Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • June 18, 2020 9:44 AM

@ wiredog,

If you really need more privacy then you will put in the effort to learn how to use it, but most people don’t really need that.

Sadly neither point is realy true.

Few people even supposed security experts and journalists can use the likes of PGP etc, there was a paper written more than two degades ago now called “Why Johnny can’t encrypt” at Carnegie Mellon University,

http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~tygar/papers/Why_Johnny_Cant_Encrypt/OReilly.pdf

Nearly a decade later another group of researchers using a newer and supposadly more user friendly version of PGP found almost all the issues had not changed, And guess what a decade and a half after the first paper another this time from researchers at Bringham Young University,

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kent_Seamons/publication/283334711_Why_Johnny_Still_Still_Can't_Encrypt_Evaluating_the_Usability_of_a_Modern_PGP_Client/links/59512b3ea6fdcc218d24bac9/Why-Johnny-Still-Still-Cant-Encrypt-Evaluating-the-Usability-of-a-Modern-PGP-Client.pdf

There are other papers out there about simillar usability issues. But it’s not just the crypto software it’s all the other OpSec that surrounds it’s use. A look into the real history of Ed Snowden shows just what issues he had even with one journalist who had more than good reason to be paranoid due to the way she had been previously treated by the US Gov and others. I actually wince when I see newspapers with their “whistleblower hotlines” because it’s a sure fire bet that they will fail if they even click on the link let alone try to do what they are advised to do.

But the second issue is actually more fraught and it’s to do with the likes of “The NSA record it all ‘Time Machine’ projects” and “bio-metrics”.

It can reasonably said that “we do not know our future” but we can make predictions on it. The closer we are to the basic physical make up of each individual the easier that is especially in the shorter timr scales. For instance at the lowest levels where things are time consistant we have the breakdown of radioactive particles, we do not know when each breakdown occurs but in larger quantities than a few thousand atoms we can predict the half life fairly accurately. We can also predict how much other chemicals are effected, thus we can make reasonably accurate predictions in radiological medicine. Likewise as with other atoms we can predict how likely they are to poison us or produce desired medical outcomes the same with molecules. As we get upto RNA, epigenetics and DNA we can make reasonable predictions about certain medical issues that are going to effect us as we get older. Whilst this is still a new science and we know considerably less than we will know in years to come, some larger objects such as bone and other external features are known how they are likely to change. For instance knowing your hight on your second birthday can be used as a reasonably acurate predictor of adult hight, especially if other information such as diet is known.

Thus pictures of children can be used to make good estimates of adult appearence. Other areas of medicine are progressing rapidly including that of neuroscience, where early indicators can give rise to probable behaviours in later life (something the NFL is still comming to terms with over even fairly mild head injuries). Likewise psychiatry is moving forward on mental illness prediction and events in earlier life.

Thus for someone who is still not an adult today (ie under 18-21) it is becoming rapidly easier to predict their future in less and less broad brush strokes. Which is one reason Google amoungst others are preying on children via the education system.

To think that the NSA and other Government agencies are not thinking the same way would be puting one’s head in the sand. That “record it all” policy will enable them to analyse individuals just as Theil’s Palantir system is already doing and from what can be judged so were Cambridge Analytica before they imploded. Whilst the organisations may come and go, the knowledge, and more importantly the intention continues as normal with such things at increasing pace.

Whilst we may be years away from “Pre-Crime” we are already at the point where some sort of “thought crime in potentia” is possible. But we already see large scale “Pre-Crime” systems in place. These are kind of a “brownian motion” analysis of communities that using past data and current conditions can predict where certain types of crime are more likely to happen, thus alowing a level of “targeted resourcing” in police forces.

The upshot is for children, teens and even young adults various entities can make reasonable estimates as to what you are going to be in your midlife and older. For the purposes of “state control” it matters not a jot if your future can be accurately mapped, they just need to know certain probabilities to know if you should be more intently watched or even prevented from entering certain jobs or domains of work.

We know that this is currently done very crudely in some western countries already and mostly for bad reasons that get swept under the National Security blanket/carpet. In future such methods will become less and less crude and likewise the majority of peoples life opportunities will get reduced simply because they “over shared” when younger.

Thus nobody knows how little or much security of communications they do need, thus 99.99% or more will underestimate early in life, and that may very well haunt them for the rest of their life, and even beyond into their descendents lives.

But even if they can not get “reliable results” we know based on past performance that Government Entities are going to want to do this, as will others for more commercial reasons. In effect we know from history that some of the “inmates will take over the asylum” for their own personal gain irrespective of the efficacy of the technology.