Re What if Responsible Encryption Back-Doors Were Possible? - Lawfare

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Herb Lin <herblin () stanford edu>
> Date: December 2, 2018 15:25:49 JST
> To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () listbox com>
> Cc: "ross.stapletongray () gmail com" <ross.stapletongray () gmail com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re What if Responsible Encryption Back-Doors Were Possible? - Lawfare
>
> Here’s the industry event to which Ross refers (https://youtu.be/tH7pHJAO1t8).  Ross is right that I said some things 
> that were said during the Clipper debate.  That’s because some of the things said in favor of Clipper were valid.  
> That doesn’t mean that Clipper was a good idea. 
>  
> If someone wants to challenge me on something specific that I said during that talk, I’m happy to engage in that 
> discussion.  That includes Ross, by the way.
>  
> The short version of what I said – or what I was trying to say, in any case—was that the technical debate is over as 
> far as I am concerned – I fully accept the conclusion that it is impossible to develop an encryption system with 
> exceptional access that is as secure as one without it.   But the advocates of responsible encryption are asking for 
> something else—they are asking for the most secure system possible subject to the constraint that exceptional access 
> is possible.  Whatever system comes out of that process *will* be less secure than what is possible without 
> exceptional access.
>  
> Whether the diminished security is or is not worth the benefits to law enforcement is a policy question, not a 
> technical question.  Advocates of exceptional access say “yes”, privacy advocates say “no.”  Both are reasonable 
> answers, but neither should pretend that their judgments are technically based—they are policy judgments.  For 
> myself, I note that policy judgments – unlike technical conclusions – are necessarily made in the particular societal 
> and political circumstances extant at the moment of that judgment, and so anyone making a policy judgment ought to 
> take those circumstances into account.
>  
> I confess to being surprised at Ross’s assertion that I am “fine with the potential to arm fascists in the 
> information age,” which is as close to an ad hominem attack as I’ve ever heard him make on me or anyone else.  If 
> intellectual honesty is part of the that potential, then I regret that I have to plead guilty.  But by the same 
> token, I think that anyone who works to develop better information technology also has to plead guilty, since it’s 
> impossible to make information technology unusable by fascists.
>  
> Herb
>  
>  
> =======================================================================
> Herb Lin
> Senior Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation
> Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security, Hoover Institution
> Stanford University
> Stanford, CA  94305  USA
> herblin () stanford edu
> Twitter @HerbLinCyber
>  
> From: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> 
> Sent: December 1, 2018 7:27 PM
> To: ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: [IP] Re What if Responsible Encryption Back-Doors Were Possible? - Lawfare
>  
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross.stapletongray () gmail com>
> Date: December 2, 2018 10:46:39 JST
> To: DAVID FARBER <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re What if Responsible Encryption Back-Doors Were Possible? - Lawfare
>
> On Sat, Dec 1, 2018 at 5:38 PM Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
> Haven’t we been around this idea many many times like Clipper chip etc
> Is there no memory in the system?
>  
> We have been. There's just a dogged persistence among those who would like the first-order job of the government 
> knowing things for control to be easy. I heard Herb Lin speak on this at an industry event, and it was like Clipper 
> all over again. Stu Baker similarly. I'm not exactly sure what drives either, as Baker hasn't been working for the 
> NSA for decades, and Herb is at Stanford. But both are fine with the potential to arm fascists in the information age.
>  
> Meanwhile, I'm back looking for work, as Rocket Lawyer (which had been a fascinating four months) seems to be 
> imploding, and let a lot of us go. But the market is great... I've got a site interview with a Kleiner-backed 
> tech-start up in a week, and interviews for a privacy engineer position with a major non-profit.
>  
> But ideas for where else to look always solicited gratefully!
>  
> Ross
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Archives | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
>
>  



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-a538de84&post_id=20181202014143:52B1F604-F5FD-11E8-85E6-D6E6479B74A0
Powered by Listbox: https://www.listbox.com