Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • January 11, 2018 1:21 AM

Having read the preface on the Yale Press server, I was looking for “fresh” information or ideas.

I was a little disapointed in that it was,for me atleast, not new.

However to cut the preface short Susan Landau makes the point that the policy view point by LE is outdated and self serving and thus sets it’s self in a ‘We are the good guys, the bad guys must have no place to hide”[1] way.

And she points out that there is no back/front door only for LE as it’s available for all “Bad Guys” as well. And contrasted the approach of the FBI/DoJ -v- Apple and Apple’s view point (though she does not mention the real reason the FBI dropped the case, which is the tide had swung against them, just the “Oh look we’ve found another way” to dodge the bullet).

From this conflict the FBI/DoJ created with Apple, she moves on to makes the point that currently the real argument is not Good -v- Bad guys, but actually Security -v- Security. Which most readers here should be aware of from the basic premise that ‘Technology is agnostic to use and the Controling Mind’.

What she does not mention in the Preface, but I hope she covers later is the notion of “Thought Crime” which we are slipping into.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s important to understand there is a vast difference between LE serving a warrant on you and serving a warrant on a third party to gain access to the meta-data or data of your thoughts. It causes a vast inequity of arms, thus vests way to much power in the state to do harm.

Simplistically it goes back to the ideas behind Jeremy Bentham’s Panoptican Prison and later those of George Orwell in 1984 with the all seeing surveillance state in the home. That is you do not know by whom or when you are being observed, and this has a significantly adverse effect on society (see East German history from Russian occupation at the end of WWII through to Reunification).

Thus the State gains not just an unfair advantage by the adverse effects on society. But they also gain from the fact they can spend almost indefinate periods of time secretly investigating you. Which is against the usual premise that you will get equity in time to prepare a defence etc. Further in the US it robs you of the advantages of the right to a speedy trial. Which is one of the few deterants you have against the state as it put a limit on what resources they can bring to bare against an individual.

Such secret investigation is an anathema to justice it strips you of your rights to fairness and equality under the law. It is a tactic you can well believe of the archetypal “agent of state” l’Eminence rouge, Cardinal Richelieu using to crush opposition to his aim of centralizing and consolidating power by any and all means. It’s also something that we know that LE knows the power of[2].

Hopefully it is something Susan Landau addresses in one of the later chapters. Or if not she will do so soon in other works. Because lack of transparancy of their actions is what a Police State or any dubious LE entity craves, as well as those that have become “results driven” by ineffectual politicians, of which we have many these days.

[1] Not only is it a ludicrously stupid point of view by LE, harking back to black and white “Lone Ranger” films for children. It’s actually insulting the US Citizens, by saying they are to stupid to understand anything more complicated than a six year old could understand…

[2] Of one thing you can be sure, that if the tables were reversed LE would be screaming from every hight about the injustice of being surveilled and having their every action second guessed by others “with an agenda”. We know this from the way the rank and file behave whenever a bystander gets a cammera or smart phone out and points it in their direction. Also the reversal of the mantra “Of if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide” when they have to wear body cams and voice recorders, that they keep forgetting to charge, turn on, report not functional, etc etc. Which for some reason their seniors rarely investigate or action. Likewise from the fight defendants or others have obtaining such records that show LE behaviour, disclosure of any form is an anathema to LE in general.