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"Privacy absolutism" is the direct consequence of the Snowden revelations. If the government had not created such a massive apparatus spying on everyone, there'

"Privacy absolutism" is the direct consequence of the Snowden revelations. If the government had not created such a massive apparatus spying on everyone, there'd be room for compromise (if technically feasible). By creating secret courts, secret warrants or warrantless spying, the gov itself destroyed all faith in the possibility of a compromise that allows access where necessary while safeguarding meaningful privacy. The NSA now has a profile of my porn preferences. Congratulation! I hope it was worth it – I've since enabled SSL on every domain I control, taught classes on the use of PGP and am one of thousands of non-Americans willing & able to create strong encryption messaging services it Silicon Valley bends to the Gov's demands. The NSA helpfully create a market and at this point any moral qualms I might have once had evaporated. Reflecting back on the last decade, I feel like a case study in 'unwanted side effects'. I never was (and never will be) an Ayn Rand-style libertarian or one of those conspiracy-peddling bitcoin enthusiast. I've defended the primacy of the law as the only legitimate outlet of power in the face of hands-of-the-internet techno-anarchism. As I'm European, it should also be mentioned that I despise the Anti-american undercurrent so prevalent here, being able to recite most of The West Wing from memory. Hey, my major claim-to-fame is actually a widely-copied photo of Obama at his Berlin rally in summer '08. But I've apparently made much of same journey as Apple has, which probably never foresaw that it would end it such an open confrontation with the US government (it must be bad for business to take sides in the culture wars). In fact it seems possible that Apple or I actually never changed. Lesson: if you shift the Overton-window until the moderates become extremists, don't be surprised if they start behaving as such.

tptacek 11y ago
People say this a lot, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Ok, Snowden demonstrated that giving the USG centralized access to communications is dangerous. People don't trust the government. Now what? What's the effective policy response to this? Crypto advocates (I am one of those) eventually need to stop pretending that there isn't a meaningful tradeoff here. In 10-20 years, everything is going to be encrypted: every phone call, every hard drive, every email, every photograph. That is going to pose real problems for the kinds of law enforcement cases that everyone cares about. That doesn't mean key escrow is a good idea, or that we should prohibit encryption. But saying "that's not going to be a problem" is just not an argument. You have to do better.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  > That is going to pose real problems for the kinds of law enforcement cases that everyone cares about. Those problems have existing solutions: Place a room bug where the evildoers meet. Use real-world physical surveillance. Track their movements. The only thing you can't do with existing solutions is to scale them up to pushbutton mass-surveillance numbers. And that's only a problem if you want to use surveillance as a tool to suppress political/social movements, and our beneficent government would never do that.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I agree with you. That's something that frustrates me about the "Going Dark" debate. Crypto can pose real problems for justice and safety, and the answer still probably isn't to suppress crypto. Maybe we should just do a better job of funding investigatory work?
    - Zigurd 11y ago
      > Maybe we should just do a better job of funding investigatory work? Many of these supposed problems are a product of "searching under the street lamp." Once you shut off the mass-surveillance street lamp, we may find that the quality of law enforcement rises if only because somebody might get off the internet and look at the backlog of burglary and strong-arm robbery cases.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        That's almost certainly true. Electronic surveillance has made it easier for investigators to "cheat" their way through a case. But we fund investigations based on how long it takes an investigator to clear a case, so if we make it much harder to do that, something else will have to give.
    - mindslight 11y ago
      > Crypto can pose real problems for justice and safety Exactly like the worries of "shouting fire in a crowded theater". If communication leads to an action that has real world consequences, then criminalize and investigate the actual action. Don't take the lazy way and attempt to police communication.
mindslight 11y ago
nit: direct consequence of the out of control government exposed by the Snowden revelations. But while Snowden was great publicity, the underlying issue was always there and will always be - you're either in charge of your computing or someone else is. And other people have much different incentives than yourself, especially after they aggregate a trove of everyone's personal data.

tptacek 11y ago

People say this a lot, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. Ok, Snowden demonstrated that giving the USG centralized access to communications is dangerous. People don't trust the government. Now what? What's the effective policy response to this? Crypto advocates (I am one of those) eventually need to stop pretending that there isn't a meaningful tradeoff here. In 10-20 years, everything is going to be encrypted: every phone call, every hard drive, every email, every photograph. That is going to pose real problems for the kinds of law enforcement cases that everyone cares about. That doesn't mean key escrow is a good idea, or that we should prohibit encryption. But saying "that's not going to be a problem" is just not an argument. You have to do better.

Zigurd 11y ago
> That is going to pose real problems for the kinds of law enforcement cases that everyone cares about. Those problems have existing solutions: Place a room bug where the evildoers meet. Use real-world physical surveillance. Track their movements. The only thing you can't do with existing solutions is to scale them up to pushbutton mass-surveillance numbers. And that's only a problem if you want to use surveillance as a tool to suppress political/social movements, and our beneficent government would never do that.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I agree with you. That's something that frustrates me about the "Going Dark" debate. Crypto can pose real problems for justice and safety, and the answer still probably isn't to suppress crypto. Maybe we should just do a better job of funding investigatory work?
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    > Maybe we should just do a better job of funding investigatory work? Many of these supposed problems are a product of "searching under the street lamp." Once you shut off the mass-surveillance street lamp, we may find that the quality of law enforcement rises if only because somebody might get off the internet and look at the backlog of burglary and strong-arm robbery cases.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      That's almost certainly true. Electronic surveillance has made it easier for investigators to "cheat" their way through a case. But we fund investigations based on how long it takes an investigator to clear a case, so if we make it much harder to do that, something else will have to give.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    > Crypto can pose real problems for justice and safety Exactly like the worries of "shouting fire in a crowded theater". If communication leads to an action that has real world consequences, then criminalize and investigate the actual action. Don't take the lazy way and attempt to police communication.

mindslight 11y ago

nit: direct consequence of the out of control government exposed by the Snowden revelations. But while Snowden was great publicity, the underlying issue was always there and will always be - you're either in charge of your computing or someone else is. And other people have much different incentives than yourself, especially after they aggregate a trove of everyone's personal data.