Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

Let's level set here a bit. There is no coup d'etat. Here's the definition of a coup: _a sudden, violent, and unlawful seizure of power from a government_ that is not what's happening here on either side.

Instead here's a quick review of what's happening. Currently the Israeli supreme court can strike down laws based on what they deem "reasonability." As you might guess, this is a pretty strong power for the court to hold because it's subjective. The new legislation would remove much of this power.

Those for this change argue that this is a good move because elected officials should be working for the people that they represent, not a court that gets to unilaterally make decisions.

The opposition argues that this power being handed to the elected officials without the oversight of the court's reasonability power and thus might allow bad actors to take additional control and do things that don't represent a substantial, but minority, population.

I'm not arguing for either side, but calling this a coup is wrong.

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A lot of this depends on your threat model and how much of a target you think you are.

If you are worried about your safety, it's better to leave than figure out workarounds. And it's likely easier to get out before things get bad; consider going on an international vacation --- if things look fine, enjoy your trip and go back; if not, figure out what comes next from there.

If you aren't really worried about your safety, but just want to avoid getting hassled about communications and don't want to lose communications with the outside world... Definitely do encrypted messenger stuff. But also, try to set up alternate communications. Even though they're not hard to block, many government shutdowns don't block fixed line internet service, land line telephones, or international voice calling. If you can setup a dial-up internet account with an ISP in another country, you may be able to use that from your landline even if internet via domestic ISPs is all shut down. Of course, if the regime is interested, your telephone company would have records of the calls (at least destination and length) and that might get you put on a list.

But also note, if most of your contacts are local, and local communications are disrupted; having access to international communications doesn't help you communicate with your contacts, unless they've done the same thing and the more people who have set it up, the more likely it is to be noticed.

I don't want to downplay atrocities of that revolution. But, as a quip, if you think the murders were bad wait until you hear what the landlords were up to!

Seriously though using the english word landlord is a gross simplification that elides generation on generation of pervasive horrors. It is very difficult for us to imagine how all-consuming and oppressive this environment was, it was much closer to european manorialism than the current property ownership relationship we call landlords.

Shit like getting an usurious grain loan from your landlord to survive the winter, than having to sell your children to repay it in the spring. Having your wife seized as collateral and enslaved by your landlord. This sort of thing was routine and pervasive, and it lasted hundreds of years. We're lucky to live in an era where we can easily imagine comprehensive change to the conditions of life. These people were not. If you make any effort to understand it it is quite easy to understand why it went the way it did.

A famous quote about another revolution often considered to have overstepped:

> “There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”

I didn't knew about it when I commented. About the .io page: Affiliate links are always a no-go. You can't trust a source that profits from you buying into their recommendations.

Edit: I didn't check if anything OP says is correct. Just asuming and following along ...