I think they are not in a position where they have to actually solve the technical problem, but rather in a position where they decide what they believe is best for the society.

"If you were able to break encryption only for criminals, it would increase the security of the people. Please try to break encryption only for criminals" is not completely unreasonable.

The problem, of course, is that it's not possible. But for those politicians, cryptography is pretty much magic. Why wouldn't it be possible?

Same thing happens for climate change: instead of understanding the problem and facing reality, politicians (and honestly most people) stop at "scientists just need to find a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere efficiently". That's not how it works, but it doesn't prevent them from behaving as if it was possible. "It's magic, just do this one more spell".

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numpad0 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> "... Please try to break encryption only for criminals" is not completely unreasonable.

And the engineers' response is "not our job, it's yours. Please invent and patent such thing yourself, then we MAY execute". As it stands, it is in fact completely unreasonable.

	▲	palata 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can't remove 2/3 of my sentence and then say it is completely wrong.

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pfortuny 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unfortunately, it is not the point of government to do what is best for society. It is to organize what individuals want but cannot by themselves (emphasis on want). They are not there to “give us the best” but to give us the “minimum”.

	▲	palata 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't understand what you are trying to say.
	▲	martin-t 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The government is emergent behavior of evolutionary pressures. For most of human history, war of aggression was a matter of a cost-benefit analysis which often have more benefit than cost. That has changed (relatively) recently because of how destructive it is that even the winner does not gain from it. Point being, hierarchical authoritarian structures are very good at war (and other kinds of competition). That's why they exist. But they should no longer be needed. They are entrenched and we need to evolve away from them.

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HighGoldstein 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The problem, of course, is that it's not possible. But for those politicians, cryptography is pretty much magic. Why wouldn't it be possible?

Few, if any, politicians are nuclear physicists, and I'd argue nuclear physics is far more complex than cryptography, yet I haven't seen any of them ask the weapons industry to manufacture a nuke for just the bad guys.

Let's not attribute blatant malice to stupidity. People in these positions have the resources and advisors to know exactly what the consequences will be.

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palata 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I'd argue nuclear physics is far more complex than cryptography

We're not talking about "being able to do it" but "being able to understand what it can do". Nuclear weapons are a lot easier to grasp than cryptography in that sense: it is a thing that explodes. It is absolutely obvious to everybody that a bomb destroys whatever is in the vicinity.

> Let's not attribute blatant malice to stupidity. People in these positions [...]

It's not people in these positions: the vast majority of the population doesn't understand the limits of cryptography.

> have the resources and advisors to know exactly what the consequences will be.

Seems to me like you haven't been in contact with lobbies and expert advisors. Many times, politicians will have to ask experts from the industry. They would not contact an average engineer for advice, but rather the company itself. If there is money to be made, the CEO or some executive will give their advice. This advice is systematically beneficial for the company. It's not necessarily malice: a CEO has to believe in what they are doing, even if it is objectively bad for society.

It is very hard to find unbiased experts to help you forge policies.

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martin-t 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I say stupidity should be punished the same way as incompetence. Exactly to stop malicious people from faking incompetence to avoid punishment.

And yes, this is an attack on basic human freedoms and should be punished, not just prevented.

	▲	palata 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is an interesting comment, because you are making exactly the same mistake as those politicians: - They think it's easy to just ask engineers to magically make safe backdoors. - You think it's always easy to know what is right and what is wrong. "We should just punish those who harm society". Sure, we should! And we should have safe backdoors!