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0 pointsnostrademons2mo ago0 comments

It would not surprise me if these actions are coming at the requests of governments. Strong encryption is one of the few things that challenges their monopoly on information; they have a very strong incentive to apply political pressure to the maintainers of these projects to, well, stop maintaining the projects. We've seen this in overt actions that the EU takes; in more covert actions that the U.S. government is suspected of taking; and in the news headlines about third-world dictatorships that just shut off the Internet. Tech companies are perhaps the most convenient leverage point for these actions.

More regulation won't help here, because the regulation-maker is itself the hostile party.

What would help is full control over the supply chain. Hardware that you own, free and open-source operating systems where no single person is the bottleneck to distribution, and free software that again has no single person who is a failure point and no way to control its distribution.

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10 comments · 3 top-level

aeternum2mo ago· 7 in thread

>More regulation won't help here, because the regulation-maker is itself the hostile party.

It's easy to paint the big gov as bad, but this is a case where unfortunately the populace seems to be in agreement with the big bad gov. While most US citizens support encryption, 76% or so, the vast majority 63% also favor government "backdoor" access for national security reasons.

I guess either we believe in democracy or we don't. It could be said that if Veracrypt isn't/can't be backdoor'd, perhaps the gov is simply implementing the will of the people :( via Microsoft.

koliber2mo ago

Tyranny of majority is a thing. It's something mature democracies are aware of and have the ability to defend against.

We're in an interesting spot here and the tension is tangible.

account422mo ago

Does the majority of the population even have a self-formed opinion on this or are they just parroting what the media tells them (which in many "democratic" countries is directly or indirectly controlled by the government, i.e. propaganda).

jasomill2mo ago

American People Shrug, Line Up For Fingerprinting

WASHINGTON, DC—Assuming that there must be a good reason for the order, U.S. citizens lined up at elementary schools and community centers across the nation Monday for government-mandated fingerprinting. “I’m not exactly sure what this is all about,” said Ft. Smith, AR, resident Meredith Lovell while waiting in line. “But given all the crazy stuff that’s going on these days, I’m sure the government has a very good reason.” Said Amos Hawkins, a Rockford, IL, delivery driver: “I guess this is another thing they have to do to ensure our freedom.”

(source: The Onion, October 9, 2002[1])

[1] https://theonion.com/american-people-shrug-line-up-for-finge...

joepie91_2mo ago

I'd be very wary about such specific surveys, because they're often very much not conducted in a scientifically responsible manner, and based on actual studies across the spectrum of political issues there's basically no alignment between public opinion/preferences and actual policymaking in the US.

Could this be the one exceptional case where people agree with the direction of policymaking? Sure. Is that likely? No, not really.

phatfish2mo ago

What does democracy have to do with electronic encryption? Democracy existed before computers.

There are legitimate reasons for governments to intercept information, with the correct oversight -- enforced legally in an "checks and balances" manner. The fact that there is a breakdown of trust between government and people won't be solved with more encryption.

aeternum2mo ago

A core tenet of Truecrypt + Veracrypt (developer guarantee) has always been no backdoors, even if requested by government.

If in a democratic society, the majority agrees that government should have backdoors (with the correct oversight). Then it follows that Veracrypt should be illegal as its use is not in alignment with the will of the majority.

I personally don't agree with the majority here but can you fault the logic?

2 more replies

bigfishrunning2mo ago

> vast majority 63% also favor government "backdoor" access for national security reasons.

Don't do math that way! That math is illegal! Good boys and girls don't keep secrets!

These people sound ridiculous

francosimon2mo ago

VLayer (my project) scans healthcare codebases for HIPAA compliance issues before they reach production. One thing I learned building it: developers rarely think about encryption until it's too late. Tools like VeraCrypt solve the "data at rest" problem, but the bigger issue in healthcare software is unencrypted data in logs and API responses — stuff that's much harder to audit manually.

andai2mo ago

So like, TSMC, but syndicalist?

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