Destroying the Right to Be Left Alone

[jeff47]

69. And that's why your construct won't work.

And why the Internet was built the way it was built.

How do you directly connect 6 billion people without violating the fundamental laws of physics? And it's a combinatorial problem - that's not 6 billion connections - each person is going to be connected to more than one other person.

You keep talking about "the current system" and I'm talking about something else.

That's because I'm explaining how to reach your goal with the current system.

You and your friend exchange asymmetric encryption keys (ex. Public Key Cryptography) - the equivalent of handing them one of the pair of your proposed walkie-talkie.
You use your friend's key to encrypt a one-use symmetric key, and send that key to him over the Internet.
You use that one-time key to encrypt the data and transmit the encrypted data over the Internet.
Your friend uses his asymmetric key to get the symmetric key, and then decrypts the data.

What about big brother watching all those third parties? They get unintelligible garbage. That's the point of encrypting the data.

Why is this different than using "https" when you connect to Google? Because Google has an unencrypted copy of the data which they can share. In the scenario above, those 3rd parties do not have any unencrypted data.

What about the NSA and people's fantasies about their super powers? The NSA has two roles - spying on others, and preventing spying on the US. To accomplish the latter, they use tools like the "Advance Encryption Standard" symmetric encryption algorithm. That's what AES stands for in AES-256. The NSA does so because they believe it to be secure. Think there's a back door and the NSA is willing to compromise US security just to read your mail? Well it was invented by some Belgian mathematicians - not the NSA or anyone close to them.

How 'bout if they have magic super powers and do manage to break a message? That's why you use a different key for each message.

I am talking about a direct, wireless and secure connection between two entities.

Then you are talking about violating the laws of physics.

If it's wireless, it's going to have to be RF. There isn't any other technology that is even in the theoretical stage which could do so. So unless you're talking about waiting 20+ years, it's RF.

If it's RF, you are transmitting the data in all directions. Anyone nearby can pick up the signal with an antenna. In addition, you're going to need someone to repeat and amplify the signal if you and your friend are any significant distance apart. Which means you bring third parties back in. So you're going to have to encrypt the data to protect it. Which means you are now doing exactly what I said above, just over RF instead of the Internet.

You're flapping your arms sure that someone will make you fly real soon now. In a very, very long time, someone may invent anti-gravity. Alternatively, you could get on an airplane today.