Interpol plans to condemn encryption spread, citing predators - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-interpol-encryption-exclusive/exclusive-interpol-plans-to-condemn-encryption-spread-citing-predators-sources-say-idUSKBN1XR0S7 <comment><USER2> This is a good time to remember that police forces work for governments and not the other way around.

 _Of course_ it would be easier for the police to catch bad guys if they had full-text search access to all conversations and content, worldwide. That doesn't mean it is a good idea. They're asking for something to make their job easier... can't blame them for trying, and of course who doesn't want to catch people who harm children?

But it's not their responsibility to account for negative side effects. That's our responsibility, as citizens who are in charge of our governments. And we have to remember that governments and police can hurt children too. Look at what the border police in the U.S. are doing right now. And when it comes to fighting that sort of thing, encrypted comms are essential for political organizing.

This is on top of the obvious and many benefits of encryption in protecting us all from crime.

<comment><USER3> I also this is a good time to remember that not every citizen has to have the same values on this. Some people might think the tradeoff in terms of freedoms vs security is worth it.

It seems everyone is so eager to paint the other side as objectively wrong / motivated by bad intentions, when in reality I don't believe this is an objectively right answer. As a society we have to decide how much freedom and security we want at this moment in time.

<comment><USER4> Privacy is a human right. Encryption backdoors for governments are human rights abuses.

It has nothing to do with safety; it is not a debate about "how much safety do we purchase with reduced privacy".

It's just as firearms rights have nothing to do with hunting, or a militia.

<comment><USER5> Human rights are man-made and arbitrary. They aren't some kind of holy text that must be protected at all costs. They must be bent and ignored if necessary. You can't just say "this is a human right" to shut down any discussion.

<comment><USER6> Human rights were fought for an won in bloody struggles. We do not want to lose them again.

<comment><USER7> Thats true if we assume that every human want the same thing. But the reason there is bloody fight in the first place is not all human want the same thing. Is good _for you_ if you are in the winning side, you certainly don't want to lose them but you can't say the same for the other side. They too want to be on the winning side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sigh. What we can basically tell from this is that the Five Eyes crew have joint legislation ready to go on this and are now going to insert an easy-to- digest and appealing narrative into the mainstream ahead of the release of that legislation.

The combination of "But the children! You don't support child predators, do you?!", low general technical understanding and overall apathy to the removal of our rights (in the name of "progress") means that this is basically destined to succeed.

Might be time to really re-evaluate our personal relationship with technology and make the appropriate moves to isolate it in our lives. If/when this goes through, technology will essentially have us under surveillance in every aspect of our daily lives.

<comment><USER9> I for one are ready to give up my encryption when the politicians do it first and we see how well that works.

<comment><USER10> Next time someone tells me "Why would you need encryption if you have nothing to hide?" I'mma just answer with "Why do you need clothes then?"

<comment><USER11> > when the politicians do it first ... > "Why do you need clothes then?"

I've seen politicians. I know why they need clothes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Look at the government repression on the Hong Kong protesters, who are fighting for freedom and accountability. That's a good reason to support encryption technology.

</comment><comment><USER13> Imagine for a moment that ssh became illegal.

Is it even possible for the tech economy to continue? What would that look like?

My head hurts.

Actually, think of what Attorney General Barr said: Corporations should have access to strong encryption, just not little people.

In that horrifying sort of world, there would be encryption licenses perhaps. And general purpose computing would be under a large threat.

It is so absurd that it would only work under a totalitarian system. Maybe that's what we'll eventually get.

<comment><USER14> It'd probably be some new PKI on top of SSH where your private key would be held in escrow by an identity provider. e.g. Your username is your email address, and your email provider retains your key pair. It'd probably be portrayed as an improved key management solution that allows more frequent key rotations and revocations. Might even start with being required for government projects, resulting in supported implementations by cloud providers that want lucrative government contracts. Then they just wait for a crisis opportunity like a cyberattack to force ISPs to block non-PKI-based SSH traffic in the name of national security.

And the largest and most paranoid companies that host their own mail and authentication services on-perm would probably be allowed to use those. But most everyone else is left doing key escrow with Google and O365 for their work and personal accounts...

<comment><USER15> Forced key escrow was actually floated before, when I was a kid in the late 80's/early 90's.

Even as a child it seemed like a terrible, dangerous idea.

<comment><USER16> But think of the children! Do you want to help the terrorists? What's so bad that you want to hide it?

America is looking more and more like a Soviet style dictatorship every day. The United States' propaganda machine is so well tuned that they don't need to physically oppress us with secret police on every block. We oppress ourselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any time these topics around weakening privacy or removing encryption comes up, it's nearly always presented with a save the children type of argument. I mean, who doesn't want to protect children from child abuse and predators? The problem however, is that most children that are abused are done so by family members or people already close to them (like maybe their priests), so with that in mind I don't really understand how weakening encryption will help protect children from predators.

<comment><USER18> That's because there is a deeper agenda than just "protecting children". If you read the Edward Snowden book (permanent record) then you'll note that he talks about what the NSA/CIA is actually doing with their signals intelligence programs. It isn't about national security, it is about espionage on a global scale. They want information on what foreign governments, journalists, domestic organizations (not just terrorist groups as they claim) and corporations are doing. For domestic citizens, they want to know if you are a threat to the United States or violating laws.

The second strong end-to-end encryption is implemented, the whole system simply fails to operate. Instead of having a massive data collection system, you now have to go back to more traditional methods that require much more effort to implement - like hacking a target's computer directly. If that happens then the USA will lose its edge in terms of obtaining critical information and that will be a treat to their global dominance....hence the reason they mention national security. Of course, you can't just come out and say this is the reason so they mask it in "fighting sexual exploitation" etc.

The truth is end-to-end encryption and fighting sexual exploitation are not mutually exclusive. We can have both.

<comment><USER19> > Instead of having a massive data collection system, you now have to go back > to more traditional methods that require much more effort to implement - > like hacking a target's computer directly.

Which is more amenable to accountability. Usually this requires a warrant or approval of some kind.

> If that happens then the USA will lose its edge in terms of obtaining > critical information and that will be a treat to their global dominance

How does the US banning encryption help it on the global stage where other countries continue to encrypt their messages?

<comment><USER20> Because the US will pressure other countries to do the same thing. If enough countries agree then it'll be easier and easier to push it onto the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You know what else protects criminals? Walls. Seriously, wouldn't it all be much easier if the police could just look into your home from the outside without those pesky walls around it?

This constant war on encryption is getting so absurd lately. The kind of people who are pushing this should just be fired if not thrown into prison. It's just a blatant attack against human rights and the public should finally start viewing it as such.

<comment><USER21> What about warrants? The police can get a warrant to look inside your walls. You can't do that with encryption.

<comment><USER22> do you think warrant should also extend to the walls of your skull? should police be able to access your thoughts, given the correct warrant?

the "walls" analogy is sort of unfortunate because it doesn't apply evenly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I disagree with the tone of the comments here.

Encryption is scary. Of course law enforcement is dismayed by the possibility that certain kinds of crimes could leave behind no trace at all. What these people, who want to regulate encryption, don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free society. In a free society, people can commit crimes, and sometimes they can get away with them. We've made a deliberate choice to structure our society this way rather than optimizing for preventing crimes or punishing criminals. This is the right choice.

At the same time, you have to understand the temptation of structuring your society in a different way, in order to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. That perspective truly has massive appeal. Comments that fail to acknowledge this and boil down to "you can't regulate math" are not good arguments. They're condescending and far too dismissive of a facet of human psychology that is actually admirable (a strong preference for justice). A better argument acknowledges these things but reiterates the liberal arguments that undergird our societies (which have turned out rather well, if you ask me).

<comment><USER11> > don't seem to understand is that this is the downside of living in a free > society

No, what they don't understand is that the cryptography that protects your bank account is the exact same cryptography that (supposedly) makes law enforcement difficult. There's no way to separate the two, any more than you can separate the arithmetic that is responsible for updating your bank account from the arithmetic that is responsible for updating the bank account of a Colombian drug lord.

<comment><USER23> Of course there's a way to separate them. Let banks do what they like and obstruct everyone else in some way. As another poster phrased the argument: "Corporations should have access to strong encryption, just not little people."

<comment><USER24> Sure except that's like trying to ban alcohol, and we all know how that worked out. It's far too easy to get your hands on, especially for criminals who are sufficiently motivated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The international police organization Interpol plans to condemn the spread > of strong encryption in a statement Monday saying it protects child sex > predators, three people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Let me fix that for you

> it protects nearly every single person on the planet.

<comment><USER26> This is close to saying child rapists rape children behind closed doors so you shouldn't have locks, ignoring that well locked doors benefit everyone who has a house. It's disingenuous.

<comment><USER27> While I support the sentiment that privacy is important, comparing encryption to locks in this ghastly context is self-defeating.

Recall that there were more than one instance where critical evidence against a wealthy person, required for the prosecution to make a compelling case in court, was obtained by force with a police raid. At least one such instance happened in the US in 2019 and was well-publicized.

Now imagine a real-life security system that is absolutely, one hundred percent immune to unauthorized entry, even if it is attempted as a part of law enforcement raid.

It is possible to identify with the argument that everyone _should_ have access to such an impenetrable lock. However, it'd be really hard to argue that widespread access to it wouldn't create a radically new situation.

<comment><USER28> _> It is possible to identify with the argument that everyone should have access to such an impenetrable lock. However, it'd be really hard to argue that widespread access to it wouldn't create a radically new situation._

With regards to communication, we already have that impenetrable lock built in. I can say something incriminating to someone else in private, and the only way law enforcement will ever know what is if either party involved in the private conversation agrees to divulge it. Traditionally, the means for law enforcement to address this is to be part of the conversation.

<comment><USER27> In your example, law enforcement can force itself into the conversation in multiple ways (without compromising your counterpart), including listening devices or a break-in.

Most real-life analogies to encryption are not good enough. A smart layperson can easily spot issues with the "if crime happens in private, you shouldn't ban privacy" type of argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish these people who say privacy is dangerous would commit to having all their communications and movements published for all to see. Or something similar like that. At least then they wouldn't be such hypocrites.

For example, there was an interpol bribery scandal a year ago. Maybe it could have been prevented if that person had to communicate fully in the open.

</comment><comment><USER30> Encryption is math, and not even hard math at that. You have as much chance of stopping evil people from using encryption as you have of stopping them from doing multiplication.

Make every politician who opposes encryption feel like an idiot for thinking they can stop people from adding and multiplying.

<comment><USER31> Sadly, courts will laugh and proceed. The same argument could be done for firearms – it's just physics, and not even space/quantum physics. Really, a device pushing a small body to some direction via expansion of another body. It's all bodies, you can't stop people from surrounding them with these.

If adopted, a law will state "the piece of information for which format and representation cannot be detected in a considerable amount of time" and then a judge to decide. Send some random bytes and you're in trouble.

<comment><USER30> Courts are not our worry. Politicians making the laws are the problem. We need to focus on those passing these laws and make them fear any law limiting encryption. Encryption isn't even complicated math, and can be done with a deck of cards.

We need to emphasis there is no safe backdoor, and all politicians are doing is ensuring our money will be stolen and our pictures of our children will end up in the hands of perverts and freaks because of unencrypted data breaches. "Why do you want your constituents ripped off?" "Why do you want little Timmy's picture stolen by perverts?" Turn it around, make them the evil ones. The only real way to protect ourselves is to actually make this a voting issue and make the other side out to be the villain. Its been a while since politics was logical arguments and being a victim of these idiots is getting old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love how governments love to pretend that either none of these crimes happened prior to the digital communication age or that they never caught anyone prior to it (which they definitely did).

Let's also take a step back and consider the series of events and how this would play into that. Under normal circumstances, you need a warrant/reason to look at such data and communications. The theory here is that if they could decrypt everything that would make their job much easier. Fair point. But in the world 20-30 years ago these tools never existed so there was no such communication to capture. Which means the evidence was non-existent.

Yet, through other means of investigation they were able to identify and gather evidence against these criminals and prosecute them. How did they do that? It's because these are real world crimes (meaning not purely residing in the digital world) so there is real world evidence to be gathered. And all the _other_ methods they have without decrypting data still applies. That can mean tracking credit card charges, phone calls, cell tower pings, etc, etc. As we know, they can build out quite a substantial profile of a criminal network in that manner. They can correlate all sorts of things and gather insights into the data.

This is just government pulling a classic fear-mongering bullshit tactic wrapped in a "think about the children!" plea to simply make their lives easier while simultaneously trying to whittle down our privacy rights even further.

</comment><comment><USER33> Interpol is a bloody joke. Recently they accepted a submission from Russia to put an international arrest warrant on an activist named Ihor Mazur right before he was going to EU to appear at some conference. The guy, is not a terrorist, nor an extremist, but he was arrested on the Polish border and it took 2 days of effort from Ukrainian and Polish embassies for Interpol to finally accept the Russian claim as bogus and withdraw the warrant. He was eventually freed, but for Interpol to even accept this from Russia on their word alone was insane.

</comment><comment><USER34> The weirdest part of this argument is that law abiding people get no encryption while people who break the law will still have access to encryption, so how does it help you catch pedophiles?

I don't really understand how this will work in reality for things like SSL or ssh.

<comment><USER35> The idea is that if only criminals use encryption, they can go after every user of encryption and do some enhanced interrogation on them, since they are obviously up to no good.

But I also don't understand what they plan to do for online shopping and so on.

<comment><USER36> Yes, and the criminals just go out of band, further evading detection.

Law enforcement's over reliance (obsession) on SIGINT at the expense of HUMINT is self-defeating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is such a tired argument but is becoming more and more widespread. It's time for IT professionals beyond just the activists like the EFF to stand up and explain how encryption is good and necessary.

<comment><USER37> It's not like this BS is new BS. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_wars)

Everyone who _wants_ to know _knows_ or is a newbie.

However, if newbies come into the discussion faster than they can be brought up to speed there's a risk of an "Eternal September" effect diluting common sense, so you're basically right about how we should all be explaining it to our friends and family and whatnot.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Every time somebody tries to exploit the children protection narrative to justify a privacy/freedom withdrawal it's a huge red flag.

E.g. at the time when the government was introducing the websites blocking system in Russia they spoke about blocking underage porn but as soon as the system was deployed they started to block whatever sites they dislike (for political reasons or for money) every day.

</comment><comment><USER39> So in the same time they should condemn democracy and freedom, as they're having exactly the same effect. It is much easier for police in authoritarian countries to prevent crimes and find perpetrators.

But if they don't condemn democracy and freedom, they should also not condemn encryption. The ability to communicate privately, or saying things outside the consensus anonymously, is an important tool for citizens to protect democracy.

The Interpol job is to protect the law under the settings of democracy and freedom, not to try to change those settings in order to make their job easier.

<comment><USER40> "It is much easier for police in authoritarian countries to prevent crimes and find perpetrators."

Is this actually true? This sounds like one of those bits of received wisdom (like the trains supposedly running on time under Mussolini) that turns out to be bogus. I'm not sure that the expansion of police powers under authoritarian regimes has anything to do with making them more efficient at preventing or solving crimes that are crimes in all regimes (e.g. murder, rape, etc). I would at least need to see some evidence that clearance rates are better in authoritarian countries.

<comment><USER41> Authoritarian states tend to be not as advanced technologically (one consequence of authoritarianism!), thus their police forces should be less efficient in general despite the increased powers.

But controlling for other factors, why wouldn't enhanced surveillance help catch criminals? It's a pretty logical claim.

Perhaps you should look for the evidence and bring back to us. For now, it is reasonable to accept the common sense statement.

<comment><USER42> Given the needle in a haystack effect? Common sense has proven itself wrong repeatedly It was "common sense" that merchants had to be frauds because the value of goods was universal and they had transport labor.

Besides just because they can doesn't mean they will. Authoritarians are also infamous for both corruption and finding rooting out dissidents a higher priority than what most would call actual crime. All other things /aren't/ equal.

<comment><USER41> Common sense is an useful tool. It helps us estimate outcomes when data is absent or scarce, even if it's frequently unreliable. When I leave my desk to go to the bathroom yet again, I expect it to be there. Can't prove it, but it's a reasonable assumption. Without it, every human action would require scientific studies and high quality measurements.

The way to contest common sense isn't to point out that common sense is often wrong; instead, it's to provide data. My assertion is that when going against a statement strongly rooted in common sense and, YOU are the one who has the burden of proof.

Yes, perhaps authoritarians would do a _worse_ job at catching criminals if they were omniscient? I'm not saying that you ARE wrong, just that you are LIKELY wrong and thus you should provide data to support your claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Tech companies should include mechanisms in the design of their encrypted products and services whereby governments, acting with appropriate legal authority, can obtain access to data in a readable and useable format."

Yes, because governments always act with appropriate legal authority, by definition, right?

<comment><USER44> As soon as it's legally allowed, it's not illegal anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's so obvious to many of us that 'think of the children' is a disingenuous argument, that it's difficult to articulate a counter-argument which would be emotionally valid to someone for whom this is not obvious. Here is my attempt:

Someone whose child has been kidnapped, would sacrifice a great deal to get them back. A lot of the things which we hold dear, our dignity, privacy, democracy, even rule of law - would pale into insignificance to against the loss of a loved one. But for that very reason, we should not look to victims for a standard of how much the police can override our civil rights. The standard of 'what the police can demand from honest citizens' cannot be 'what a mother would sacrifice for her child'.

<comment><USER22> it's a good attempt, but i think it still won't appeal to those on which the previous argument didn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Recycled comment from an article a few weeks back about Former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker Choosing Encryption over Backdoors[0]

[0] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/former_fbi_ge...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/former_fbi_gene.html)

You can read the discussion on HN here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21377093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21377093)

_________________________

This is why Tor and onionland is a lawless wild west. All so that journalists can report and trade documents, and so that repressive regimes can't easily censor access to news and information. This is the cost of encryption: you get all sorts of scoundrels in the mix in the name of privacy and security for the masses. Some might say this cost is too high: that scoundrels are running rampant and won't stop their criminal actions. But without this we get a broken backdoored Internet where no such privacy/security exists and could actually cause more damage to society since spying would be rampant.

</comment><comment><USER47> Reminds me of the old saying, if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns. Maybe this would be an analogy politicians could understand better when it comes to encryption!

Surely the analogy would break down quickly on closer inspection, but politicians live and die by sound bites, not by thoughtful consideration and debate of all points of view.

So to fight fire with fire, when faced with the "protect the children" argument that stifles debate, counter with "a government who takes away everyone's encryption is one step away from taking away everyone's guns". Then see how that plays out with their constituents.

</comment><comment><USER41> After normal citizens stop being able to use "unbreakable" encryption, _only_ criminals will be able to use it.

So you will get the same "terrorism" and "child pornography" as you do today, but we won't be able to protect our privacy from state actors (or from tech companies and their employees) who will develop the upcoming wholesome, good- enough-for-you encryption.

By the way, is XOR considered "strong encryption"? Is it if an one time pad is used? Just asking :).

<comment><USER48> XOR is very strong encryption, therefore it will be illegal. And easy to detect (random looking signal)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Let Interpol set a good example then and voluntarily give up all their privacy.

<comment><USER50> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> The issue here is that you can't stop people from using encryption; they'll just start using a combination of encryption and steganography for example.

It isn't like we are dealing with people who are afraid to break the law.

<comment><USER52> I don't follow this argument. Compromising commonly used encryption means less people will use hard encryption. That goes for criminals too. They won't all just switch to a hardened scheme. Some will switch, some will go with the compromised version, and some might even stop the criminal things they are doing for fear of detection.

The question is whether this means it's worth compromising encryption.

<comment><USER53> I can't imagine that a significant number of criminals who are involved in sexual exploitation of children would suddenly be unmasked due to any government imposed rules about encryption. At best you'd have a small wave of folks caught off guard.

The "question" is a false premise. You can't stop people form using encryption. The people who are strongly motivated to use it to cover their criminal activity (the more heinous the more motivated they're likely to be) are still going to. The knock-on effect is that you give the police and governments the keys to the kingdom against people who are probably not committing heinous crimes.

The abuse potential increases with little to nothing gained for the rule of law and the common person.

People have been committing crime and hiding them (the key component to not getting caught it turns out) since humans decided to implement laws. Weakening encryption isn't going to stop that and it's a hollow argument.

<comment><USER52> > You can't stop people form using encryption.

This is repeated often but that doesn't make it any truer. Legislation can make people use ineffective encryption, or prevent the use of it. Remember when SSL certificates had 48 bits effective key length? It was legislation that caused this. People used bad encryption because of the legislation. Remember when PGP was the only end-to-end messaging scheme widely available? Only very few people used it. Its reach was hampered by legislation. (In part; let's not forget bad usability.)

Most people are unaware how the services they use are protecting them from eavesdropping. Sure some are careful and research the failure modes in the security of their communications. And some would go to any length to keep their communications encrypted. But the less mainstream it is, the easier it is for them to fuck it up. Suppose due to legislation no apps in the Google Play store can do reliable end-to-end: Suddenly you have these "privacy conscious" people downloading an App binary from some random site because they heard it was "good". Yeah right we know how that story goes.

By all means, argue that ubiquitous encryption increases security for all of us. And I'm your friend. But don't go claiming that compromising mainstream encryption wouldn't hamper security for the bad guys. Because it absolutely would. Like for the rest of us!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> A predictable call to arms - only criminals use encryption, right?

The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers and money launderers

[https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1999/1...](https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1999/1874)

</comment><comment><USER55> I bet that Interpol uses VPNs without backdoors.

<comment><USER18> They probably use TOR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Of course, if a child predator really wants to conceal their communication and it's not built into the chat service, they can do so using, say, PGP and some sort of steganography.

On the other hand, that law enforcement agencies can catch criminals today using e.g. Messenger means that there are criminals that are not careful or savvy enough to do so.

IMO end-to-end encrypted chat should be regarded as private eye-to-eye conversation. It's understandably convenient for law enforcement if it isn't. In the end, that a criminal can say something incriminating to another in private is not a new problem.

<comment><USER56> I understand that child predators are thrown around a lot as an example of why backdoors are needed - but, in reality, it's the worst example.

The crimes that warrant a violation of public privacy would need to be those that create _systemic_ risk. Like on the order of the 9-11 attacks that were so disruptive to the entire country that they merit a (temporary) privacy sacrifice.

Child predators are used for their emotional bait, because everyone agrees they are hated, but for all the horror they inflict, they do not cause a systemic problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> If it wasn't already posted:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse)

</comment><comment><USER58> Next step:

"Is he using encryption? If yes, he might be a child predator!"

</comment><comment><USER59> IMO, the reason they always use the child abuse excuse for encryption backdoors is evident in this thread discussion.

Nearly all people are against child abuse / porn. But if a person says "I'm not willing to give up secure encryption worldwide just because it is used for child abuse / porn", a pile of people will say "It's not acceptable for one child to be abused!"

Of course it's not acceptable. But should everyone in the _entire world_ lose their privacy, even if it eliminated all child abuse, which obviously it won't?

To me, these encryption backdoor ideas are rarely about law enforcement. They are about people in power wanting to maintain and extend their power.

Criminals who want to use unbreakable encryption will _always_ have easy access to it because encryption is an easy technology that anyone can use. Governments can make whatever laws they want, but it will mainly affect law- abiding citizens. The criminals will just ignore them, as always.

The people pushing this backdoor encryption agenda are not stupid. They know that criminals will ignore these new backdoor rules, which is why I believe it is really about power, not child porn.

</comment><comment><USER60> Fight against pedophilia has always been one of the common excuses (the other being terrorism) used to install spying devices everywhere, even despite very few actual organizations that fight the problem actually asking for such things.

I would be sad to hear that it would indeed be a useful tool, because the behavior of western government in the last 20 years at least makes it impossible to trust them on that one.

<comment><USER61> There is a huge part of the public that does not understand the implications of encryption, but they are moved by any mention of fighting against evil (and pedophilia is a scare for most) and these people have the right to vote. With enough propaganda, they would vote happily on anything, so this particular one is an easy one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> "citing predators"

So, where is Ghislaine Maxwell? Shouldn't the all-seeing panopticon we've _already_ constructed be able to pinpoint her location at a moment's notice? I'll believe all this surveillance is really about "predators" the day I see her taken into custody.

</comment><comment><USER63> Have any of these proposals to require companies to provide access to law enforcement included any concrete suggestion of how, exactly it should be done without also providing access to bad actors?

It sounds like Interpol et al. are just saying "make 1 + 1 = 3" and expecting the nerds to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER64> There must be an algorithm that we can apply to show what such a change will have for society. If the probability is that the change is negligible, we should consider allowing it. But if the probability is that the change is overwhelmingly "bad", we should not allow it. Let's not argue from ignorance. What are the numbers? What are the ethics?

For example: Say if we listened in on all connections, we would catch an extra 200 predators. But we also know that several hundred million people's private conversations would be scrutinized by government(s). We know from historical precedent that letting child predators go unnoticed means more children get abused. But we also know from historical precedent that governments scrutinizing otherwise private information about citizens leads to abuses of government's powers, and of citizens' rights.

An algorithm could show estimates, such as "for this given change in the US, 1,750,000 people's rights may be potentially violated for every 1 new predator arrested". But if the value was actually 5,000 additional predators caught, this would become "70,000 people's rights potentially violated for every 1 predator caught". This is of course a very wacky over-generalization based on some ballparked numbers, which is why an algorithm with more data could give more realistic probabilities.

But also from the other side of the algorithm, you could look at our historical access to privacy. Telephones and mail have been monitored in the past by law enforcement. Now that we have privacy, we don't want to give it up. But would it actually benefit society more to have less privacy? Again, you tune the algorithm to take data about when we had privacy and when we didn't, what the outcomes were, and what the potential new outcomes are from a change. It could be that as a society, we actually don't significantly benefit from, or could do without, total privacy of remote communications. But then again, our transactions weren't all remote. All of these considerations (and more) if compiled in some way that could be easily analyzed, may lead to a conclusion that is easier to reason about.

<comment><USER65> > Telephones and mail have been monitored in the past by law enforcement

But is that in any way comparable with automated surveillance? I think a fitting analogue would be having every mail scanned and archived. Different circumstances...

I doubt the numbers game you are proposing would net any insights, since it has a hidden premise that child trafficking can only be prevented with restricting encryption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> We need to solve child porn, but law enforcement always uses this example when talking about encryption to help us forget that the state is the enemy. When people start demanding concessions from the state in the midst of an economic crisis, the state will use its powers to suppress protests and ensure wealth continues to concentrate in the upper strata.

We see this in revolutions all over the world at this very moment. The state is dangerous and the police are not to be trusted in this way. The police stand against a democratic and equitable society. We must never forget this.

</comment><comment><USER67> Banning encryption is like requiring that all your walls be made of glass and that the police can search your home at any time, for any reason, without warrant.

A personal electronic device, and the connections made with it, are extensions of the person and their respective home. A literal ban on encryption is probably the single largest step any government could take towards becoming a dystopic, tyrannic, borderline-criminal entity.

(I originally posted this comment under my reddit account, /u/lovecars.)

<comment><USER68> Note that the politicians and the law enforcement people (and the government by extension) will have walls built you can't see thru...

...gee, where do you think all the criminality will be occurring then?

In a way, they'd be figuratively shooting themselves in the foot. Right now, they can somewhat get away with their criminality, because they are more or less noise in the signal - since everyone has "walls" that can't be seen thru.

If they get their way with this kind of legislation, you know there will be an exception for them.

Once the people realize that the criminality continues, they will look around and say "well how's that possible? if only criminals use encryption...<lightbulb turns on>" \- and then they become the targets of the people.

Of course, the people should have realized this NOW - not later...

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Criminals lock their doors, you're not a criminal, are you?

</comment><comment><USER70> The "going dark" issue has been known for something like 30 years now. Law enforcement has had a _lot_ of warning. Instead of modifying why way they did things they instead wasted their time by buying various sort of cracking technologies. Any idiot could see that such technologies were a stopgap measure. Now those technologies are not working very well, or at all, and law enforcement is acting all surprised and outraged.

</comment><comment><USER71> On the other land, do you want to live in a lawless society where there is freedom but no personal safety, and why would the internet be any different in that regard?

The assumption is to let law enforcement do their job with safeguards in place to prevent overreach. The tech community are in a good position to monitor overreach and provide transparency, right?

</comment><comment><USER72> This reminds me of the cypherpunk movement in the early 1990's (more information: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk) ). We have seen this kind of threat before. We need organizations like the EFF and ACLU more than ever.

</comment><comment><USER73> Are they not aware that could equally condemn walls as having 4 off them at night protects predators equally? /s

</comment><comment><USER74> I see this as an existential threat to human civilization. It poses a very significant risk of creating power asymmetries between the politically connected elite and the masses that lead to highly unstable social hierarchies where states have total control over their population.

</comment><comment><USER75> You can do encryption with a pen, paper, and a calculator. The genie is out of the bottle at this point.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm unclear how this could help law enforcement deter or solve crimes.

eg Why does the FBI need to unlock a spree shooter's iPhone _AFTER_ the mass killing? What new information could they possibly learn? That the now dead murderer had mac & cheese for dinner beforehand?

</comment><comment><USER76> This is nothing more than an extension of technology enabling both good actors and bad actors. I refuse to penalize/water-down technology solutions available to good actors because there are a handful of bad actors that make some of us clutch our pearls.

</comment><comment><USER77> How can they prevent this?

What if I secure my messages with a known passphrase inside a picture of a rainbow using steganography?

Are they just talking about decrypting the big players like Facebook Messenger and iMessage? Because you can't "prevent" encryption.

<comment><USER78> They can't. That's why legitimate users won't be able to use encryption (because it's against the law) and criminals will still continue using it because they can and they don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> This ask presupposes a huge amount of trust which simply isn't justified considering the history of governments. I prefer my trust to be guaranteed; with like, y'know, cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER80> Look at the Marc Dutroux case, where evidence clearly suggested that the predators' network was located inside the government itself... gives a new light to Interpol's views.

</comment><comment><USER81> [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pedophrasty](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pedophrasty)

</comment><comment><USER82> I hate to say it, but us (citizens of the internet), are fighting a losing battle. Gone are the days of the internet being an open, connected hub for worldwide culture.

</comment><comment><USER83> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21559957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21559957)

<comment><USER84> It's only a dupe if another submission of the same article/topic already had solid upvoting and discussion:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20significant%20attention&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> I always like to quote the Golden Thread of British Justice, "It is better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man goes to jail"

</comment><comment><USER22> throughout history, bad people protected themselves from good people using the same technologies by which good people protected themselves from bad people.

if you remove the former, you also lose the latter. there's nothing more to it. anyone advocating for removing the former must first be clear that they are abdicating the latter. any other framing is a lie.

</comment><comment><USER11> "It is insufficient to protect ourselves with laws; we need to protect ourselves with mathematics." \-- Bruce Schneier

</comment><comment><USER86> Jeffery Epstein used unencrypted burned CDs/DVDs for his child porn.

Also, did Interpol ever ground his plane---the Lolita Express?

</comment><comment><USER87> Lots of criticism here, fair enough, it's very worrying to give non- transparent institutions this kind of power, not to mention the technical feasibility.

But... what should be done about child pornography, then? The ability to disseminate it with impunity is a problem we can't just pretend doesn't exist. Using online platforms pedophiles can monetize and go full time professional in countries where children are easily exploited. Nobody is coming to save those kids.

<comment><USER88> If we're going to throw out anything and everything to win that unwinnable battle, first goes encryption, then cameras, then computers, and then finally all humans after puberty.

Obviously there must be some reasonable limit, and making all encryption illegal (or just for civilians, and then shady stuff will start happening under govt and corporate encryption) is truly throwing the baby out with the bathwater, in that digital society can no longer function.

We don't stop selling knives because some people get stabbed with them, they still sell AR-15s in America despite ridiculously frequent mass shootings, so I can't see where the logic is coming from for making encryption illegal.

<comment><USER87> Yes I agree with you. But at the same time, I don't feel comfortable knowing what is going on and just accepting that it is a cost of liberty. We are talking about the worst, most harmful most exploitative human behaviour that destroys lives. If we can't introduce some nuance and proportionality here then well I think we are doomed.

Guns aren't a good example... I mean guns are regulated? There isn't total liberty there.

<comment><USER89> Well, encryption doesn't cause child exploitation, very much like how the air we (and criminals alike) breathe doesn't either. Limitations of police powers are there for a very good reason, and it's not like there wasn't much crime when they were introduced. I think it's short-sighted to give up our civil liberties because of crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> I had an idea that a decent compromise is to limit keystrength, but not have any kind of backdoor.

This way the vast majority of communication is protected, and the government can't just spy en mass.

But, if there was some specific target they could throw a lot of computing resources at it. But they would need to know in advance who to target, they couldn't just have a wide dragnet.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER91> If a cipher can be broken by the government, it can also be broken by narco cartels or mafia states. The targets will be key decision makers, not regular citizens, but their decisions, coerced by those mafia states, will harm regular citizens.

Unlike physical locks, breaking encrypted data doesn't need physical presence. This means that not just local authorities under an elected Sheriff can break into one's house, but also completely random people from say China or KSA can teleport in, break in and kidnap the data.

In the near future we'll have a brain-to-computer-to-internet interface. This will be a big leap forward or backwards as it can be used for rapid collaboration or total undisputable survelliance for a greedy dictator. The crypthography case today will set the precedent for tomorrow. Btw, even the 24/7 thoughts monitoring can be used for good: someone really advanced, a saint-like person, could be giving advice on what's wrong with your thoughts. But we understand that the humanity is far from this level of maturity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> If only the police would show as much enthusiasm towards catching low-tech predators.

</comment><comment><USER93> Sigh. They use child sexual abuse as a scapegoat again.

</comment><comment><USER94> The link provided, of course, is https.

</comment><comment><USER95> They could have simultaneously wrapped it in "protect the children" and "national security"

</comment><comment><USER96> I will continue using strong crypto for all my data even if it will be illegal. Cyberpunks not dead.</comment>


Ask HN: Do Google ads work for user acquisition? - <AUTHOR> We're looking to use google ads to sign up developers on HackerEarth.com. Has anyone else used Google AdWords for a similar activity? Does it work as well as Facebook? <comment><USER2> This is the wrong question to ask. You should ask, what are the cheapest ways to acquire users? Most companies can successfully market themselves through a dozen or more channels, yet almost all never use more than 3.

Search traffic is bottom of the funnel where people express intent. If there is existing demand for your service, than search traffic is valuable. If there isn't demand but there are competitors, bid on their brands, if you are in a new industry with no real competitors you probably need a reality check but search is not where you will find users.

Because search is bottom of the funnel and demonstrates explicit intent it is the most expensive traffic out there. It definitely works though and anyone who says differently just gave up before finding profitability.

I tell my clients to invest $5k in search the first $1k will return $500 (lose $500). The second $1k will return $800. The third will break even, the fourth will show a 25% profit and the last $1k will find profits you can scale.

If you don't go in planning on losing a bit to find what works (or go in with a site that won't convert) it won't work. If not there is no reason it can't work.

All that being said...Facebook right now has the most robust targeting in the advertising world short of massive enterprise DMPs. Milk it for all its worth if you can.

Read jonloomer.com to master Facebook ads.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would consider advertising on StackOverflow instead. I sold developer products for 7 years and they were the 2nd best conversion after Google Ads, but our product was a tool where specific search terms were obviously going to convert. Even on SO, we advertised on questions related to our product -- so you might not do as well.

3rd was developer focussed online magazines. I would also try retargeting (from Google) in conjunction.

Google ads works best when you are really the answer the searcher was looking for -- if you have search terms that you think you are legitimately the top result and the competition for ads isn't insane, it's worth a try.

You can go in a little and measure the results for all of these choices.

</comment><comment><USER4> How do you define "it works" ?

The price of a user is defined by the following formula [0] : CPU = CPC * (C / U)

Google AdWords gives you the CPC and if you have a Google Analytics set up you should be able to know the C / U ratio. That will define how much you have to pay to get a user using Google AdWords.

For the C / U ratio to be precise you should use only the organic search numbers (people coming to your website from Google after a search) because it is closest behavior you can study.

[0] : * CPU : Cost per User

* CPC : Cost per Click [on ad]

* C : Click [visitor comes on the website from ad]

* U : User [visitor becomes a user after he clicked on the ad]

</comment><comment><USER5> Absolutely it works. I've been doing acquisition marketing for close to 10 years with 200+ million downloads/sign-ups/purchases etc to my name. If it didn't work I wouldn't have much of a job.

Before going down this process you should know how much a developer sign-up worth to you. You can always buy growth, but you need to know if you can buy growth profitably. Generally look to get a short term value plus a life-time value calculate ROMI. It wont be accurate but do the best you can.

Between Google and FB, I've found Google search is the regular winner but the ROI gap is narrowing these days. There's some good hacks you can use to access your audience cheaply if you get creative. I would recommend you trial display as if done well this could provide better results than search (where most companies go first).

There's a pertinent quote for new products: "A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster."

Make sure your monitoring not just sign-ups, but how long people stick around etc.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's your budget? It definitely 'works', but you need to see if it 'works for your case' or not. It can look expensive so before you jump in, determine LTV of a customer and then calculate how much of it are you willing to spend on acquiring a customer.

</comment><comment><USER7> This post will be 100x more effective (in my sample set of 1) Edit: Signed up to see how it worked but don't actually want a public profile indicating I'm looking for a job - how do I delete my profile?

</comment><comment><USER8> Though I have never worked in this domain, I can say based on my experience that - 1) It does not work if you have competitors (not just for your business but also for the keywords you target), which is a highly likely scenario. 2) It works only when a)you do not have competitors or b) when you target niche keywords, in which case volume might not be as expected. To actually understand whether it works or not before starting the campaign, list out all of the keywords and check the keyword volume associated and the companies that are bidding for the keywords.

<comment><USER9> How would it not work if there are competitors? Why would businesses be buying ads from the same space if there is no profit? If it didn't work, then there would be no competitors, and then it would work, based on your reasoning, since there is no competition.

<comment><USER10> It works with competitors, but it's really easy to find products with keywords dominated by expensive enterprise versions who overspend on AdWords, rendering it ineffective for smaller competitors. Just the way it is.

<comment><USER8> Thanks damoncali for the reply!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do digital advertising for tech companies as well as "learn to code bootcamps" etc. IMHO Adwords is overpriced. You're much better served by Facebook or Twitter. The social context is likely key for a play like this. I would also tend to stay away from Linkedin based on price. Although if your ltv per customer is high enough, it may make sense. Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like to chat about it. I'm always happy to give out free advice.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd first spend money improving the spelling and grammar across your site...

[https://www.hackerearth.com/recruit/source/](https://www.hackerearth.com/recruit/source/) for instance, at the bottom under past challenges has a lot of spelling and grammar errors. Hire a US-based copy editor.

Also why not advertise on careers.stackoverflow.com? Or stackoverflow itself in certain markets, is probably more cost effective and targeted than your google ads.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have you ever clicked an ad? Do you think your target audience clicks ads?

You'd be surprised at how few people click them. If I wasn't at work right now I'd love to go into how some of these people trashing search are flat wrong. Showing up in the organic search results for even a relatively lame search term can increase your views/impressions exponentially.

User acquisition, though, is something that goes way beyond just putting up an ad or getting into search results.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for your answers. This was really insightful and I will incorporate some of your suggestion into our digital marketing efforts going forward.

I'm not sure about stack overflow ads. Hackerearth also helps developers find jobs and that might a conflict of interest for stack overflow careers.

I will personally reach out to some of you folks. This has been really useful!

</comment><comment><USER14> If your LTV > CAC then yes.

LTV = Lifetime Value of your customer

CAC = the customer acqusition cost

Since the CPC on AdWords are quite high and finally the resulting CAC will be also quite high (still depends on your conversion) you need a product with a high LTV. I don't know how much LTV you try to achieve with HackerEarth but it should above be $100.

Cheaper channels: affiliate (so CPA based deals) or SEO

</comment><comment><USER15> i think nothing works like content creation. For HackerEarth, content would be algorithm tutorials, ACM problem solutions, or simply some language basics. Once you know what kind of content to generate, SEO and google ads on those content is a really effective growth strategy.

To tell you that it works. I actually recently signed up on your website and I found you through your notes section. I think it needs some SEO work..

Also try to be more innovative. Acquiring developer is easy and hard at the same time. Easy because developers are very active online. Hard because there are tons of websites and blogs that are fighting for their attention. As a developer, I have clicked on very few ads. But I have almost always clicked on a good article..

All the best. tweet me @vishal_in if I can help ..

</comment><comment><USER16> Do not think that we wouldnt see this as an action for user acquisition already! Well played.

</comment><comment><USER17> You will be able to find developers this way and generate sign ups.

I do not know enough about your business to say whether or not you will be able to do so in a cost effective way.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not really.

</comment><comment><USER19> Once upon a time I tried to use Google ads to promote the parent site for my YouTube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/user/devfactor](https://www.youtube.com/user/devfactor)

I spent $100 on ads, which resulted in around 25 new subscribers. The next week, I wrote a really in depth Arduino Morse code tutorial which ended up on some social networks and netted me ~100 subs.

I'd say that Google adds for me where NOT worth the price. Generating more organic content worked better.

<comment><USER20> Your economics are unique compared to typical SASS, for example. The LTV of a Youtube channel subscriber is basically $0.</comment></comment>


Wildcard Certificates Coming January 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://letsencrypt.org//2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates-coming-jan-2018.html <comment><USER2> Let's Encrypt is just about the best thing to happen to the web this decade. It really is huge to have encryption be something that can Just Work. It is, by far, the most popular feature we've added to Virtualmin in many years (and we had support from very early on due to the high demand for it).

Wildcard certs have been a common request, but you can already specify multiple domains using SAN. And, since you can issue a new LE cert on-demand, it's actually not necessary for a lot of use cases that would have required a wildcard in the past. In the bad old days, getting a new certificate (even just to change details like adding a name to it) was time-consuming and often cost money. Most of the time when our users have needed a wildcard, it was just because they wanted to save a little money by having all of their subdomains on one cert; and not so much that they really needed to be able to spring up dozens/hundreds/thousands of new subdomains that could just automatically be secured. If you have a fixed number of names that need SSL with the same cert, you can already do that today with Let's Encrypt.

Nonetheless, this is great. I'm just super impressed by how effective the LE folks have been at improving the state of security on the web, and for _free_! They really deserve every kind word and every donation dollar that comes their way.

<comment><USER3> Can I ask for a virtualmin feature here wrt SSL certs (and maybe specifically LE)?

I know it's not the first request, but an easy way from the GUI to force all requests to be SSL would be great. The only way I see in GUI is a "redirect everything", but... that also redirects requests for ".well-known" which means renewal requests don't work (have been hit by this a few times). Some recommended ways of handling "always use SSL" with LE renewals would help.

Thanks for VM work!

<comment><USER2> That's a great request (though I thought .well-known would still work through an http->https redirect, as long as nothing else messed with the request; we do a redirect on virtualmin.com and our LE renewals work OK...but, I'll look deeper into that).

It can be surprisingly tricky to get redirects right, because of how web apps behave and how web apps often take over early request processing in an htaccess file for things like nice URLs and special assets directories and such, and there can be surprising interactions between redirect rules, but I suspect we could make it work in the majority of cases pretty easily. I'll add it to my todo list.

<comment><USER3> we had a global redirect (from the gui - not sure what the screen name is) which was interfering. Removing that, things seemed to work.

i suspect if you set up some defaults, most virtualmin users would adapt around those.

(and thanks again)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great news for organizations. I work at a large Fortune 150, and there are lots of services that require wildcard certs. We have a process to get these from our internal CA as well as a third-party - the internal CA is automated, but the third-party (for external services) can be slow and cumbersome, to the point where many departments just buy their own cert. And then a year later, they move on, forget, etc, and suddenly we have services that have expired certs and there's a scramble to fix them.

This move by Letsencrypt should hopefully make them the standard for any external service that doesn't require an EV cert.

<comment><USER5> >This move by Letsencrypt should hopefully make them the standard for any external service that doesn't require an EV cert.

I'm kind of worried about this myself.

No matter how well intentioned, secure, or "good" lets encrypt is, having a significant portion of the world's TLS be under one umbrella isn't a good thing.

I'm hoping that we will begin to see other services pop up that are similar to lets encrypt (free, even using the ACME protocol) so that we don't have too many of our eggs in one basket here.

<comment><USER6> > having a significant portion of the world's TLS be under one umbrella isn't > a good thing.

Why is that? The damage from a CA being hacked is not proportional to the size of the CA - they are all equally (small number of exceptions notwithstanding) capable of issuing certificates for any domain which will be trusted by all major browsers.

Is there another aspect I'm not considering? While I see how it feels like a troubling thing, I'm struggling to actually come up with any real consequences of it.

<comment><USER7> Punishing CAs for bad behavior (ie Security Problems) has more collateral damage the bigger a CA is. Right now, if a CA is bad enough browsers just stop accepting their certificates. After a certain size that becomes unfeasible, removing a lot of pressure from that CA

<comment><USER8> No, browsers don't do that. See how WoSign was distrusted[0]. Basically, they still trusted existing certificates, but stopped trusting new certs (both renewed or brand new). Through this, they kept collateral damage to a minimum, while carrying the CA death sentence.

[0] [https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2016/10/24/distrusting- new...](https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2016/10/24/distrusting-new-wosign- and-startcom-certificates/)

<comment><USER9> The trouble is that's only possible with the CA's cooperation, because they have the ability to backdate the certificates by falsifying the date. In the case of WoSign Mozilla threatened to distrust them completely if they did that, but if it's unfeasible to remove a CA that threat may be ineffectual.

<comment><USER10> This kind of forgery can be mitigated by requiring all certificates to be published to a Certificate Transparency server upon issuance. You can't backdate a public ledger that is being watched by third parties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I strongly dislike wildcard certificates.

I worked in a few places that had a *.company.com which covered, obviously, everything under that domain.

That meant if that wildcard cert leaked then our EV cert for, say, checkout.company.com would be essentially compromised too.

Not to mention. If you have a wildcard cert it's rather likely you're passing those certs around servers, lots of scope for leakage.

I really think that if you feel the need to do wildcard certificates, then you should at least try to figure out another way around it. I'm not saying you absolutely must never use them, but be incredibly mindful of what is at stake and limit the scope and availability of such certs as much as possible.

For instance. Don't put the same wildcard on mail servers and IM servers and git servers and etc; a compromise of one will compromise them all and the revokation system is not good enough.

[https://blog.dijit.sh/please-stop-advocating-wildcard- certif...](https://blog.dijit.sh/please-stop-advocating-wildcard-certificates)

<comment><USER12> There are legitimate use cases: for instance, a multi-tenant app that designates tenant by subdomain.

<comment><USER13> Couldn't you have a cert per sub domain? If you're using Let's encrypt, you almost certainly have automated renewal in place, so you could allocate a cert when you give them a subdomain

<comment><USER14> You can only put 100 domains on a Let's Encrypt cert, so if you're a site like Tumblr that's going to be a whole bunch (hundreds of thousands or millions of certs) of mayhem.

<comment><USER13> You can contact Let's Encrypt to get those limits lifted I believe?

<comment><USER14> That's not going to help.

Every time someone adds a domain to Tumblr, they'd have to re-do the certbot challenges for all 50 MILLION domains.

Plus, all 50 million domains are listed IN the certificate. It'd be megabytes worth of additional data for every visitor to Tumblr.

*.tumblr.com makes a lot more sense.

<comment><USER15> I agree with the case for using a wildcard, but just to play devil's advocate - why can't they take the CloudFlare approach?

Generate a cert for 100 of your client's domains, use that cert across those domains. Cut your 50m domains down to 500,000 certificates. Serving the right certificate for the right domain is a simple enough task.

As new tumblr domains are registered, generate more certs in batches of 100 domains.

I doubt anyone would ever seriously suggest putting millions of SANs on a single certificate, but 100 isn't too farfetched.

<comment><USER16> This seems to be how wordpress.com does it.

<comment><USER14> They appear to have a wildcard for the *.wordpress.com subdomains, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looking forward to using these at Cloudflare for our Universal SSL product. Our plan is let customers choose which CA they would like us to issue from, with sane defaults based on constraints imposed by other settings, e.g., CAA record prohibiting issuance from one of the CA choices.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wildcards were one of the two big blockers for Let's Encrypt adoption at a lot of organizations. The second blocker, the operational discipline to automatically refresh the cert and restart services every <90 days, will likely be the only excuse left.

<comment><USER19> While I do not know the full potential of this, apparently certbot is the way to go for refresh services: [https://certbot.eff.org/](https://certbot.eff.org/)

In our prod we use [https://github.com/GUI/lua-resty-auto- ssl](https://github.com/GUI/lua-resty-auto-ssl) to generate over 1k lets encrypt certs that refresh as they expire.

Hope these can help

<comment><USER20> I've really enjoyed using [https://github.com/hlandau/acme](https://github.com/hlandau/acme) and we use it in prod.

I'm not sure how up to date [https://github.com/hlandau/acme#comparison-list- of-client-im...](https://github.com/hlandau/acme#comparison-list-of-client- implementations) is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am genuinely curious as to how much this will affect the cert providers commercial business? Other than Lets Encrypt not being able to issue EV certs. Does anyone have a resource that talks about this?

<comment><USER22> I hope it hurts them enough that they stop with the shady business practices.

<comment><USER23> Decreased revenue tends to lead to even shadier business practices though.

<comment><USER24> When we moved our certs away from COMODO we received a sales call from one of them. They found the contact info for an executive here and told them that by replacing our COMODO certs with another brand, we were at "tremendous" risk for not having our websites work on the latest iPhones and iPads.

The entire call (which we ended up pulling and listening to, and then sent back to COMODO as a prime example as to why we're threw with their business) was designed to have a non-technical decision maker make an impulse decision over the phone to buy thousands of dollars worth of certificates again.

Wildcard certs from Let's Encrypt cannot come soon enough.

<comment><USER25> Fortunately (and unfortunately) all the way up to the assistant vice president came from software engineers and systems engineers. So when Comodo did their little scam, the AVP called bullshit on them and told them off. (The unfortunately is that some of the higher ups are technically exceptional, they have low regard of people skills).

We're on LE for 90%. There's a client (there always is...) that demands Network Solutions certs. Yet they cannot put to words why that's their need, other than stupid bullyish business practices.

We're still trying to wrap our heads how LE plans to offer wildcards.. But I digress.

<comment><USER26> Ugh, when I was a security analyst for an enterprise, I'd occasionally have Network Solutions call me and try to sell me certificates. I'd explain that it's not my decision, you've got the wrong person, how did you get this number and turns out they'd call the front desk or the help desk and say they found a security hole on our public facing websites. The security hole was that we used another company for our certs.

The real security hole was that the operators were patching through salesmen directly to the security staff without verifying who they were...

<comment><USER27> Yes, the real security hole was 'operations' not sufficiently validating credentials and being a proper gatekeeper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I would feel even more comfortable if I would be able to pay a nominal sum. Even $1 per cert would go a long way in securing their infrastructure. Maybe Letsencrypt does not want to handle the hassle of managing payments.

<comment><USER29> You can: [https://letsencrypt.org/donate/](https://letsencrypt.org/donate/)

<comment><USER30> I personally donate to Lets Encrypt once a year. The trouble with donations at my company, however, is that 'gifting' money is a lot more complicated than buying _something_.

For instance, we are supporters of Vim, but we couldn't make a direct donation to the project. Our corporate policies on this makes things a little stiff as any donation like this is seen as potential publicity. so we couldn't move forward on that. However, we do often buy things for corporate events from Amazon, so we could use the affiliate link to buy our stuff and still contribute to the project.

There was another instance, i can't remember what the project is as I didn't deal with it directly, where you could donate directly or buy 'swag' (like T-shirts, cups etc). I remember one of the teams that wanted to contribute funds managed to expense it as swag for their department so everyone got hats, t-shirts, pens, coffee cups etc. because again, can't directly donate.

And of course, sponsorship is usually out of the question, because they don't want to be known as supporting one specific thing or another.

Sometimes its just easier to make a 'sale' than it is to get a donation from huge users of your product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Question on this topic - is there a method of encrypting subdomains when you don't own the domain?

An example: I run a vm that exposes mysubdomain.azure.com, can I turn on ssl at that level? A google search says "no" but I figure this is a place where someone might have a workaround.

<comment><USER32> Each FQDN is treated separately, so generally speaking, if you can demonstrate control for a FQDN under an ICANN TLD, you can obtain a certificate.

Something you have to keep in mind are rate limits. Unless the (parent) domain owner has registered the domain in question as a public suffix[1], you, together with all other users who have subdomains under the parent domain, will be limited to 20 certificates per week.

Some domains, like for example the hostnames EC2 instances get that resolve to their public IP, have also been explicitly blacklisted because they are generally not assigned to anyone for longer periods of time, and it would be easy to mint certificates for a large number of those hostnames by just spawning tons of EC2 instances, which would make those certificates largely useless.

Finally, domain owners may decide to prevent issuance using a CAA DNS record, which are supported by Let's Encrypt.

[1]: [https://publicsuffix.org/](https://publicsuffix.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What verification strategy are they using to determine when a wildcard cert can be created? I see the discussion on [https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme- spec/issues/64](https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme-spec/issues/64) suggesting that they validate a sampling of randomly-generated subdomains, but it's unclear if that's actually the strategy they're using (and an obvious downside with that strategy is it won't work for a client that wants a wildcard cert for whatever reason but hasn't configured DNS to handle arbitrary subdomains, though you could of course argue that these clients don't actually need wildcard certs).

<comment><USER34> Currently we're only planning to allow DNS method validation for wildcards. You'll have to validate the base domain via DNS, that's all. No HTTP or file- based validation option.

We decided not to offer HTTP-based (file-based) validation via randomly- generated subdomains for wildcards in part because if you're required to set up random subdomains you're modifying DNS to do that, and if you're already modifying DNS you might as well just use the DNS validation method.

<comment><USER33> Glad to hear it. So the assumption is that if you control the DNS for example.com then you control the DNS for all subdomains? That seems like a reasonable assumption.

<comment><USER35> To validate you actually need to create a specific subdomain (_acme- challenge.<domain>), so effectively you do control the DNS for subdomains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> One great advantage of wildcard certificates is the privacy of the domains.

If you use customer1.mycorp.com, customer2.mycorp.com, etc. the names of your clients is exposed twice :

\- if you issue one certificate with all the domains, all the domains are readable in the certificate (Cloudflare free cert. has this issue too)

\- all the LE certificates are published in Certificate Transparency logs. So you can detect if anyone issues a cert. for your domain, but anyone can view the certificates you issued.

With a wildcard certificate, the subdomains used are not public.

Note this issue applies to "internal" subdomains too. You probably don't want to expose the hostname of your backoffice (admin.mycorp.com) or your new top secret project (linux.microsoft.org).

<comment><USER37> Would you not be exposing those subdomains via DNS anyway?

<comment><USER36> You can't enumerate sub domains via DNS (except if you use DNSSEC with NSEC algorithm, but nobody do that).

It does not prevent people guesssing it tough.

<comment><USER38> Correction: you can also enumerate through NSEC3, the most common (and default) mode of deployment; NSEC3 turns enumerable zone entries into the equivalent of a password hash file, which can be cracked.

There's a hack to prevent this that seeds the zone with false entries, but it requires the server to operate as an online signer. Since this is essentially incoherent to the design of the protocol (which makes major cryptographic and usability sacrifices to enable offline signers), there's an "NSEC4" being worked on now.

DNSSEC is silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is there a write-up somewhere explaining why this was a technical hurdle compared to base domain certs? Very curious.

<comment><USER40> Some of the original discussion is here: [https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme- spec/issues/64](https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme-spec/issues/64)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The company I work for is a large user of Let's Encrypt certs (we order them for our customer's sites). It doesn't look like we'll be able to use this since we don't control our customer's DNS.

<comment><USER42> Yup. We use a lot of Let's Encrypt certs with domain validation via http-01 where our internal API can handle all the requests and validation without the end user requiring any technical knowledge.

It seems they will evaluate other options, but it's hard to imagine they would use something as convenient as http-01 for wildcards as then it opens up the platform to major abuse.

<comment><USER41> How would it open up the platform for abuse (serious quetion, not snark)? The CA we use to get wildcard certs for our customers uses a challenge process very similar to LE's http-01.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Serious question. What does LetsEncrypt buy me that I could not get from having a knob in applications and browsers that lets me accept self signed certs?

To be clear, the reason I am asking is that historically a CA was intended to be a way to validate "who" you are talking to. LetsEncrypt is providing a signed cert that does not validate an entity. It just solves the self signed cert, which could also be solved in applications by having a setting to "Accept Self Signed Certs". Some apps and appliances already have this.

<comment><USER44> CAs in practice don't verify who you are; they just verify that you are the entity that controls a particular domain name.

LetsEncrypt does this automatically, for free, and in a more user-friendly way. For information on the security considerations involved, see [1]. These are similar considerations to those of most DNS-based CA verification methods (which is most of them).

[1] [https://ietf-wg-acme.github.io/acme/draft-ietf-acme- acme.htm...](https://ietf-wg-acme.github.io/acme/draft-ietf-acme- acme.html#rfc.section.10)

<comment><USER45> > CAs in practice don't verify who you are; they just verify that you are the > entity that controls a particular domain name.

Strangely, our CA called our human resource department to verify a lot of the information. I guess its all in who you chose.

<comment><USER32> It's not about the CA, it's about the level of validation your chose. All major CAs offer all three levels of validation - DV, OV, EV. DV doesn't involve any verification of personal/company details, no matter the CA.

<comment><USER46> You don't get to say "all major CAs" referring to everybody else now, Let's Encrypt is definitely a major CA too now :-)

Also some (maybe you don't think they're major?) don't offer DV. After all they can't be cheapest or fastest so why not focus on a product with higher value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is fantastic news. I just whish x509/browsers/other clients could be fixed with proper support/implementation for scoping, so signing a _CA cert_ limited to a single TLD wouldn't be a big deal.

That way, Letsencrypt could've just signed a CA cert that was authorised to sign certs for anything under example.com - but not for anything else - and we could bootstrap trust in internal/local CAs just as we now do with certificates.

</comment><comment><USER48> Wow, very cool. I wonder if elliptic curve certificates and intermediaries via certbot are also in the pipeline. P-256 can be issued via manual CSR and EC intermediaries are scheduled "before September" according to [https://letsencrypt.org/upcoming-features/](https://letsencrypt.org/upcoming- features/)

</comment><comment><USER49> I recently read about how Plex got trusted SSL certificates for all their users in partnership with DigiCert, and was really curious if a similar scheme could be accomplished with Let's Encrypt. The scheme required wildcard certificates so I figured it wouldn't be possible. But with this announcement, maybe it would be! I work on a product that generates a self-signed cert and so our customers always get a cert warning. They can replace the cert with their own if they like, but some customers aren't set up to do that. Offering an alternative where we securely mediate creation of a trusted SSL cert would be fantastic.

See: [https://www.plex.tv/blog/its-not-easy-being-green-secure- com...](https://www.plex.tv/blog/its-not-easy-being-green-secure- communication-arrives/) and [https://blog.filippo.io/how-plex-is-doing-https- for-all-its-...](https://blog.filippo.io/how-plex-is-doing-https-for-all-its- users/)

<comment><USER46> If your product consists mainly of a HTTPS service with some particular Internet accessible fully qualified domain name, say [https://benth- app.customername.example/](https://benth-app.customername.example/) where your customer owns customername.example then it's possible already today although you should ensure the customer is told what you're up to of course.

If your service doesn't provide HTTPS or customers don't have it accessible from the public Internet then you'd need cooperation from them unless you yourselves control the DNS records involved.

<comment><USER49> In our case, the appliance usually can access the internet, possibly through a proxy, but it's not accessible from the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I want multi-wildcard-certs (using subject alternative names aka SAN). Also, if I get a cert that covers:

        [*.a.company.com] and [*.b.company.com]

Can I please also have [a.company.com] and [b.company.com] stuffed into two additional SAN slots!

p.s. How do I get an inline asterisk into my HN comment!?

<comment><USER32> Wildcard issuance and validation hasn't been implemented yet, but I see no reason why this shouldn't be possible once the feature is rolled out. My best guess is that you'll be able to mix wildcards and FQDNs to your liking, provided that you can demonstrate control of all domains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> In my best Oprah voice: "Subdomains for everybody! _You_ get a secured subdomain.. _you_ get a secured subdomain..."

In seriousness, I pine for the post `~username`, pre-`/username` days where services would hand out subdomains for user management. It still happens -- viz Tumblr, etc. -- but I feel like it's less frequently then it used to. One reason I would avoid is that wildcard certs are pricey. Nice to see that will commoditize a bit come January.

</comment><comment><USER52> Can I get Windows/IIS support please?

<comment><USER46> ACME is on the path to IETF standardisation, and all of Let's Encrypt is Free Software, so Microsoft absolutely could enable this in a future IIS version. If you're a customer it can't hurt to tell MS you want this.

Meanwhile you're at the mercy of third party probably volunteers to make what you want possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Thank you so much for your efforts!!

</comment><comment><USER54> This is great news!

</comment><comment><USER55> thank you!

</comment><comment><USER56> Hooray!

</comment><comment><USER57> What if id like to scan objects with my phone's cam, and use those in VR?

</comment><comment><USER58> It is a serious security issue to add wildcard certificates for multiple unrelated domains.

</comment><comment><USER59> _Sigh_.

Wildcard certs, that are generally seen as a security risk, and could have been alleviated for most legitimate uses with higher limits on issuance per domain will be supported.

But S/MIME, the email encryption option that actually works out of the box in basically every mail client, sorry, nothing doing.</comment>


A Little Bit of the Manuals - <AUTHOR> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4783

<comment><AUTHOR> There are two other recent announcements that didn't get much attention on HN. The first is the announcement [1] of the creation of the new ArchiveCorps [2], and the second is the announcement [3] of the new digitization wiki [4].

[1] [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4755](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4755)

[2] [http://www.archivecorps.org/](http://www.archivecorps.org/)

[3] [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4775](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4775)

[4] [http://digitize.archiveteam.org/](http://digitize.archiveteam.org/)

</comment><comment><USER2> It was awesome to open one of the manuals and see that it's hosted at archive.org. I really like using the reader software there, even on mobile[1], and have been reading a _lot_ of texts recently, everything from the B-25 Mitchell manual to a book from the 1920s, full of essays on science and religion, to the Gregg shorthand manuals. It's really mind-blowing to even just browse a single collection like WWII and see what's available. Huge thanks to the team for everything they've done and continue to do.

[1] Tap the magnifying glass icon, switch the layout to single-page mode, zoom as much as required to fit the page, and tap the pager arrows to switch pages. Zoom is preserved across page turns. Works especially well on higher-DPI screens.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Will it be loved by a tiny few and ignored by the world?_

I think that's the most likely outcome. There are always millions of books around the world residing in libraries, which are unused for long periods of time. Likewise, these manuals will just become another collection in the archive for someone to (hopefully) eventually find. In fact I'd say that's the purpose of an archive - not to provide the most popular content, but to collect as much information as possible to preserve for those seeking it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Allow me to claim that to the electrical engineer writing this, the "Instruction Manual For The UHF Q Meter Type 280-A" linked there is really beautiful.

(It even has a bibliography!)</comment>


Jakob Nielsen: OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ok-cancel.html <comment><USER2> I'd agree with the article that consistency is most important, and it applies to anything: for instance, when I add code to a project, I try to emulate an existing coding style (even if I hate it).

Having said that, there are logical reasons why the Mac/GNOME style (Cancel, OK) is a bit better.

One is the case of a different set of buttons. On a Mac, the default button is always in exactly the same place, even if there is no "Cancel" button. So your eye and your mouse will find "OK" without even thinking.

Another is the back/forward concept, where Cancel is a backward action. The default/OK button is a forward action, placed to the right of the backward action as it would be in a browser toolbar or a wizard. And "even more backward" actions, such as Don't Save, appear further left.

</comment><comment><USER3> In other words, this is a bikeshed argument.

<http://www.bikeshed.com/>

<comment><USER4> Actually, this UseIt article is odd in two ways:

First, it starts by suggesting the OK-Cancel order doesn't matter (bikeshed issue), but then goes on to nearly double the size of the article with a convincing case that you should stick with the platform's defaults.

Second, it doesn't even mention that 'Cancel' buttons are often superfluous on the web, because 'Back' is available and usually preferable. UseIt even has an article on that subject he could have linked to:

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000416.html></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you trust a developer to develop a lucrative idea? - <AUTHOR> I am not a developer, and I have an idea (for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume it is in fact, very promising if executed properly). How exactly can I trust someone I hire not to steal it? I was thinking of using https://gigster.com, and they've assured me that all their developers are top-notch and bound by NDA. I'm just worried one of them might see how awesome the idea is, and still try to do it on their own. <comment><USER2> 1\. Fall out of love with your idea. Recognize that execution is vastly more important, and that even a killer idea in a killer app will die on the vine if it is not supported, marketed and managed appropriately. What you bring to the table >other< than your idea is invariably more important to its success.

or

2\. Bring on a technical cofounder, and explicitly divide your company between you.

or

3\. Learn to code.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty common misconception among first time entrepreneurs.

If you need one, I could name a half a dozen great ideas off the top of my head. I think most entrepreneurs could. The bottom line is, if you want to build a business, you are going to have to trust somebody sometime.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't mean this to belittle you but good ideas are a dime-a-dozen. As a person who both has good ideas and knows how to code I can tell you, form experience, executing a good idea is extremely hard. I'm not just talking about the code. The code is the second easiest part. The one where almost everyone trips up is business development and marketing.

Finding a coder who can solve the bizdev rubicks cube is as rare as a bizdev guy who can build an MVP on his/her own.

TL;DR no freelance coder is going to be able to execute both the code and the business plan, so don't worry. If they were that good, they'd already be rich and wouldn't be soliciting freelance gigs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Generally, ideas are either good, xor unique. If it's a good idea, someone's already done it. If it's unique, it's probably bad.

Companies are 10% idea and 90% execution. You could probably post the idea here and nobody would steal it, just because it's so much work to develop a company, and if it got big you would Winklevoss them.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tell us your idea and we can comment on if it is worth copying?

</comment><comment><USER7> Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.</comment>


Raid0: data corruption when using trim - <AUTHOR> http://www.spinics.net/lists/raid/msg49440.html

<comment><USER2> Samsung has been more than gracious in how they handled this. A good reminder to point fingers only when the root cause of the problem has been established beyond doubt.

<comment><AUTHOR> And I find it unfair from Adam Surak and Algolia for not writing the new post explaining that he/they actually wrongly accused Samsung for failing TRIM support.

Even the edits of the initial blog post aren't clear enough that the last edit of it links to the patch that is a solution and that the whole problem isn't what it was initially presented to be.

Because bad news travel faster, I'm sure more people still believe that these Samsung SSDs have something inherently bad, when it was actually the Linux driver problem.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. Essentially what happened here is that Samsung got enlisted to solve a linux problem that they had no hand in creating because of the bad press. An apology would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It seems wasn't problem with Samsung's SSDs after all.

The post where the story started:

[https://blog.algolia.com/when-solid-state-drives-are-not- tha...](https://blog.algolia.com/when-solid-state-drives-are-not-that-solid/)</comment>