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Ethics in Scientific Research
call -151 writes: "There is an interesting NYT article `When Science Inadvertently Aids an Enemy' discussing how some of the "encryption should be free for everyone" attitudes are changing with the WTC attacks. The article makes some interesting points and it is good to see discussions like these in more of the mainstream, even if the tone has definitely changed recently." Well, the questions are being asked again, but most of the researchers dealing with these issues have already answered the questions for themselves.
It's good that (some) people starting to use their heads when it comes to security, but restricting the use of an item because of what it "might" be used for is a little overboard. Eventually everyone will be in a facial recognition system, fingerprinted, dna sequenced, and blood typed in a huge federal database JUST IN CASE you ever do something wrong.
Where's the line?
There's nothing stopping a small group of interelated individuals from writing their own scrambling technique which could qualify as "encryption", and if laws were passed requiring "back doors" or what-have-you, then any old "Little Orphan Annie Decoder Wheel" that the Government couldn't figure out would instantly make sensitive information (and the people who deal in it) illegal/criminals.
I'll cite an theoretical example.
Video Game Company X has a neat little game gaining great popularity, but due to various reasons they encrypt certain game data with proprietary methods, not at all to keep the government out, but to keep cheaters from snooping the data and exploiting the game. For the sake of argument, they use a clever, light-weight encryption scheme that nobody seems to be able to figure out and for which no back-door-method can feasibly be devised. After all, this is a game, not a spy communications device.
Since we know that they're doing it for gaming, and not espionage, we can consider it mostly harmless. But the laws some people want to pass would probably prohibit this very thing. And for what? Supposed terroist threat? Get real.
I don't even know why I'm rambling about this consider almost everyone here is likely going to agree with me that the trivial uses of encryption should be inalienable in one's rights to privacy. But I'm just frightened that someone might do something (such as the above example) and suddenly find themselves locked away for life just because they wanted a secure entertainment platform.
Lock up the clowns?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Is that our society is so ethically-challenged and bereft of common sense that we have to make any undesirable behavior illegal, and any desirable behavior mandatory. (Seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, for instance.)
To many people it makes sense to make anything potentially harmful illegal, because how else would we discourage it?
We've gotten so used to our morality being legislated that we feel we have to pass laws for everything. That's why the abortion issue is such a big deal, because people equate morality with legality. The same deal with sexual harassment laws. We shouldn't need laws to tell us that sexual harassment is wrong, but without the threat of legal penalties many people would still be pinching their secretary on the ass every time they walked in the room or worse.
So, basically, because someone somewhere might use encryption for evil, and because the average voter doesn't have a clue what it's for, they have no problem with it being made illegal to prevent (in their mind) possible abuses.
Does the analogy extend to scientists? Do they have some responsibility to take part in social, political, etc. processes to ensure that the world they release their tools into is ready and capable of making ethical and moral use of them? If so, what are the minimum requirements and limits of this responsibility?
In the 40's, scientists in the United States, Germany, and Russia were all very rapidly untangling the secrets of nuclear fission, nominally for use in weapons.
Many of the scientists have since decried their own work, but the fact remains that this 'weapons' technology and the research that lead to it has given rise to a goodly proportion of the technology we use today in the modern world.
While saftey questions, many of which are unfounded, still abound, its apparent that fission energy will be the cheapest, safest, and and cleanest energy that mankind can harness until solar collectors are dramatically improved, or fusion energy passes 'breakeven' levels on a sustained basis.
Most of the computer technology we use ultimately arises from the work of men who's research also led to military uses and was used in the construction of atomic weapons.
The upcoming generation of quantum computing relies on theories that are even more closley tied to nuclear fission.
Most scientists don't think in terms of 'how can I create a better, more deadly weapon'. They think in terms of unlocking the secrets of the universe. These actions, just like any other actions, have positive and negative consequences.
You wouldn't know the good, if not for the bad.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Encryption is rather different than a gun in a few respects:
1) - the tools are software: duplication is easy. Guns are hardware and sophisticated knowledge is needed to make them.
2) - the algorithms are well known: you can make your own tools (without the backdoors). Building your own guns is a bit harder (though not impossible)
3) - there are open source tools (you don't even have to go through step 2 to obtain tools free from backdoors). Although the US occasionally hands out guns (e.g. stinger missiles to the afghan resistance a.k.a. taliban in the eighties), in general selling arms is profitable business.
Now about guns: you need a gun + an idiot to pull the trigger to kill people. Both prerequisites are available in large quantities in the US. In western europe, guns are a bit harder to get so we have less casualties as the result of guns (check the statistics if you like). Obviously, removing guns from society helps reduce the amount of people dying from guns. Doing so is a problem in the US however since billions of guns have been sold there in the recent centuries. So if you are in the US you are fucked, people around you are nuts and have easy access to guns. One day your nice neighbour or colleague may have a bad day and pull his guns on you (which he can buy legally and keep in his house).
Now lets turn to the real issue: why is the US pushing backdoors in encryption software: industrial espionage. Being able to tap in on information banks and businesses exchange throughout the world is very profitable business. A terrorist will just use illegal/free tools (probably on a illegal version of win XP or whatever). If there's one thing you can be sure of: terrorists don't like the US and they are not bloody likely to stimulate the US economy by actually paying for software produced in the US. What do you think? Bin Laden will actually log on to MSN and chat with his colleagues??? Come on!
The US government is using this situation to rearrange the world to make it a little bit more comfortable for the US leaders. Aguably the WTC tragedy was the best thing to happen to them in years. Some impopular anti-terrorist/anti-human rights laws can be pushed through. Suddenly they can be friends with Pakistan (a few weeks ago still referred to as a rogue state that we should be protected from by a missile shield). Everybody turns a blind eye while they whipe the Taliban of the earth and even Khatami is suddenly being friendly on behalf of Iran. In addition some former Soviet republics who happen to play an important role in producing and transporting oil are also the US' best friends.
It is touching to see all this friendship bloom. Unfortunately it is at the cost of millions of innocent Afghan civilians, already in big trouble because of the previous civil wars. What happened to New York was bad but the opportunistic way the US government is dealing with the situation is sickening.
Jilles
Anyone notice that the mainstream media is doing plenty of coverage about the afwul hackers who post free encryption, but very little coverage about things like ethics and airline security? I can't remember the last time I saw anyone in the media write about the fact that there are hardly any checks on people who buy huge quantities of fertilizer that can be used in truck bombs.
While much of the media coverage of encryption lately has been somewhat insightful, it seems that most of it is more reactionary crap. The media is afraid to demonize airlines for horribly mismanaging their entire industry to the point that they cut corners, often illegally on airline security. Maybe it has something to do with the massive amounts of advertising airlines pay for every year, especially right now when they are advertising dirt cheap fares to try and woo back scared travelers.
It just goes to show the biggest downside of massive media corporations; instead of being accountable to the masses, they are accountable to the advertisers.
I will close with a quote, source unknown:
"The media is only as liberal as the companies that own it."