19 ms·
After having talked to the office of my local federal representative this morning about another matter, the conversation got around to talking about surveillanc
by oldandtired 8y ago
After having talked to the office of my local federal representative this morning about another matter, the conversation got around to talking about surveillance, encryption and privacy. The attitude portrayed was ignorance of foreign government, foreign company or criminal organisation being able to use such systems for their purposes against the normal citizens of the country.
It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose.
- godelski 8y ago> It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose. I just don't think they think about it. At least from my experience talking to people in different agencies. There job is to catch people. So encryption is a barrier to them in that respect, so that's how they frame it. But they don't connect all the benefits that they themselves get from it because it isn't obvious. Most people don't realize when things are encrypted because a lot of times it is the norm. Similarly I think people don't think about privacy in general because how it is framed. We are coming from a world where privacy was the norm. It is all about how the discussion is framed. We constantly talk about how encryption is a hindrance to police. About how more surveillance can help us catch criminals. And all this is true! But few people talk about the drawbacks (except specifically government overreach, but we're in a country where people trust the government). But you can't make informed decisions that way. You need to know both sides. Benefits AND detriments.