United Nations Special Rapporteur David Kaye has written that encryption is necessary for freedom of expression and privacy:
No restrictions may be imposed on the right to hold opinions without interference; [...] opinions, however held online, result in surveillance or harassment, encryption and anonymity may provide necessary privacy. Restrictions on such security tools may interfere with the ability of individuals to hold opinions.
Interference may also include such efforts as targeted surveillance, distributed denial of service attacks, and online and offline intimidation, criminalization and harassment. Targeted digital interference harasses individuals and civil society organizations for the opinions they hold in many formats. Encryption and anonymity enable individuals to avoid or mitigate such harassment.
Efforts to restrict encryption and anonymity also tend to be quick reactions to terrorism, even when the attackers themselves are not alleged to have used encryption or anonymity to plan or carry out an attack. Moreover, even where the restriction is arguably in pursuit of a legitimate interest, many laws and policies regularly do not meet the standards of necessity and proportionality and have broad, deleterious effects on the ability of all individuals to exercise freely their rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression. [...] Outright prohibitions on the individual use of encryption technology disproportionately restrict the freedom of expression, because they deprive all online users in a particular jurisdiction of the right to carve out private space for opinion and expression, without any particular claim of the use of encryption for unlawful ends.
States should promote strong encryption and anonymity. National laws should recognize that individuals are free to protect the privacy of their digital communications by using encryption technology and tools that allow anonymity online. [...] States should not restrict encryption and anonymity, which facilitate and often enable the rights to freedom of opinion and expression. Blanket prohibitions fail to be necessary and proportionate. States should avoid all measures that weaken the security that individuals may enjoy online, such as backdoors, weak encryption standards and key escrows.
The report hits on many digital liberty topics, shaming Russia, China, and South Africa for online "real-name" policies, calling compulsory SIM card registration "well beyond any legitimate government interest," calling for access to Tor, proxies, and VPNs to be "protected and promoted," and asserting that data retention "of all users has inevitably resulted in the State having everyone's digital footprint."
By contrast, newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has become the latest Obama administration official to express "concerns" over encryption hampering anti-terrorism and law enforcement efforts.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @04:14PM
"encryption and anonymity may provide necessary privacy."
With many on this list wanting every one to be "members". AC get it right!
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Friday May 29 2015, @04:30PM
I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.
(Score: 1) by Zz9zZ on Friday May 29 2015, @05:05PM
Then I worry about your brain, unless you were feigning ignorance to be insulting... Pretty clear the AC is drawing a parallel between the report's stance on anonymity and the SoylentNews AC system. Generally people here are pro privacy, yet in the same breath can go on about how terrible ACs are. It's even built into the name: Anonymous Coward. I find the comment rather relevant, and the minor grammatical difficulties are just another point on which to leverage disdain.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday May 29 2015, @05:43PM
Some places are the opposite. 4chan for example calls someone who isn't anonymous a namefag.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @06:29PM
Least Privacy 0 10 Most Privacy
Anonymous Coward 10
AC who signs their posts 9
SN pseudonym 6
Real name policy 0
Why are we even arguing about this?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday May 29 2015, @08:15PM
Can we agree to change Anonymous Coward to just "Anonymous" ? Would it be something hard to do ?
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @09:44PM
Can we agree to change Anonymous Coward to just "Anonymous" ?
No, we cannot. Do I sense an "Anonymous Coward Pride" movement? If so, you're doing it wrong! Adopt the slur! Take pride in your cowardice, revel in your lack of courage to identify yourself by a pseudonym! Self-identify as an AC, call yourself AC, put "AC on SoylentNews" in your tag and on your business cards! Do not let "the Man" put you down and categorize you! Do it yourself, pre-emptively, to yourself before they can do it to you. Live long and prosper, Anonymous Coward. Vaya con queso.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Friday May 29 2015, @08:54PM
I'm feigning anything. Was that post in English? It makes no sense.
First he quotes a tiny part of what David Kaye wrote with no context:
"encryption and anonymity may provide necessary privacy."
Then he says:
With many on this list wanting every one to be "members".
With many on WHAT LIST?
Wanting "one"? What is "one" referring to?
"Members?" Huh?
How does this have anything to do with the quote from before?
AC get it right!
And how am I supposed to read this? As in "The anonymous coward (referring to himself) got it right?" or perhaps it's saying "Hey AC, you are wrong and should should get it right!" Neither one makes sense to me either.
The post was literally incoherent and I was simply pointing that out. But I guess I should have just marked it as 'Spam' or 'Troll' and moved on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @08:58PM
The list is SN, every one = everyone, "AC get it right!" is the most confusing part.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tramii on Friday May 29 2015, @09:25PM
The list is SN, every one = everyone
Well that makes some sense. How is Soylent News a "list"? Is that some new lingo I'm unfamiliar with?
Anyways, I still don't understand the statement.
1) Having the option to be anonymous is necessary.
2) Some (not most) Soylent News posters wish that all regular posters would sign up for an account and use it to post.
There is *no* conflict between statement #1 and statement #2. I haven't seen anyone suggest we disable anonymous posts, and even if someone had, they are in the far, far minority. Signing up for an account doesn't really even violate posting anonymously. You can use a throw away email address and sign up under any crazy name you want. You could sign up for 100 accounts and randomly bounce between them all. If SN wanted to track you, they could did it even without needing you to sign up for an account.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @05:31PM
I wonder what they say about the people who whine about AC posts?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by CortoMaltese on Friday May 29 2015, @06:14PM
hidden, down modded, saged and reported.
Seriously though, anonymity (most often than not) in the internet implies separation between your virtual self and your real self, while I may have an account and you may not, we both don't know who really is typing the post (on the internet no one knows you are a dog), so unless someone reveals their identity here for all practical purposes everyone is anonymous here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Friday May 29 2015, @06:56PM
that's not necessarily true. i use this pseudonym everywhere, and have been using it for as long as i've been online (like 20 years). even though its not my "real name", this is still a name that uniquely identifies me. i've noticed a few other people using this pseudonym in other places (because i wasn't able to sign up there using it myself), but that's not much different from all the hits that come up when my real name is googled (far more hits come up for my real name than pseudonym). just because its not the name on your birth certificate doesn't mean it doesn't uniquely identify you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @07:37PM
Amen. My "real" self is also a pseudonym and part of no less than 10 email names, been using since 1990 and CompuServe.
What is your oldest AOL diskette? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @06:51PM
Bitch, please! "Necessary privacy" and "AC posts" aren't comparable in this context at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @06:46PM
By definition is not encryption saying that you are who you are? Anonymous does not really enter into the equation other than to filter out people impersonating you?
That is a pretty big tenant of encryption. Basically only you have the key to make this string jumbled in this particular way.
Or am I missing something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @06:59PM
SSH/Tor/VPNs
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday May 29 2015, @07:04PM
You're missing something. Encryption makes your communication unintelligible and unmodifiable to anyone except those with the corresponding decryption key. It CAN be used as a signature system - for example using public-private key encryption to encrypt something with your private key so that anyone can decrypt it with your public key to verify that it came from you (or at least someone with your key), but that's just one of the "bonus" applications, not the primary goal. Similar to how fire CAN be used to launch colorful exploding rockets into the sky to celebrate, but you can hardly say that's its purpose.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @07:39PM
I get those uses. However, in order for the conversation to continue with encryption you basically are stating 'I encrypted this' even if the keys are never used again. You are for a brief moment saying 'I am X'.
Things like VPN and Tor obfuscate it very well. VPN services by ignoring the logs. Tor by onion routing. But for encryption to mean anything both ends need to agree on how to talk. That means both ends of the conversation know who is who. Even if the other end does not know exactly who they know 'the person who holds this key made this message'.
You can use encryption to hide what you say. But you can not use it to hide who you are. The NSA uses it to very good effect even if they do not know what exactly you are saying. In fact I would go so far as to say encryption marks you. http://webpolicy.org/2014/03/12/metaphone-the-sensitivity-of-telephone-metadata/ [webpolicy.org] You do not need to know the nature of the call. But just who called who is interesting. VPN and Onion is not encryption (though it does use it) it is the stripping of that metadata.
That is why I am confused. Encryption does not mean anonymous. It just means you can not read or interfere in the conversation (and only on a short term).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:43AM
Not really. Plenty of encryption techniques, including most of those used on the web (https, etc), involve negotiating a new secret key at the beginning of every "conversation" (and creating a secret key over an open channel is an art unto itself). Neither side needs any knowledge of who they're talking to; the encryption just ensures that, once the conversation has begun, nobody else can listen in or spoof the parties involved.
You are right though - encryption is not at all synonymous with anonymity, in fact I would say it's orthogonal, in theory. In practice however, it's pretty much required in order to *preserve* anonymity. Without it nefarious actors, especially governments, can relatively easily determine who is speaking from either the content of the conversation, or by simply tracking each side back to its source. Onion routing alone can't preserve anonymity when the attacker can monitor both endpoints - and in the US at least one should probably act on the assumption that the NSA at least is monitoring all possible endpoints. Re-encrypt traffic on every hop however, and it becomes far more difficult to recognize the sent message as the same one being received.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @07:51PM
As in, one who builds rapport?
Or is this just a fancy French spelling for "reporter"? Guess that wouldn't be surprising since they have headquarters in the Low Countries
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @08:02PM
United Nations Special Rapporteur [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @08:08PM
So basically, yes, it is just a fancy French spelling used to sound more important.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @08:14PM
One of the UN's lingua francas is... French.
You call it fancy, French speakers call it "un mot" [wiktionary.org].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by tangomargarine on Friday May 29 2015, @09:27PM
"One word"?
"Reporter" is one word, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @09:32PM
And they should be forced to use English why?
It's more of an investigator than a reporter.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @10:01PM
Mon dieu, mon petit imbécile! Vous ne parlez pas français?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @02:48AM
Nein.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday May 30 2015, @08:49AM
のは、今からフランス語でtangomargarine問い合わせてみましょう。
For great justice!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @09:48PM
It is always better to ask to be informed, instead of revealing one's ignorance as a point of pride. Is "reporter" just a crude English word for rapporteur? Wouldn't be a surprise, since Hoboken is in New Jersey.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @11:11PM
The French word for reporter is reporter [wiktionary.org]/reporteur, journaliste, correspondant or envoyé [wiktionary.org].
The UN Special Rapporteurs are more like investigators. The root word "rapport" [wikipedia.org] can be defined as "a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 01 2015, @09:38PM
I'm not complaining that the U.N. uses such a word, per se, but when the editors just throw it into a summary and expect that we know French it seems a bit presumptuous.
While I'm sure we have French readers here, SN is not a French website.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 29 2015, @11:37PM
Let's hope she can go fuck herself. If not there's always the option to bend over and let someone help out.
Perhaps the right to anonymity and encryption will be included in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It's obvious that this may be abused in many ways and protect really bad people. But it's also clear that for a sustainable democracy there needs to be some absolute protection from people in the government that does bad things to any opposition.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @11:58PM
Although I was tempted to call encryption a "human right" in the headline, the report's argument is more that encryption and anonymity are necessary for human rights, like freedom of expression and privacy, as well as protection from people harming you.
The report says this:
It doesn't say how courts are supposed to compel suspects to decrypt, and it obviously doesn't recommend weakening decryption, so it gives wiggle room. There are circumstances where you lose your right to freedom of expression anyway, such as shouting "FIRE" or urging people to commit genocide.
That was the killer line in this report.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday May 30 2015, @05:44AM
'Restrictions on encryption and anonymity, as enablers of the right to freedom of expression, must meet the well-known three-part test: any limitation on expression must be provided for by law; may only be imposed for legitimate grounds (as set out in article 19 (3) of the Covenant); and must conform to the strict tests of necessity and proportionality."
Restricting these things simply should not be allowed at all in the general case (i.e. for everyone). And for individuals, the government shouldn't be able to jail someone forever because they claim they forgot the key and therefore can't surrender it. The human brain is faulty and it is incredibly unjust to expect people to somehow prove they forgot. The government may have a legitimate authority to attempt to decrypt the information after being subject to legal oversight, but it does not have the power to make your rights vanish just to make it easier for the government to solve crimes (i.e. mandatory backdoors).
There are circumstances where you lose your right to freedom of expression anyway, such as shouting "FIRE" or urging people to commit genocide.
I'm not aware of a general ban on shouting "fire".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Saturday May 30 2015, @07:34AM
However most people seems to subscribe to the "I have nothing to hide" without realizing the systematic consequences and human cognitive inability. So voting on this issue is probably futile and the process is also likely to be put under pressure for special interest.
It's kind of killing someone just a little bit. It doesn't work that way.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 05 2015, @12:53PM
During the WWII. The population experiences selective pressure that took away a lot of "I have nothing to hide". Perhaps this is the foreplay for a similar scenario?