4 ms·
It's fascinating that the article ends with a very pessimistic quote, but the implication is clear: wiretapping was immune to policy solutions, but technical so
by arciini 5y ago
It's fascinating that the article ends with a very pessimistic quote, but the implication is clear: wiretapping was immune to policy solutions, but technical solutions have been far more effective at solving this problem.
> Futility was the order of the day. “Most experts believe that no matter what legislation is enacted, the unhappy outlook as of now is that wiretapping is here to stay and will increase,” Newsweek reported in an article on “The Busy Wiretappers” in the spring of 1955. The tumultuous decade that followed proved all of the predictions right.
Public-key encryption has brought wiretap-resistant communications to the mainstream through the Internet in a way that would've been basically impossible to do at scale in the analog world.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoYeah. Laws can always be ignored or selectively enforced. They're worthless paper until something actually happens, and it will only happen after the fact, after people's rights have been violated. Technology puts a stop to all that by making it harder if not impossible for them to abuse power in the first place.
- echion 5y agoThe flip side is also true: technology enables abuses of power to exist faster than the laws can be enforced.
- dotnet00 5y agoIt's kind of funny and sad how as a result we've come full circle to governments occasionally attempting to effectively legislate in the ability to have 'wiretaps' on internet communications.