. Even though the world has become safer and more prosperous it is still dangerous to our health and sanity. That doesn't mean we should avoid all risk.

What you are more talking about is the Politicians overstate the chance of dangers and they do it on the most evocative of topics (ex: terrorism, CP, etc).

A high danger we're in is from the potential for our governments to entrench their own powers and encourage potential future totalitarianism for small benefits here and now.

Politicians are part of the danger. Judging from the history, greater danger than the dangers we are allegedly being saved from

War is young men dying and old men talking

by Franklin D. Roosevelt

I certainly agree, and that is somewhat part of what I was saying.

> This is madness

It is by definition. Their ambitions haven't changed the last 30 years.

> You can't both have your cake and eat it, too.

Actually you can have your cake and eat it. What you can't do is eat your cake and have it :-P

My bad :)

Well, you got the point. In french, we'd say: "You can't both have butter and money for it" -- greedy butter sellers.

In Romanian, it's something like "you can't reconcile the lamb and the cabbage" (because the lamb eats the cabbage if they're together).

And in Hebrew it's "You can't eat the cake and leave it whole" or "you can't hold the rope from both edges".

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