Wired's Attack on Privacy

It's silly how privacy detractors try to associate so-and-so terrible group with any software that simply lets people talk without corporate or government surveillance, as if the concept of a private conversation is a strange and suspicious thing now.

To play devil's advocate: private face-to-face conversations do not allow for effective coordination of actions across large distances. There are plenty of good arguments for keeping the government out of everyone's private messages, but this kind of messaging and a conversation are not the same thing.

Yes, they do, it just takes longer to enact what was coordinated.

There's no fundamental difference between a conversation in a meadow and one online.

Sometimes quantity has a quality all of its own. The difference is in the number of people who can be involved and the distances that can be conquered, but those differences completely change the possibilities of online speech.

Aware that I'm reacting to someone playing devil's advocate...

> private face-to-face conversations do not allow for effective coordination of actions across large distances. <snip> this kind of messaging and a conversation are not the same thing.

Technology allows it. The same way it allows for myriad other applications that technology has made possible via extension of a base capability. I would argue that the technological ability extend 'topic X' makes it close enough to "the same thing".

If a Government has a problem with an app because it allows private conversation between physically distant individuals, then that Government likely also has a problem with private conversations between non-physically distant individuals. They just won't mention that because it's transparently obviously authoritarian.

The 'technology' angle only has political play because there will always be a core contingent of society that is scared enough of technology to have a much louder voice than their numbers would indicate.

Just as the governments power to violate anyones privacy when needed was previously tolerable only because it was physically limited.

ie warrants and wire taps and physically breaking in to buildings and safes could be done to anyone at any time, but not everyone, at the same time, all the time, from afar, without even being seen.

It's disingenuous to rationalize or excuse one without acknowledging the other.

And even the old form of the right and ability to break in to any safe still didn't magically un-burn a paper, so that argument against encryption was never valid.

Devils advocate is a critical role, but in this case it only serves the valuable role of showing that no matter how hard one tries, there is no validity to authoritarian/statist attacks on encryption, or indeed any self-actualized tech.

This is not true. We’ve all observed how differently people behave online. The anonymity aspect creates different social outcomes.

While there are arguments for preserving encryption, acting like online communication is the same as face to face is disingenuous.

I think in principle most people agree that it's appropriate under some limited circumstances for authorities to listen in to private conversations, given well-founded suspicion of illegal activities taking place, so digital tools making that outright impossible do pose a problem most people find a bit uncomfortable, whether or not they feel the benefits outweigh the downsides.

Then where is the problem? Let‘s get rid of the online tools and go back to the meadows.

You allow limited circumstances, and then they build MYSTIC to record every phone call in the country illegally.

> I think in principle most people agree that it's appropriate under some limited circumstances for authorities to listen in to private conversations, given well-founded suspicion of illegal activities taking place,

You're right. You know where the most illegal activities take place ? In the parliament. Can we listen to the private conversations of our representatives ? /s

The tools don’t make it “impossible” though, they just don’t actively assist.

The cops are free to get a warrant and use whatever tools they have in their arsenal.

not at all.

as our social life makes more and more use of digital communication, it must have the same protections as a face to face conversation in my home.

in germany wiretapping is only allowed for serious crimes and home surveillance is even more restricted.

in other words if digital communication gets the same protection as home surveillance then you can just use that home surveillance or try to install a listening tool on the persons phone. if home surveillance is not possible then why should digital surveillance be any easier?

exactly, technology changes our social life. many things that used to only be possible when people were at the same location, are now possible over the distance. this not only affects how we interact but also who we interact with. in the past i could only have friends where i lived. now i have friends all over the world. why should the communication with those distant friends be any less private than the communication with my friends at home?

The problem is that there's no effective way to enforce those limits without compromising everyone's privacy. It simply is not possible to have privacy and any amount of eavesdropping.

I think most people would disagree with that premise

They just keep coming back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

i would most certainly not agree, that is an egregious assumption

But there's nothing fundamental about that distinction that warrants a separate set of societal rules. It's just scale: more people, farther distance, shorter time frames.

I never said there was a problem with anything.

We are talking specifically with regard to private communication between people, not speaker's corner online, that's a separate discussion, although I'd have similar views on that topic as well.

It's not the same. But it's not fundamentally different, it's just the technology makes it such that meeting up with someone to talk, no matter where they are, is trivial. It's like a pulley.

Unfortunately, most people hold a variety of silly and counterproductive beliefs.

> in germany wiretapping is only allowed for serious crimes and home surveillance is even more restricted.

In other words, in some limited circumstances authorities can listen in

Is it? A narrow majority of Americans polled when it was a topic of current debate expressed support for warrantless wiretapping to combat terrorism so I think it is extremely likely that much greater numbers would support a more limited process subject to more scrutiny.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/politics/new-poll-finds-m...

Ha ha ha. Would you like to say something more substantive?

Traditionally the tools they have in their arsenal include the cooperation of communications providers.

yes, but german law also protects the sanctity of my home, and the measures to allow surveillance need to be in proportion to how they affect the sanctity of the homes of the general population. the legal possibility to home surveillance does not imply that everyone has to keep their doors unlocked (unencrypted communication) nor does it require for the government to have a key to everyones door (backdoor to encrypted communication) and the government has to accept that in some homes surveillance is physically not possible without alerting the subject (nor is it even legal in all cases).

if these principles hold true then the general population must be allowed to use unbreakable encryption for their communication, just as i am able to build my home in such a way that hidden surveillance is not possible.