2 ms·
The premise is more optimistic than you are suggesting: 1. Mass spying is unpopular. The only reliable support base is a small-ish group of unlikable busybodie
by roenxi 3y ago
The premise is more optimistic than you are suggesting:
1. Mass spying is unpopular. The only reliable support base is a small-ish group of unlikable busybodies.
2. Reducing civil liberties tends to come back to bite the people who implement it. The best part of the Trump backlash is watching the intelligence apparatus come down on the Republicans. Karma in a nutshell, they were one of the major enablers of all that stuff after 9/11. All these ideas like free speech and private communication are ultimately to protect politicians.
3. It is practically difficult to stop. Any country that tries to stop encrypted messengers would have to cripple their own economy by bringing in such limited computers that they can't do anything. And they'd be hopelessly vulnerable to foreign espionage.
This is not that hard of a political fight. They tried to ban strong encryption back in the PGP era and look how that went - SSL is everywhere, encrypted protocols are everywhere, we have cryptographically based assets and every company is encrypting everything they can lay their hands on at rest. The ban-encryption camp has a track record of complete failure. And The Children have been Thought Of and are living in the best era ever to be children.