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"Encryption -- A Right of Privacy?"


Jim Naseum

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Those that would trade liberty for security, in the end, shall have neither. 

 

When the media told everyone that the military were using their cell phone signals to track the Taliban, the Taliban simply stopped using them.

 

There is absolutely nothing that would prevent the terrorists from developing their own secure OS for any Android smart phone. Will they bend to the US government demand to put in a backdoor? But, you and I will still have our insecure phones. This must never set a precedent.

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Correction. They say quantum computers can do such hacking, but it has never been done.  Isn't the best a quantum computer can do so far something like 5 x 3?

 

There are quantum computers and it is a very complex subject. A quantum computer can only do the same thing a classical computer can do. But, it can do it MUCH faster. If you have a 4 bit encrypted password, a two bit (called a qubit) quantum computer can't solve it. Everytime you add a bit, it doubles the complexity of the passwords. Current secure passwords are on the order of 2048 to 4096 bits (and there are higher ones, thus more secure). 

 

The fastest and largest KNOWN quantum computer is currently Google's D-Wave. They broke the 1000 qubit barrier last year (2015). They are probably (my own best guess) 5 years from 2000 bits, but possibly less. You can bet that the NSA has something comparable or maybe slightly better. But, most of the innovation is coming from the private sector. Even then, it becomes a matter of priority. The cost of time on a super-fast, super-expensive, super-rare supercomputer is astronomical. It's not just a matter of asking the computer a question and out pops the answer. While the government would be very interested in knowing what Al-Qaeda and ISIS are up to, they wouldn't use that computer to look at the phone of the guy that robbed Bob's Bakery, if you see where I'm coming from, especially if that guy was killed as he tried to escape. 

 

The only reason the DA and FBI are pursuing this route is that there is no downside for them. If it makes it's way through the courts and they win, they have a very powerful new tool at their disposal, even if they've made the rest of America less safe. If they lose... oh well, we tried. We'll try something else, later on. But, make no mistake, there is a HUGE downside for America. If they win this, it will be the last time you will hear about it in the media. Next time they find it necessary to force a company to break their own product, it will all happen behind closed doors and they will point to this case as their precedent, and then place a gag order on the company, all in the name of national security. 

 

Look at how many years it took for those mega-companies like Apple and Google to get legal permission to even acknowledge that they had been served with National Security Letters (NSL's).

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do I want a foreign government building up a dossier on me,

 

What makes you think it would be foreign?

 

I would like to be able to trust my government, as I was brought up to believe that they were trustworthy. Unfortunately, the actions of the government have proven just the opposite. So, the answer to your question is that I don't. But, even if I did, there are very legitimate reasons to not let this happen.

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There will always be snooping, spying, hacking, stealing, web bots, and copious amounts of deceit.  How else can foreign governments employ people who do not have real jobs.  And Uncle Sam can read license plates, from satellites, CLEARLY.  I have seen these images, and others on duty, overseas, personally with the military.  So, I just try and stay ahead of the curve.  Save, Save, Save, Encrypt, Encrypt, Encrypt.  I just hope we keep the launch codes encrypted.

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