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.

Comments

Keeping Encryption Algorithms In The US

[ekrout]

This is exactly why you may notice such rules prohibiting certain bit resolutions of encryption from being exported from the United States to other countries.

On the surface it sounds reasonable, but in a day where a file can be transmitted between two different continents in real-time, I'm not sure those old-school rules are even helpful anymore.

Re:Keeping Encryption Algorithms In The US

[SquadBoy]

Also if you look at where all work on crypto is being done nobody is really doing any serious work in the US now and have not been for a long time because of these rules. Yup pointless but that has not stopped them yet.

Registration-Proof Link

[Accipiter]

Right Here, Right Now. Enjoy.

What the hell is this stupid postercomment compression filter?

"Your comment must be THIS LONG to be posted to Slashdot."

"You must be THIS TALL to ride this rollercoaster."

Sheesh.

Encryption doesnt kill people, people kill people

[Johnny5000]

Unbreakable codes are a tool.

A tool is not evil. A tool by itself can't fly an airplane into a crowded building.

It depends on the use of the tool.

Evil people will do evil things with it, good people will do good things with it.

-J5K

Lots of things can be misused in the wrong hands

[Rackemup]

Cars... knives ... even nail clippers can be misused, it depends on the person operating the equipment. Most airlines have gotten rid of metal knifes on planes now, preventing them from being used in an attack but also punishing those people who just want to butter their roll.

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?

Science should not be scared.

[Si]

Scientists should not hold back news of a discovery for fear that one day it may be used by the bad guys -- let the sociologists deal with that. All scientific discoveries have the potential to uplift the human condition. Perhaps one day we will no longer have a need to strong crypto, but until then Hellmann and others should not feel ashamed or guilty about their discoveries and contributions. The ones who should feel ashamed are those who let their personal agendas get in the way of progress, who would rather see us back in age where the privileged few have all the power and the masses are huddled together in the dark looking to superstition for salvation.

next thing you know

[drfrog]

new eula for a hammer:

the end user will not use this hammer
to build anything that would be deemed
uncapitalistic or un democractic!
this would include:
Mosques,
Churches and
Socialist Gathering centers

yes
what im getting at is encryption is a TOOL

if the terrorists we stupid enough to use a
publicly accessible encryption methods
instead of creating an 'in-house' solution
they are just asking for it!

{
IF it was bin Laden
dont you think he could
afford better encryption?
come on!
}

asking everyone else to
throw away freedom for more
security is not an option

in fact it plays into their hands!

Encryption should be free?

[kingpin2k]

Encryption, as an algorithm for crunching numbers, costs nothing. You can't keep it out of the hands of the bad guys simply by keeping it out of the hands of the good guys.

Tools and people

[yali]

To those who say "tools are just tools, it's people that are good or bad," I'd like to pose this question. (This isn't just rhetorical, I'm really curious what people think.) Isn't it the responsibility of those who create or disseminate tools to understand the context into which they release them?

By analogy, if I give a gun to a criminal, some people would hold me partially accountable for what the criminal does with it, especially if I knew (or should have known) that this was a criminal. If I give a gun to a kid, I'm responsible for evaluating whether the kid's ready to learn about guns, and if so, to teach the kid about safety, etc.

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?

Re:Tools and people

[Bonker]

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.

Re:Tools and people

[MarkusQ]

By analogy, if I give a gun to a criminal, some people would hold me partially accountable for what the criminal does with it, especially if I knew (or should have known) that this was a criminal. If I give a gun to a kid, I'm responsible for evaluating whether the kid's ready to learn about guns, and if so, to teach the kid about safety, etc.

Does the analogy extend to scientists?

The analogy does not hold. This is clear once you realize that science is a process of discovery, not of creation. A scientist is more like an explorer, discovering facts that were true long before they were discovered, facts that would eventually have been discovered by someone, facts that affect everyone, even the people who don't know them.

Newton should not be blamed for all the people who die from falling, just because he discovered the law of universal gravitation. Nor should he be blamed for ballistic missiles, which rely on his law for their operation.

A better analogy would be:

Should explorers who discover old mine fields or dangerous animals publish the fact? Or should they let others that follow blindly wander into the danger, unruffled but no safer in their ignorance.

-- MarkusQ

If you agree that encryption should be free...

[JohnnyX]

Then you may be interested in Americans for the Preservation of Information Security, a group working to keep ill-advised legislation from being passed that would deny us tools to keep our information safe in the hopes of denying them to terrorists as well.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...do something...

What bothers me about illegal encryption...

[Jace of Fuse!]

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?

The main problem...

[xonker]

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.

Re:The main problem...

[dfenstrate]

...because people equate morality with legality.

And what is wrong with this? Laws are ideally a representation of the values that a society has at large, things that a majority of us agree on. These values are based directly on our morals. The debates arise when we have a disagreement- you brought up that abortion is much debated- what is not debated is that it's against the law to murder someone.

This is because we all agree it's wrong kill someone, republican, democrat, liberal, independant, green, labor- it's morally wrong, so we have declared it illegal to give us a mechanism to punish those in our society who have morals the majority of us would find apalling.

That being said, I do believe we are a bit over- legislated.

Re:The main problem...

[Balinares]

... people equate morality with legality.

Yeah, they do. Because there's not ONE definition of what's moral and what isn't -- it's a cultural thing. I think we'd all agree to say that, for example, fscking sheep isn't moral. And yet, in some civilisations, it was tolerated. You can call it barbaric or whatever -- it was still not immoral by their standards.
I think if people tend to want to turn morals into laws, it's probably so that they can force their moral (say, it's not moral to kill people in a video game) on everybody else.

Whether that's a good thing is left as an exercise to the reader.

Attitudes aren't the issue

[MarkusQ]

...Poll Says Most Americans Favor Crypto Backdoors...

[NYT]...discussing how some of the "encryption should be free for everyone" attitudes are changing with the WTC attacks...

It doesn't matter what polls say, or how people's attitudes change; the fundamental issue is that crypto-backdoors, laws against strong crypto, etc. etc. are doomed to failure because they won't work.

This is not to say that such laws might not get passed, causing untold inconvenience to law-abiding citizens, chilling research, and compromising our national security by giving crackers a weak point to attack; all I'm saying is that such laws mathematically can't serve their purported purpose.

That is the message that needs to get out.

-- MarkusQ

As a scientist..

[smoondog]

As a scientist let me say I understand the concerns of society. I wish that some software developers would realize that as our society becomes more digitized, the power of programming becomes greater.

Consider this. In the '40's a few great men/women created an awesome force with grave consequences, the nuclear bomb. A computer security scientist would never consider himself on this level of creation of power, nor should he. But what if a programmer develops a worm that destroys information perfectly, there by bring down an economy, possibly killing people? To go even farther, what if someone creates the technology that enables a terrorist attack, or enables that worm to exist?

As we go farther into the digital age, programming is going to have more and more power and influence. Imagine if physicists were to take the arrogant attitude of today's security developers and say, "If I can build it, I should and also tell everyone else how to do it!"

I just think that in some cases, we should really consider the consequences of our actions....

-Sean

Re:As a scientist..

[Rogerborg]

• Imagine if physicists were to take the arrogant attitude of today's security developers and say, "If I can build it, I should and also tell everyone else how to do it!"

You mean like Niels Bohr and others did? This reference took me about 10 seconds to find, please don't insult us by re-writing history to suit an argument.

That aside, I do actually agree with your point that inventors (and manufacturers) share in the moral burden of technologies.

On the other hand, pragmatically, if we don't do it, someone else really will.

On balance, I find myself agreeing with the NYT article's conclusion that it's a bitch of a decision and we need to find a thick skinned bastard to make it for all of us navel gazing pussies. (OK, I'm paraphrasing slightly...)

Re:As a scientist..

[NOC_Monkey]

But what if a programmer develops a worm that destroys information perfectly, there by bring down an economy, possibly killing people? To go even farther, what if someone creates the technology that enables a terrorist attack, or enables that worm to exist?

Well, considering that computers are the technology that allow that worm to exist, Do you suggest we ban them? But computers use a lot of refined metals in their manufacture - and so do guns, knives, bullets, and swords. Should we ban metalworking, because it is "the technology that enables a terrorist attack"?

Granted, this is an argument from extremes. However, when I think of a physicist choosing to hide their findings, no matter how revolutionary, no matter the potential for increasing our understanding of the universe, I am reminded of the Catholic Church in the middle ages, where commoners were not allowed to read the Bible because they might not understand it, thus creating heretics. Everything can be used for both good and evil purposes. There is no such thing as a "purely benign" invention or discovery. Physics - nuclear power/nuclear weapons. Electronics - Pacemaker controllers/missle guidance systems. Biology - Vaccines/Viral warfare. Steelworking - Building support beams/Tanks. Blacksmithing - Ploughs/Swords.

There are two sides to every coin

Re:As a scientist..

[_Mustang]

Imagine if physicists were to take the arrogant attitude of today's security developers and say, "If I can build it, I should and also tell everyone else how to do it!"

And what exactly would you consider the supercollider (and more exotic) infrastructure in use by educational instititions then, if not exactly that.
I mean really, smashing atoms and (trying to create) black holes certainly seem to meet the criteria for arrogance. And it has to be those physicists you mentioned since no one else has the expertise to even dream that stuff up much less implement it technologically. But to "tell everyone else how to do it" is exactly what peer-review is all about; the idea is a very fundamental one for safe science, no?

But - would I put a stop to it if I could? No, because the potential benefits to humanity and me personally far outweigh the inherent dangers. I would like to see more control on these types of *things* but definately do not wish an end to them. As someone who considers himself a hacker of the classic definition - I wholeheartedly believe in that old adage. Paraphrasing I think it went something like "you go to school for an education, but to learn you need first-hand experience".

Re:As a scientist..

[Znork]

You're making the mistake of thinking the old way, the same as the patent system. Scientist are no longer unique, nor do they do anything unique. Knowledge and research is by now so widely done and so distributed that invention has become an iterative process where there is no longer any question about if something will be solved or invented, but rather who, out of hundreds of scientists and teams, will do it first.

The research and dispersal of information is by now inevitable. Go ahead, keep it silent, and read all about it next month when someone else goes public with it instead.

And the other side?

[Tackhead]

1) We saw what the media did to Zimmerman, trying to portray him as torn up over PGP. He's not.

2) What if this is more of the same?

But on to original point - while Hellman admits his view of NSA as "Darth Vader" was "human but ... ridiculous" - perhaps he's overlooking the number of people whose lives were saved by strong crypto?

Or perhaps there's nobody in Tibet resisting the Chinese? Or perhaps there was nobody in the former Soviet Union using crypto during the coup? Or perhaps the Berlin Wall came down, in part, because people were able to communicate without Stasi eavesdropping on them.

Or perhaps the women who infiltrated Afghanistan in defence of native women being slaughtered by the Taliban were only able to get their stories out -- stories that have been publicized time and again over the past few years, and that have nothing to do with the present crisis -- because they're able to communicate securely.

If (and in light of the Zimmerman distortions, I see it as a very big "If") Hellman is having second thoughts about public-key crypto, I urge him to look at the good it's brought.

NYC was One Big Atrocity. We'll never know how many Little Personal Attrocities Hellman's tech has prevented, but I'd bet it's in the thousands.

Re:Encryption doesnt kill people, people kill peop

[rEWDBOi]

Come to think of it, why's nobody talking about banning planes? They're tools that were used with at least as much of a bad intent as encryption was. Stick that in the face of the next security-over-freedom politician you meet.
Just an idea that just occured to me.

Don't make things that can be used for evil

[Greyfox]

Wait a sec. Name ONE human invention that can't. Everything from the pointed stick on up pretty much qualifies. So should we stop making everything because someone might use it for evil? Even your penecillin might accidentally save a future Hitler. Shall we throw away that technology because of that?

I got news for you. You can't live a completely safe life. There is always the chance that something or someone will kill you, no matter how bizarre the circumstances. So you propose to live your life paralyzed by fear, never making progress because progress could be dangerous. Talk about cowardice. And the US will not remain a technological leader for long with that attitude.

I put myself in situations where I could die (Arguably 10 times a week as I commute to and from work) because I refuse to live in fear. I enjoy hang gliding and hiking the short (2-3 mile) trails at the Rocky Mountain National Park even though doing so is putting my life at risk. Sure I could crash. Sure I could run into a bear or a mountain lion that would think I'd make a tasty and delicious snack. I see dozens of people each trip up to the park who never even think you could die up there. Every year a few idiots get gored by pissed off elk. Fucking Disneyland Mentality. People die in the amusement park. No place is completely safe. You will never make anyplace completely safe. You will eventually die, one way or another. Deal with it.

From Crossbows to Cryptography

[aphor]

This issue was already explored by the Internet community, and the cypherpunk manifesto From Crossbows to Cryptography explains the issue, though some of us find our collective selves on the other side of the coin from the cypherpunks this time.

The issue is power, which privacy confers because anonymity is impunity. Authorship being one of the critical facts concealed by any encrypted parcel. Technology originates in the powerful, in order to confer more power to them. However the technology itself is information which escapes by multiplying itself in unacquainted minds, eventually in those minds outside the power elite which devised the technology. The balance of power falls back to somewhere between the power elite and the subject people.

Now all of this exists independant of ethics. No doubt the power elite would like the subjects to restrain their use of the technology on a principle that does not bind the power elite. Ethics are weak (subjective and voluntary), but they are at least sometimes effective.

Where this leads us is to the question: should we develop new encryption technology? Should we implement Key Escrow? I urge you to think long and hard about the cold facts of how any of those possibilities can be abused. Experts agree that without strong cryptography (even for terrorists) democracy will fail. This is a new world and requires acute wisdom to set the direction we move next. Freedom of speech is not an option or a priviledge, it is a right whithout which people cannot guarantee governance by consent.

Just Imagine.

[atathert]

The year is 1903, the location: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and YOU ARE THERE!

We see the Wright Brothers standing near the first ever airplane, moments before it takes off for the first ever powered flight. As they begin to board the craft, a reporter informs them that their invention will be used to kill thousands of people, destroy a building, and drastically alter the fabric of the nation that they love so much. They also are told about the untold number of deaths caused by warplanes, including dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as all the other armed conflicts that used this wonderful invention. Finally they are told about the numbers of people that will die as passenger planes crash into hills, oceans, and fields all across the world.

Instead of flying the plane, they decide that the risks are too great, and scrap the whole invention. Upon hearing the details about the possible future of the machine, congress legislates that it is illegal to develop, own, or operate such manned flying machines...

Just imagine.

Re:Just Imagine.

[ellem]

and so France makes one. Math is not owned by the USA and math makes Encryption. I understand that there are smart people outside of my country, although I haven't personally encountered any.

I like the idea of your story but it only works if the whole world is run by the USA.

Re:It's kinda like..

[jilles]

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.

We don't even know if encryption was used...

[Robber Baron]

After about the 4th day I stopped watching the "news" coverage of the WTC disaster. Basically about the same time the talking heads ran out of things to say. Wake me up when the barrage of pseudoinfo-diarrhoea ceases and they've got something new to say.

We don't even know if the terrorists used encryption. We do know that they used American technology against Americans. Technology manufactured by Boeing...gee, don't hear Boeing engineers wailing about the "ethics" of design features of the 767, do we? Besides, smart people in other countries write encryption all the time...how are you going stop that? What they simply used a seemingly innocuous set of phrases with pre-determined meanings?

This article is nothing more than more of the same pseudoinformation (propaganda?) that the American media has been bombarding us with. The corporate propaganda machine is in full cry, preparing Joe-sixpack for the loss of freedom that is soon to come. Herr Goebbels would have been proud.

What about all the technological advances by the Americans that allow them to exert brutal dominion over other parts of the world? A discussion of ethical concerns and science could prove most embarrasing to America.

In any case, scientists should only concern themselves with "is it possible?" not "should we make it available?"

Re:We don't even know if encryption was used...

[Steve B]

At this point, we can pretty much say that encryption was not used. If the various organizations that begin in darkness and end in the letter "A" had been able to come up with something -- anything -- other than "We Blew It" as a reason for not catching this, they would have mentioned it by now.

With a plan like this, set up years in advance and not needing to be executed on any specific date, they only needed to transmit one of two messages: 1)"Proceed According To Plan" and 2)"Stop; Wait For The Next Courier From Jihadistan". It's trivial to come up with two utterly unnoticeable code words.

Don't shoot the messenger

[serutan]

In my opinion Martin Hellman is no more responsible for the WTC bombings than Rod Serling, who originated the idea of airline hijacking in his 1966 movie, "The Doomsday Flight."

For the rest of his life Serling regretted putting this concept into the public mind. But it was only a matter of time before somebody figured it out. At that time there were no metal detectors. Airports were like high-class bus stations. It wasn't Serling's fault that the security systems we have become accustomed to, as well as those we are going to start seeing now, are installed only after damage has been done rather than after the warnings have been sounded.

Like it or not, we have had the technology tiger by the tail for a long time. Cropdusting planes were grounded nationwide this weekend because of the possibility of biochemical attack. Why now? Cropdusting planes and biochemical weapons have both been around for ages. The possibility of putting them together didn't just pop into existence last week. It's one of many things that the authorities have long known could happen, probably will happen, but hasn't happened yet so no need to alarm people.

I'm sure quite a number of freedoms we have long enjoyed, simply because nobody has figured out how to wreak mayhem with them, will be going away soon. But don't blame it on Martin Hellman or Rod Serling, or the first proto-human who noticed that you could use a stick to hit stuff with. Blame it on the fact that some people are just assholes.

Re:Where was it used?

[markmoss]

This is really the key point: Terrorists DO NOT need cryptography if they are capable of planning ahead a little in face to face meetings. If you are making it up as you go along, then you have to send lots of detailed messages back and forth. But if you can meet somewhere that CIA agents cannot operate (Afghanistan, for instance), and decide what everyone will be doing in two years (flying airliners into buildings), then the messages requireed as the plan unfolds can all be easily disguised as routine business or family communications.

Of course, if you force banks and other businesses to put back doors into their crypto, then you are giving the more sophisticated terrorists one hell of an opportunity. Why bother blowing up Americans a few thousand at a time when you can foul up the financial system until millions of them are starving? It would be tough to do -- but remember that under our laws, Arab or Afghan origins is no reason to keep a person out of sensitive government positions, like in the key escrow department...

Love Big Brother?

[sharkey]

One nanotechnology expert, Glenn H. Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, said that someday it might even be used to make tiny robots that would lodge in people's brains and make them truly love Big Brother.

Well, they'd have to. That show fucking sucked.

Can't stop thought

[glasslemur]

Cryptography is based on math formulas. Last time I checked, knowledge of math was not confined to the US. Basic cryptography can be done with very large prime numbers, not a difficult math concept, but hard as hell to factor.

Besides, any idea, over our entire history, was probably not thought up by only one person, even though usually only one person gets the credit for it.

Preventing someone from advancing in ANY technology, only puts them behind. If a US mathematician doesn't think of it and publish it, someone else will. To protect against something, you have to understand how it works first. You have to have guns with bullets to make bullet proof vests. You have to have a virus to find the cure. (I hate bad analogies, but since they're all the rage).

I think the farther cryptographers and mathematicians advance, the more useless the old technology becomes. Remember RSA Labs 56 bit key?

Thoughts and ideas should never be outlawed.

War

[KjetilK]

From the article:

People who want to hurt you can find a way to do it.

Oh yes. And that is why the only option is to make sure nobody wants to hurt you. From the Russell-Einstein Manifesto:

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?

It's up to you.

Funny thing.

[supabeast!]

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."

Just write your Congressmen

[LordNimon]

Here's a letter I sent last week. I posted this on another thread, but here it is again for those who missed it. I'm allowing anyone to use this letter as a template for their communiques, on the conditition that you modify it so that it doesn't look like it's a complete rip-off.

-------------

Dear Senator/Congressman:

This week, you and all other Congressmen are very busy preparing new laws and modifying existing ones to help the United States combat terrorism. Unfortunately, I fear that some of these laws will do more to restrict loyal Americans than actually stop terrorists. I hope you can take a few minutes out of your schedule to read this letter.

To put it bluntly, restrictions on encryption technology are pointless. There have been reports that the terrorist networks responsible for the World Trade Center attack used encryption technology in their communication. Many people, none of whom truly understands technology, believe that if there had been limits on encryption, it would have hampered the terrorists. This assertion is absurd.

Encryption is nothing more than a field of mathematics, where the data to be encrypted is treated as a bunch of numbers. Placing legal limits on encryption is the same as outlawing certain kinds of math. One of the worst ideas being proposed is to force individuals and companies to use encryption technologies for which the government has "back door" access. That is, the government is in possession of secret keys that can decrypt any data which is encrypted using these particular algorithms. Other encryption algorithms which don't allow for back doors would be outlawed.

The flaw in this reasoning is that it is impossible to force terrorists to use "approved" technology. We don't even know who or where they are, so how can we force them to do anything?!? The terrorists will simply use "non-approved" encryption technologies while honest American citizens and businesses are forced to sacrifice their privacy. The worst part is that if other countries were to ever obtain these secret keys, they would have access to every piece of encrypted data from the United States.

The truth is, strong encryption protects Americans. With strong encryption, terrorists won't be able to decrypt sensitive corporate data. They won't be able to spy on American citizens. They won't be able to intercept top secret transmissions.

These terrorists were able to strike not because they used encryption, but because our intelligence organizations are incompetent. The FBI is better known for its blunders (e.g. the Atlanta Olympics bombing, the siege at Waco, the assault at Ruby Ridge, and the 3000 documents in the McVeigh case) than for its successes. In fact, it's been over a week since the attack, and the best our government can say is, "We're pretty sure that Osama bin Ladin is the prime suspect."

Therefore, I am asking you to reject any bills that place limitations on the use of encryption. Instead, I think you should focus on how to improve our intelligence-gathering organizations. Perhaps in exchange for bailing out the airline industry, federal officials from the intelligence organizations should get free flights for the next ten years. The money saved can be used to fund more operations.

GMOs in the wild?

[code_rage]

The article says that geneticists delayed the development of transgenic technology in the 1970's until scientists' fears of germ warfare could be assuaged.

Hmm. Does this mean that "safeguards" were developed (I cannot imagine what safeguards *could* be developed)? Or does it simply mean that scientists became "comfortable" with the idea, after the passage of some time?

Currently, the big biochem companies like ConAgra and Monsanto are experimenting with our ecosystem, releasing Genetically Modified Organisms into the wild. Forget sabotage or terrorism, we may screw things up by "accident". Anyone else worried about that?

Famous quote?

[Java Pimp]

"If cryptography is outlawed only the outlaws will have cryptography."

Outlawing encryption is not going to stop people from using it for some malicious purpose. Outlawing guns is not going to stop armed robbery. Outlawing nuclear technology is not going to stop the bomb.

It really doesn't matter what you create/invent/discover scientifically or technologically, people will find a way to use it to kill people. And the governments of the world are the biggest example of this. One of the first applications of a new technology is how can it be applied to the military. I mean, what was one of the first uses of nuclear technology?

What is the question here? Should we not perform any scientific research? Should we not improve our technology? Or, if we do, should we just not share it with anyone? (Including ourselves, there are of course spies and criminals among us.) If that's the case, how could anyone benefit from it?

To not strive forward with technology because evil-doers might use it is absurd! Even though technology is used by a select few to harm others, the benefits far outweigh the unfortunate "evil that men do."

from the article

[Technodummy]

This is one of the most insightful comments I've read about threats from technology

"We spend a lot of time worrying about extremely sophisticated threats," he said. "But less sophisticated threats can slip under the radar. People who want to hurt you can find a way to do it."

This can only be underlined by the events of September 11, where box cutters were used to destroy the WTC.

Thomas Jefferson said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

Vigilance is the answer, not locking the barn door after the horse has bolted.

Apologies for mixing quotes and clichés