The article "The Ethics of Cryptography" can essentially be summarized in the following sentences: Cryptography in and of itself is not evil, but people can use it for bad purposes as well as good. Furthermore, cryptography should not be withheld from the public because it is necessary to preserve confidentiality, transfer data with integrity, and to authenticate the identity of the reader/sender. My first thought after finishing the article was... duh. The whole "cryptography is only as bad as the people who use it" stance the author takes seemed, to me, painfully obvious. But, as I continued to think about it/read through the other articles, I realized that this statement is probably not as obvious to someone who has has their email account hacked/phones lines tapped. Cryptography allows us to preserve our privacy through the use of check cards and computer passwords and facilitates secure communication, among other functions. All of these seem like wonderful things (we are Americans after all and we value out personal freedom), but what if you knew that a terrorist was using cryptographic techniques to plan an attack? Or a swindler was using cryptography to hide the evidence of his crimes? Is the government justified in using wire tapping with national safety as an excuse, or is personal liberty more important? Should we teach cryptography to foreign students who might then return to apply the techniques in their homelands?
Like many other issues facing the government today I don't think the debate over cryptography is an either/or issue, and I doubt any one side has it completely right. Although we all value "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," our opinions on cryptography and government wire tapping likely depends on whether we place more emphasis on the life or more emphasis on the liberty. There is no doubt in my mind that much, if not most, of the wire tapping that has been done by the Bush/Obama administrations has been unjustified. Yet, if this clear violation of our rights as Americans has prevented even one act of violence or facilitated the capture of criminals, is it worth it? Assuming that these violations of human liberty have been beneficial, I am tempted to say that it is worth it until I am reminded of George Orwell's 1984. This issue would be much easier to debate if it were black and white, but unfortunately it is not and where to draw the line as "justified cryptography to preserve freedom and facilitate scientific development" and "a risk to national security" is unclear.
I agree that the cryptology debate is not an “either/or” situation (and the Falk paper brings up some interesting points regarding Kant’s categorical imperative and its modification for the 21st century). There is an entire spectrum of possible situations to consider, and that’s probably a large part of the reason why an extensive attempt towards a definitive solution has not yet been undertaken. I think it’s also an intimidating task to approach the ethical considerations of a subject area that is involved in so many aspects of our daily lives and is a constantly changing field.
ReplyDeleteIt’s much easier for people to propose solutions when the issue does not affect them personally, but as soon as it does, things become a lot murkier and more difficult to discern. I remember discussing the Heinz dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_dilemma) in a class once and people responded very differently depending on whether someone else was doing the stealing or if they themselves were stealing the medicine. I think the same applies to cryptology and wire tapping; people would respond differently when in the policy maker position than when in the shoes of the citizens. This disparity in thought definitely makes it difficult to determine a solution.
Hmmm........yano personally I don't think... that the cryptology debate should be centered around personal privacy/freedom at all; rather, I think the discussion should be the parameters and indicators that the government employs in those "personal breaches of privacy". I hate to take it into such a seemingly black-and-white perspective, but when it comes to things like governmental wire-tapping and email-reading, I just find it hard to get past the question: "If you have nothing to hide, then what's the problem?" And while I realize that most people who take this stance are somehow not thinking of this in terms of themselves (which is a maddeningly inconsistent way to form an opinion), I can't think of how that would be an issue to me. What's it to me if a faceless member of the government reads the emails that I send to myself as reminders of things I need to do? I'm never going to meet them, never going to be in the situation where I might be embarrassed by what I said, and, as I am not a terrorist, I will never have to face the consequences of being charged as one.
ReplyDeleteNow of course there is a glaring IF with that statement and that is that I would only be comfortable with it IF the government, who is tapping my lines and watching every move I make, is only monitoring me for the utmost beyond-reasonable-doubt signs of certain terrorism. Because once they take it into their own hands to judge all my personal actions and, say, evaluate whether it was possible that I could ever harm another person, or perhaps they took it upon themselves to evaluate me psychologically and determine whether they thought I belonged in a mental hospital....yeah that's where the problem comes in. Because I'll be straight right now and say that I wouldn't pass. I am a pretty weird dude, and, unless you knew enough about me to realize it's all harmless, the things I do in private would probably send up a lot of interesting red flags, and - forgive me if any of you pride yourselves on being "normal" but - I'm pretty sure the same goes for the privacy of most individuals.
Thus I think the only real question should not be whether the government monitors us at all (which they are probably going to be secretly doing anyway) but how to regulate that monitorization so as to not arrest or persecute the innocent. Because otherwise I see absolutely no reason to maintain privacy if you have nothing to hide, I really don't.
I think that this issue is not as easy to solve as one would hope. On the plus side, cryptography allows one to protect their information, but on the other, it is possible that one could use cryptography for naughty purposes. Personally, I think that cryptography should stay. In my eyes, the amount of people that use cryptography for good reasons (like protecting your information) is greater than the amount of people who use cryptography for bad reasons (like spying on people).
ReplyDeleteI remember reading something about the founder of Megaupload and how the court banned him from using the internet, for a while, because he was one of the few people who could use the internet for bad purposes. But does this mean that everyone should not be able to use the internet? After all, one could cause a lot of trouble if they know what they’re doing on the internet. To me, most things in life have a good and a bad, but I think we should frown upon the wrongdoers instead of being withheld from the public.
I think cryptography is too big part of our history and current technology to get rid of. Cryptography being abused is inevitable because any sort of useful technology will be exploited for bad intentions. Cryptography is an important part of any technology that holds sensitive information, and nothing can really replace it.
ReplyDeleteIt would be silly to "get rid of cryptography" because what it is is making something only readable to a small group of people, and you can't get rid of that.
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