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> but these countries are a far cry from a place like China, where people actually are arrested for violating strict censorship laws. The argument is that we'r

> but these countries are a far cry from a place like China, where people actually are arrested for violating strict censorship laws. The argument is that we're headed in that direction, so let's turn the ship around before we get there. > The NSA's mass surveillance has been brought to light by a former contractor; the secret is blown, the cat's out of the bag, and Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall already. Yet, more people bitched and whined about whether it was legal to blow the whistle rather than the message itself. Snowden pointed, and everyone looked at his finger. > I suspect that in the near future, the major email providers will offer end-to-end encryption for all their users with no possibility of back doors Impossible. Email providers cannot ensure this level of safety, only end-users themselves using tools like PGP, which is unfortunately still a mystery to many people. The sad truth is that end-to-end encryption requires know-how and a bit of effort (even if just a little). Most people don't care enough, or are just confused by it. Hell, I'm an experienced programmer and still have to look up "best practices" guides from time to time. Your average Joe Schmoe isn't going to do it, and nobody else can do it for them. > Unfortunately, it's going to take some time for the import of this situation to sink in to the dim consciousness of the American voter. Agreed, like I said, most people we're more distracted by the reveal itself than the actual information revealed. I was dumbfounded how easily the citizens of my country were led astray, and even more who swallowed the "terrorism" excuse. Pathetic. So I guess my point is that this is a bigger deal that you're making it out to be. Yeah, it's worse in China, but we're going to BE China soon if we don't stop multinational corporations from raping us over a barrel and controlling every aspect of our government. After all, what good is free speech if it stands in the way of progress?

blisterpeanuts 12y ago
To your point about email, wouldn't it be easy enough to install a browser add-on that handles the end-user PGP for you? Even people who don't understand all this encryption stuff could do it. "For safer surfing, install the SafeSurf extension and then no one can spy on what you write!" I suspect that eventually, and to the chagrin of the spies, most of us will have this type of extension installed, and share public keys with our correspondents or whatever. Then the next big market will be databases of public keys, but luckily those can be altered easily enough. In fact, make the extension automatically prompt you for a new one every 4 weeks.
- orthecreedence 12y ago
  True, an extension could handle a lot of it. I do hope encryption becomes less of a nerd thing and much more of a "do your civic duty" type thing.

blisterpeanuts 12y ago

To your point about email, wouldn't it be easy enough to install a browser add-on that handles the end-user PGP for you? Even people who don't understand all this encryption stuff could do it. "For safer surfing, install the SafeSurf extension and then no one can spy on what you write!" I suspect that eventually, and to the chagrin of the spies, most of us will have this type of extension installed, and share public keys with our correspondents or whatever. Then the next big market will be databases of public keys, but luckily those can be altered easily enough. In fact, make the extension automatically prompt you for a new one every 4 weeks.

orthecreedence 12y ago
True, an extension could handle a lot of it. I do hope encryption becomes less of a nerd thing and much more of a "do your civic duty" type thing.