The easiest way to convince someone to oppose backdoors is to make them uncomfortable

"Out, but with a W - has found the answer" (belg)
04/21/2016 at 11:56 • Filed to: SMBC

SMBC, the perfect example of “it’s funny cause it’s true”

Also applicable against “I don’t care about privacy, since I have nothing to hide”, without devolving into a discussion about technological limitations and ethical problems.

DISCUSSION (17)

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 12:01

For a second there, I though you were talking about making backdoors uncomfortable. O.o

Out, but with a W - has found the answer > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3
04/21/2016 at 12:03

Should work just as well I guess.

Also: relevant avatar.

Mercedes Streeter > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3
04/21/2016 at 12:08

PHRASING!

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 12:08

This was too perfect.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Mercedes Streeter
04/21/2016 at 12:09

See avatar.

spanfucker retire bitch > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 12:10

This reminds me of the John Oliver episode when he went to Russia to speak to Edward Snowden. Instead of asking people on the streets of New York what they thought about the NSA invading their private lives, they asked what they thought about the NSA looking at their dick pics.

Changed the whole emotional response.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 12:17

I for sure don’t want a software backdoor. Because if the government can get into the backdoor, then so can people less trustworthy.

Mercedes Streeter > G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3
04/21/2016 at 12:18

OOOOOH! I saw Archer, but didn’t see the text lol

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Mercedes Streeter
04/21/2016 at 12:28

Finally, my avatar has come to fruition.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 13:35

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/forget…

A couple weeks ago WhatsApp switched on default end to end encryption for their mobile app. I saw the article, immediately downloaded it and started doing my best to convince all my peeps to do the same.

https://www.whatsapp.com/

Out, but with a W - has found the answer > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
04/21/2016 at 18:11

The good thing about Whatsapp is that the encryption is unnoticeable to the average user, while if you want to safely encrypt email for example, you’re looking at public key systems, which require quite a lot of set-up.

Out, but with a W - has found the answer > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
04/21/2016 at 18:17

That’s even assuming your current government and every one that follows is and will be trustworthy.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 19:01

I live in Alabama. I’m sure you’ve heard about Bentley. I’d rather let him into my phone than some random guy. At least I know who he’d call with it.

Out, but with a W - has found the answer > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
04/21/2016 at 19:11

I’m Belgian, so I’m not really up to speed with all US governors, but I just checked his Wiki page, and that’s quite a mess he made.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/21/2016 at 21:23

Yeah. He’s not the greatest one we’ve ever had.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > Out, but with a W - has found the answer
04/22/2016 at 09:40

The fact that the encryption is totally transparent to using the app is by far the best part of it. The biggest problem with encryption is how difficult it can be to get set up for things like email. Apple was on the right track with imessage, but it stinks that you have to choose between making sure your messages will go through by allowing them to send as text if the imessage fails or risking missed messages by only allowing them to send as imessages.

I wonder how long before email clients make end to end encryption as easy as WhatsApp has? Especially for web based services like Gmail and such, I don’t see why they couldn’t fairly easily roll out user transparent end to end encryption. Since there isn’t any software installed on the endpoints it seems that would do a lot to make implementation a lot easier. Obviously it would start with emails sent within their system (e.g. @gmail.com to @gmail.com emails), and implementing encryption between different domains is exponentially more difficult, but start somewhere.

Maybe somebody like PGP could license their encryption to the different email providers making cross domain encryption easier to implement. The big players like Amazon, Google and Microsoft (and maybe Yahoo) could definitely afford to license that technology/code and likely not even need to pass on the cost to their users.

This is coming from someone who isn’t in IT and couldn’t code to save his life, so take my thoughts on the relative difficulty with a grain of salt. I realize that implementing any kind of encryption is incredibly difficult.

Out, but with a W - has found the answer > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
04/22/2016 at 11:51

Like you’ve indicated, Whatsapp’s biggest advantage is its closed ecosystem, whereas in the case of email (and text/imessage), you’re looking at a huge amount of variability in devices, providers and clients.

GPG is actually an open-source encryption setup based on PGP, so the technical tools are available. The thing that’s mainly holding its implementation back is inconvenience: on the one hand, you have to exchange/broadcast your public key (like some of Gawker Media’s authors do at the bottom of their articles), but on the other hand, you want to keep your private key absolutely safe. In most cases, this means storing it offline.
Whatsapp solves this by coupling your private key to your phone, so if you lose your phone, you have to reset all connections. However, most people use email across a number of devices, which would make using your key a lot more difficult (you could use a USB stick to store your key and insert it in every computer you use, but that doesn’t work on a phone or a tablet).