it would require “social media platforms to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena.”
Mmmhmm. Apparently the Threadiverse is about to become illegal in Florida.
First, let’s generate a strong public-private GPG keypair for myself and some hypothetical other Threadiverse user, anotheruser@lemmy.today:
$ gpg --quick-generate-key tal@lemmy.today $ gpg --quick-generate-key anotheruser@lemmy.todayAnd show the tal@lemmy.today public key:
long keyblock
$ gpg -a --export tal@lemmy.today -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- mQGNBGf6kRMBDAD3qJIznSVVQZu092nTthUt8R8DNXS6eYNqgbpYHTY+6i+RSFMe YDDnOz0cL3drxnWpNC37l9HouJGohua/Cjx2Iju/zd4A5mZkXchIt4lfZ3bbXx2k p0eC1m9+B3Dc37lSLPgEpTnfPGtMfKJU4bNVBdwkFCyS9Mxc499uIrAUpjPQLmgP 1rQ2Wk1wzGfAh3VNCxg8xsHcOHWQZqSUzsLk/PeG1QtfGTVBG44tI6msGawwQct6 XVnVOk0DfEGmoru4dGuQDk+oZRVz/O4/wLOQzfAVCzsbv/RrCzywrcQM3WAoVBDI awe9UG++Y4N6Eof46UQ1KnzA2ndkHFt35KybidaqxlWM4Sslx/Is+wCgqt+FpJRN MPLsAet6Eg6vGB6ES3Fk/IXX5OEvtWMfKKrgSP88NwoP/VFr/BU7SsJW1Opo4Ccf DDPuWlgMCmsVE9xsPS1oFMzxiHbJYj8gWgH7AOtl24NgYXVi/QdetYA6SZqonU0T xnGmEw5JdcvWdmMAEQEAAbQPdGFsQGxlbW15LnRvZGF5iQHUBBMBCgA+FiEE7S76 Je3x/gWVtrNsdlwPXPfD8YIFAmf6kRMCGwMFCQWjmoAFCwkIBwIGFQoJCAsCBBYC AwECHgECF4AACgkQdlwPXPfD8YJy+wv+JJ3MP+zZRy4pJZ+u7iiSOwVVwUboT8Pi kX7rxLl6TF9wGuLPjl/P8Cfy0WMsZQ2Ab0S/84cE2bIVbcISwqeqkMZ1Puk6y5Nn 8uHK3qHrYb1n89uOwjgeBIC3XopdJpSPtaKBWHZn/s0AYQ3suqJt/BoJo+hTv4oJ /8Rtcs2+YKnQtoLtM/0tKO3J4Qzvqrzi0F14R1Rv6kiFzePkEPQFSPN4uIR5CPJm t6HuYWYcWNKhfIkKJH08GAV0jP+qrbe/yacO0tKt8gnxKBdpXLRwLePx5sDV14ch Ay/3n1aVa7PbUGA4m51xOSl0Ro54s6K8uwJ2fz6z5fdjpOkbvDw51tPEdxQzW0JH myyaC31j4h5YwzOAfGaK6lp3pAHStDFhDJXZPLYsDlcMGSPvV+qBMAh86t8mqIqd tBPjNj60aIbps+mImBpRlO/xRvUWjjVsm1FKqxBq7QQR5SW0MLnkwvcnUMDCbOs/ wMN6ghyZp6RDhUXGgb9HJVSQhXLjaqf+uQGNBGf6kRMBDADFYNE00Rr2Ujm9+i7k LsHz49xqJUNtv3b7pHWTOZNhkSFf/OieayE45lkBMQl1ZkuY56QjmcgYZWsOf7+y kbrsQjdNE5lHl/hRAqGV13LUscTKPUCvTXnfFX+/p64Kgv1f74fAdfkQu663sGOM xbFP9/3jOQLF9dI2M8H14TPF/JDhjXDZvvoMrMBxwFlRctvwbeS6Yar+XKxKZQvh I63Ad2OyFc0p+pnJOnrWN3Q6iEqnAq0SA/EdsjVx3MWpqZW15YDyU0lIWrHAn/yD PfMaAqcgXj2LLBDziYdfm1ACBceS+WAu6w7i07xMAbdypKOsPB2cL1PlX//WEiwW 55iBTJ7oRAW7Q0LRsk2k40mq61xfOLyOBT8gHJfEb7ked9KuSXQdBn9K2hT2SH+U OT2E63ShPHL9F2F1yQSbjFbHJve2klIuqrMeJ21QtDWgz+Auzp7PPWZ59SN+XCVj qzrueXIvzsK3Shfqf636/Buj1g5heIY3nBd3dtbq4gUBO90AEQEAAYkBtgQYAQoA IBYhBO0u+iXt8f4FlbazbHZcD1z3w/GCBQJn+pETAhsMAAoJEHZcD1z3w/GCzXkL /i1k5ra/YZPpiJgCOO61x6Iog5/hyL/APhHT/CMg1ZAYObfqCD0QT0f+n0qdZXhH ALGXzCMsbFqr0oxqOFFccLGQzUxv9AkyrO94HLoL726fxi3gkF+UekHjWgcxkcXQ PHZCOdHczxyCIGRB+mKn+tGweXpCwMNkymagdoyzOs+t+5cGUTv18ceun72Mqf1H 4vCZ4LLb94NLkSJqGKeQuzjVhopDVCJ8t/exRuk2ra2SkeChKPCpq5zJP+OpzAx3 hPNSL9v8xRD6D/NKQP/zYXvry1dfQaaOYUbw+GMgSxtVNsTyGMtDg2kE8ZSuvVKq ZIoODdjZRZvTB90+UKFRF3st1MeBXGNskvcZJhit7K1eMGhUbjykNWrq0A8aoRAN P0DBRg09Uumub1GNnJlHFNxAS5e0A686YHzA6AOify+lhscdrFKiv8GRFBZGK39W vY5YDDdpY632O6w1Te1UFIhS7pIWXsm5AfffFPDc/UJd6ZaBOcnKH45R4y2qObS2 eA== =ommg -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----And then show an example of someone else importing it, pretending that they’re anotheruser@lemmy.today (though in my case, I’ve already got the tal@lemmy.today public key in my keyring):
another long keyblock
$ gpg -a --import <<EOF -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- mQGNBGf6kRMBDAD3qJIznSVVQZu092nTthUt8R8DNXS6eYNqgbpYHTY+6i+RSFMe YDDnOz0cL3drxnWpNC37l9HouJGohua/Cjx2Iju/zd4A5mZkXchIt4lfZ3bbXx2k p0eC1m9+B3Dc37lSLPgEpTnfPGtMfKJU4bNVBdwkFCyS9Mxc499uIrAUpjPQLmgP 1rQ2Wk1wzGfAh3VNCxg8xsHcOHWQZqSUzsLk/PeG1QtfGTVBG44tI6msGawwQct6 XVnVOk0DfEGmoru4dGuQDk+oZRVz/O4/wLOQzfAVCzsbv/RrCzywrcQM3WAoVBDI awe9UG++Y4N6Eof46UQ1KnzA2ndkHFt35KybidaqxlWM4Sslx/Is+wCgqt+FpJRN MPLsAet6Eg6vGB6ES3Fk/IXX5OEvtWMfKKrgSP88NwoP/VFr/BU7SsJW1Opo4Ccf DDPuWlgMCmsVE9xsPS1oFMzxiHbJYj8gWgH7AOtl24NgYXVi/QdetYA6SZqonU0T xnGmEw5JdcvWdmMAEQEAAbQPdGFsQGxlbW15LnRvZGF5iQHUBBMBCgA+FiEE7S76 Je3x/gWVtrNsdlwPXPfD8YIFAmf6kRMCGwMFCQWjmoAFCwkIBwIGFQoJCAsCBBYC AwECHgECF4AACgkQdlwPXPfD8YJy+wv+JJ3MP+zZRy4pJZ+u7iiSOwVVwUboT8Pi kX7rxLl6TF9wGuLPjl/P8Cfy0WMsZQ2Ab0S/84cE2bIVbcISwqeqkMZ1Puk6y5Nn 8uHK3qHrYb1n89uOwjgeBIC3XopdJpSPtaKBWHZn/s0AYQ3suqJt/BoJo+hTv4oJ /8Rtcs2+YKnQtoLtM/0tKO3J4Qzvqrzi0F14R1Rv6kiFzePkEPQFSPN4uIR5CPJm t6HuYWYcWNKhfIkKJH08GAV0jP+qrbe/yacO0tKt8gnxKBdpXLRwLePx5sDV14ch Ay/3n1aVa7PbUGA4m51xOSl0Ro54s6K8uwJ2fz6z5fdjpOkbvDw51tPEdxQzW0JH myyaC31j4h5YwzOAfGaK6lp3pAHStDFhDJXZPLYsDlcMGSPvV+qBMAh86t8mqIqd tBPjNj60aIbps+mImBpRlO/xRvUWjjVsm1FKqxBq7QQR5SW0MLnkwvcnUMDCbOs/ wMN6ghyZp6RDhUXGgb9HJVSQhXLjaqf+uQGNBGf6kRMBDADFYNE00Rr2Ujm9+i7k LsHz49xqJUNtv3b7pHWTOZNhkSFf/OieayE45lkBMQl1ZkuY56QjmcgYZWsOf7+y kbrsQjdNE5lHl/hRAqGV13LUscTKPUCvTXnfFX+/p64Kgv1f74fAdfkQu663sGOM xbFP9/3jOQLF9dI2M8H14TPF/JDhjXDZvvoMrMBxwFlRctvwbeS6Yar+XKxKZQvh I63Ad2OyFc0p+pnJOnrWN3Q6iEqnAq0SA/EdsjVx3MWpqZW15YDyU0lIWrHAn/yD PfMaAqcgXj2LLBDziYdfm1ACBceS+WAu6w7i07xMAbdypKOsPB2cL1PlX//WEiwW 55iBTJ7oRAW7Q0LRsk2k40mq61xfOLyOBT8gHJfEb7ked9KuSXQdBn9K2hT2SH+U OT2E63ShPHL9F2F1yQSbjFbHJve2klIuqrMeJ21QtDWgz+Auzp7PPWZ59SN+XCVj qzrueXIvzsK3Shfqf636/Buj1g5heIY3nBd3dtbq4gUBO90AEQEAAYkBtgQYAQoA IBYhBO0u+iXt8f4FlbazbHZcD1z3w/GCBQJn+pETAhsMAAoJEHZcD1z3w/GCzXkL /i1k5ra/YZPpiJgCOO61x6Iog5/hyL/APhHT/CMg1ZAYObfqCD0QT0f+n0qdZXhH ALGXzCMsbFqr0oxqOFFccLGQzUxv9AkyrO94HLoL726fxi3gkF+UekHjWgcxkcXQ PHZCOdHczxyCIGRB+mKn+tGweXpCwMNkymagdoyzOs+t+5cGUTv18ceun72Mqf1H 4vCZ4LLb94NLkSJqGKeQuzjVhopDVCJ8t/exRuk2ra2SkeChKPCpq5zJP+OpzAx3 hPNSL9v8xRD6D/NKQP/zYXvry1dfQaaOYUbw+GMgSxtVNsTyGMtDg2kE8ZSuvVKq ZIoODdjZRZvTB90+UKFRF3st1MeBXGNskvcZJhit7K1eMGhUbjykNWrq0A8aoRAN P0DBRg09Uumub1GNnJlHFNxAS5e0A686YHzA6AOify+lhscdrFKiv8GRFBZGK39W vY5YDDdpY632O6w1Te1UFIhS7pIWXsm5AfffFPDc/UJd6ZaBOcnKH45R4y2qObS2 eA== =ommg -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- EOFAnd now let’s pretend we’re anotheruser@lemmy.today and use end-to-end encryption that doesn’t have a back door, using
sedto prefix each line with four spaces so that we get nice blockquoted Markdown that we can paste into a Threadiverse comment or direct message to tal@lemmy.today:encrypting message with end-to-end encryption
$ gpg -a -e -u anotheruser@lemmy.today -r tal@lemmy.today <<EOF |sed "s/^/ /" Hello there, tal@lemmy.today! This is anotheruser@lemmy.today. I just wanted to send you a message. * Florida Man cannot read this. * Even instance admins cannot read this. EOF -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- hQGMAwk4edDpeyVkAQv+Mu6kJj1KkKs8i72YixAbAMuO+uNJDq0Vu9sz9mGUv3nG DibQTkFFz0h+IcK7/2xVrfBcf//6MDqYmlVnTlmpPcNOel4B1YbU4KpHus6ZELcy 7t0WP2IX03FWTooIBdfX7jIdH9us7PPyG2s4edTX7yD69H7oRdVJiNN6qJUbtObU sHWfmq0oQlHoevw47FuWGjAaIbA9volFV3IotEAhmTQ8cCJs2SG8bQjiJmpGE5pO xBSNtqo9X49FhQ0xoouwWil/9c76nNw7MtF/4WjU2HlzzRdFIXKeReq0ZzJ8fdkU YENYV+7lcp3jmGm91nC+E7HYTCjwy6XmMx+6wrzpCtNnLOaOL9caC7Div6ZvBtBi RVTiT1Kewth+QQvLHh2ErN0XKDzFrfFqfrZq4tX3TTn3rQkM/v0UrlR+3rr+iePX iKPmtsQBxNa81GVNxx0IR/1r+by8ELenCCRjaq2OpzfUhckqHkn1M6ycBPrwX8yR uBuIf7E65Pi2QfSoDeOH0rsBR/yGwU/h8HeEp6ChYEEEs1v+INI2dQ+zxhqaimKz vg7gTlVNplI9rpb/VLhlk8tzjCMQ4+Dqe4KeYqtvCLLJtgPFNlujMrgOEmbDL46X kQ8xQTForYFqPvODnPDUo+dbmt2UlXJGw3dyztEhQRUEqoCvUan9ERcY1gJS4mT6 WmAJKfVHfLos+UiibRZBhRzAsFCvyEPF1lOEJNVD0cz9tya2CfszNsqz+ITeHWfm HchPmmEq4pqHr1/a =PQN2 -----END PGP MESSAGE-----And let’s have tal@lemmy.today decrypt it:
decrypting message
$ gpg -a -d <<EOF -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- hQGMAwk4edDpeyVkAQv+Mu6kJj1KkKs8i72YixAbAMuO+uNJDq0Vu9sz9mGUv3nG DibQTkFFz0h+IcK7/2xVrfBcf//6MDqYmlVnTlmpPcNOel4B1YbU4KpHus6ZELcy 7t0WP2IX03FWTooIBdfX7jIdH9us7PPyG2s4edTX7yD69H7oRdVJiNN6qJUbtObU sHWfmq0oQlHoevw47FuWGjAaIbA9volFV3IotEAhmTQ8cCJs2SG8bQjiJmpGE5pO xBSNtqo9X49FhQ0xoouwWil/9c76nNw7MtF/4WjU2HlzzRdFIXKeReq0ZzJ8fdkU YENYV+7lcp3jmGm91nC+E7HYTCjwy6XmMx+6wrzpCtNnLOaOL9caC7Div6ZvBtBi RVTiT1Kewth+QQvLHh2ErN0XKDzFrfFqfrZq4tX3TTn3rQkM/v0UrlR+3rr+iePX iKPmtsQBxNa81GVNxx0IR/1r+by8ELenCCRjaq2OpzfUhckqHkn1M6ycBPrwX8yR uBuIf7E65Pi2QfSoDeOH0rsBR/yGwU/h8HeEp6ChYEEEs1v+INI2dQ+zxhqaimKz vg7gTlVNplI9rpb/VLhlk8tzjCMQ4+Dqe4KeYqtvCLLJtgPFNlujMrgOEmbDL46X kQ8xQTForYFqPvODnPDUo+dbmt2UlXJGw3dyztEhQRUEqoCvUan9ERcY1gJS4mT6 WmAJKfVHfLos+UiibRZBhRzAsFCvyEPF1lOEJNVD0cz9tya2CfszNsqz+ITeHWfm HchPmmEq4pqHr1/a =PQN2 -----END PGP MESSAGE----- EOF gpg: encrypted with 3072-bit RSA key, ID 093879D0E97B2564, created 2025-04-12 "tal@lemmy.today" Hello there, tal@lemmy.today! This is anotheruser@lemmy.today. I just wanted to send you a message. * Florida Man cannot read this. * Even instance admins cannot read this.I guess the only option will be to lock up instance admins for violating Florida law, as they’re operating a social media platform with end-to-end encrypted communications with no backdoor.
EDIT: It’d also probably be nice to have browser and client support to make this more-convenient, no copy-pasting. I haven’t used it, so I can’t vouch for its functionality, but for users using Firefox, this Firefox extension claims it can automatically detect and decrypt GPG content in a webpage; if it can pick up on encrypted, ASCII-armored blockquoted text in a Threadiverse comment, that would hopefully let one simply read encrypted messages in Lemmy or whatever without any additional copy-pasting effort (though sending an encrypted message would still require copy-pasting some text):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gnupg_decryptor/
Not that I disagree with your point, but Florida law is only relevant within Florida and, to a limited extent, the United States. Admins of US-based instances could likely be subpoenaed and then held in contempt if they refused, assuming they don’t pull a PornHub and just block all of Florida.
That said, this is very worrying since subpoenas have a MUCH lower threshold of legal bearing than warrants. I suspect that Apple will likely challenge this in court or they stop selling iPhones there.
Oh, yeah, my concern isn’t really that Florida is planning to go after instance admins — I’m just being sardonic — so much as to point out that any practical enforceability of this is going to have a lot of issues.
I mean, do you mandate that Lemmy disallow third party clients? Try to force them to detect and block encrypted messages? What happens if I start dumping big PGP messages steganographically in images and simply send those? What happens if the image I’m sending is just a link to isn’t even uploaded to pict-rs on a Lemmy instance?
I don’t need to move a whole lot of bits to send messages, and it’s really hard to block people who can send any data at all from having software send data that cannot be read by intermediaries, use the existing social media channel to agree upon out-of-band communications channels that social media operators have no control over, and so forth. Like, okay. Say I am a child-molesting terrorist drug running money launderer or whatever. I know someone who uses Facebook.
Let’s even say that Facebook does a fantastic job of detecting and blocking any E2E-encrypted communications like PGP messages of the sort I mentioned in the above comment.
Okay. Now let’s say that there is some other non-social-media system that uses OTR. I use Facebook to send someone my identity on that OTR system, as well as – which doesn’t need to be in any kind of standardized format — the shared secret OTR uses to bootstrap trust between two parties. That shared secret becomes useless after the initial handshake completes. Is Florida going to figure out everything that I’m saying, manage to break into whatever other channel I’m using, and MITM the thing? Probably not, since even if they supoena Facebook and Facebook gives them that shared secret, it doesn’t let them later MITM the OTR communications.
That sounds complicated, but from a user standpoint it’s “Let’s talk on <program X>. I’m <user>, and here’s <string>.” The other person fires up their program, pastes string in, and unless Florida have already supoenaed and MITMed that channel, at that point, the deed is done – out-of-band E2E-encrypted communications are bootstrapped, and Mark Zuckerberg can’t read them or let anyone else read them even if he wants to do so.
…Florida law is only relevant within Florida and, to a limited extent, the United States.
And even then only to the extent those with the power to do so choose to enforce it. It might matter if you or I break the law; it will not matter in any meaningful way if Meta does.
Actually, on second thought, maybe the automated in-webpage decryption via the plugin thing I stuck at the end is a bad idea if it just inserts the decrypted stuff right into the page (not sure if this is the case). Like, I bet that a malicious or compromised instance could serve up Javascript in the webpage it provides to read and send the decrypted content from the web page.
But not a problem for the approach in general, just decrypting-in-place in a webpage. Would benefit from client support in general, though.
EDIT: Also would be nice to have user profile bios have enough space to actually fit a PGP public key, if that is to be used to distribute PGP public keys (rather than keyservers or something, though one issue with using Lemmy instances to distribute them is that a compromised instance could list bogus pubkeys for users who haven’t yet obtained a local copy of the pubkey for a given user). Presently, it looks like the character limit is extremely short on lemmy.today, which is presumably using the Lemmy default; 300 characters. I’d think that it could at least be boosted to the comment length limit of 10,000 characters.
The idea that Florida can “protect” minors by making them less safe is dangerous and dumb.
I assume this is less about protecting children as protecting the movement from children, as well as facilitating wrongdoing against children by members of the movement.
As a general rule there are no backdoors that are good guys only. In fact predators, foreign agents and industrial spies will know them sooner than their distribution to law enforcement.
I’m sorry, but if backdoor laws start getting passed, I’m going to just fucking break the law, and they can come and fucking arrest me if they want. But I’m not putting up with that shit.
I mean, you aren’t the one breaking the law unless you’re running a social media platform. The obligation is on the operators, not on the users.
Fair enough, there are just so many backdoor encryption bills that they all begin to look the same.
this is like how EUROPE is obsessed with backdoor access.
It’s pretty clear that young people are an oppressed class and oppression of them is being used as a wedged to hurt everyone else by extension. We have to fight for the rights of everyone including the young or we’ll lose everything
go on andy yen keep going on about how the united states under trump is great for privacy and encryption
This is a state bill and has nothing to do with Trump.
It’s the same movement behind both, so I would say it definitely has to do with Trump.
It’s not a coincidence the the amount of insane state legislation has skyrocketed since January 20th.
Computers used to be cool:
Now they’re evil spy level things in everyone’s home.
It’s all computer!
Is it really becoming time we encrypt the messages we send ourselves? 🫠
Social media apps should not be E2E encrypted, especially under the age of 18. Chat apps on the other hand should be completely E2E encrypted. We need to have a good balance between safety and privacy, and this is the only decent way.
Stupid people argue for backdoors and stupid people argue for full encryption. It’s the correct balance that’s far more important and will make everybody happy.
Full encryption means privacy. From everyone. For everyone. Please explain to me why that should not be given to minors?
In my view, protecting children online is not inherently a tech problem. It’s a part of parenting.
There’s too many stupid parents.
That’s an education problem, not a privacy issue. Children also deserve privacy, especially when they have awful and potentially abusive parents. Also, we shouldn’t embed the thought that they are being observed 24/7 in our children - that makes only for self-censoring adults.
Stupid, lazy, overworked, underskilled - it must have been easier to raise us who are adults now, pre Internet, than it is to raise our kids today. And I repeat, tech is not the solution.
There is no safety without the guarantee of privacy. One is fundamental to the other.
This may surprise you but not everything is better in moderation.
For example: cannabis.
