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Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

blog.tripu.info

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Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't the powers that be just leave the people to live their lives in peace without being snooped on by the surveillance apparatus? The very microsecond that some tragedy befalls the populace, the very first thing people start screaming about is how pathetic the government is for not knowing about the tragedy in advance and preventing it. We don't live in 1923. We live in 2023. You can't put a secret agent in a…

> The very microsecond that some tragedy befalls the populace, the very first thing people start screaming about is how pathetic the government is for not knowing about the tragedy in advance and preventing it. I agree with you that is true but is there any proof that even if all telecommunications were open completely to the governments, it would be possible to stop every incoming attacks/tragedies? Because that is…

But then they could justify turning the screws some more, since we're agreed we're living in a police state.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#162
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Stylistic) point taken. I stand by what I wrote, although it could be argued in less stringent terms.

Persuasive writing is a skill. You lost my attention and I turned against your argument because of your "stylistic point". If it'd been written differently, I would have definitely agreed and supported the points I did read.

Why pride yourself on being unreasonable? The text was clear enough and the exact phrasing is immaterial.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#163

A bit of a tangent, but I followed the link at the bottom to https://stopchatcontrol.eu/ and while I want to take the site seriously and agree with the message, I can't with that silly usage of emojis (scroll down). Seems more like a joke website than a serious piece of advocacy it purports to be. The original blog post is good though.

Wow yeah, that's bad. I don't get the "end every sentence/paragraph with a relevant emoji" thing.

I wonder if it's effective for their intended audience, though?

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only reason we currently have any message encryption is because a few tech companies have made the decision to protect as many as possible by releasing products which enable it (iOS, Whatsapp, and now texts via Google Messages)." Completely false. Phil Zimmerman gave us PGP for free in 1991, and numerous open encryption standards now belong to the general public. Giving credit to Apple, Meta, and Google for this…

PGP et al is basically irrelevant given how few people use PGP compared to the >2.5 billion users that use Whatsapp and >1B using iMessage. My wording wasn't exact; other encryption programs have enabled secure messaging, but without big players it would've been outlawed by now because it would've been easier to say "only criminals" use encrypted communication. As for the "numerous open encryption standards", these a…

iirc moxie built double-ratched in the same spirit as zimmerman built pgp and gave it away for free. thou he even went as far as integrating it into a mass-market product (wa) to twart the "only criminals" thing that seriously held back adoption of the latter throu export controls.

didn't help as much as they hoped, as there are no trustworthy platforms to run any of it.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#165

Lots of comments here mention that the vast majority of people won't use PGP, Linux and other things to protect their privacy, because they don't care/are dumb/have more important things to do/whatever. The bottom line though is that people that are more tech savvy and more knowledgeable will always have better privacy no matter what, unless you literally enforce Linux and all that on everyone, which is just not gonn…

It is actually a tragedy that privacy is so inconvenient and complicated

moxie tried, but there are no trustworthy ends for the encryption. hence privacy is still mostly for criminals.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#166

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

[deleted]

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#167

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

The assumption surveillance stopped after stasi is astonishing.

I believe it never went away and technology simply kept making it more pervasive, more efficient. It didn't suddenly happen in the last ten years or so, it was a continuous progression over decades.

Hopefully technology can also help us defeat it.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#168

I am baffled how we went from a liberal "free" democracy to this ersatz of a totalitarian regime where all our conversations/messages/photos need to be dissected, catalogued and approved by un-elected bureaucrats. I mean you can literally go to eastern Europe to see the vestiges of the Stasi where they used to listen to the conversations of their citizens while trying to find dissidents among them. This isn't some ki…

The assumption surveillance stopped after stasi is astonishing. I believe it never went away and technology simply kept making it more pervasive, more efficient. It didn't suddenly happen in the last ten years or so, it was a continuous progression over decades. Hopefully technology can also help us defeat it.

I don't mean to say that surveillance stopped necessarily but I thought that the thought of having a police state such as it was in East Germany or in other Eastern European countries would have vaccinated the world against those tyrannical tendencies.

It's little bit what we have now with respect to nuclear weapons, where we have used them twice and decided to not do it again (so far).

I just cannot fathom that someone is genuinely ok with having their worst secrets and their deepest fear out there in the open being sorted and analyzed by some black box algorithm who may or may not start an investigation against them because they said the wrong thing or shared the wrong image.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#169

>If you don't have something to hide someone else might have something to hide I don't find it ethical to fight for the privacy just to protect criminals.

It is not criminal to want privacy, any more than it is to want a firearm.

Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption surveillance stopped after stasi is astonishing. I believe it never went away and technology simply kept making it more pervasive, more efficient. It didn't suddenly happen in the last ten years or so, it was a continuous progression over decades. Hopefully technology can also help us defeat it.

I don't mean to say that surveillance stopped necessarily but I thought that the thought of having a police state such as it was in East Germany or in other Eastern European countries would have vaccinated the world against those tyrannical tendencies. It's little bit what we have now with respect to nuclear weapons, where we have used them twice and decided to not do it again (so far). I just cannot fathom that some…

Agree. Many reason for people to accept it or resign though (none good): * everyone seems ok with it * I do not have a dark secret * I do have a dark secret but why would I be of interest? * my data is already out there anyway, no point encrypting anything now. * so far, so good, why change? * Nothing is secure anyway, everything is hacked, so what’s the point?

etc. etc.

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