I've said it before and I'll say it again: anonymity online and encrypted communications are one of the most important problems we're going to going to face in the coming decades. Hackers should be working on those, not clever ways to serve ads or geolocating your latest locally-sourced coffee.
If you don't believe the US is already permanently archiving vast swaths of communication, it's not a big leap of imagination to picture it happening in five or ten years. Likewise the government might not have the computer power to analyze those archives today, but in five or ten years, I'd bet on it.
Some people don't mind that the government stores their emails. "I'm fine with it because I know they're going to catch the bad guys" or "I'm fine with it because I have nothing to hide". Those are certainly powerful (though flawed) arguments for the situation today. Those people are perhaps picturing filing cabinets in some dank warehouse filled with paper printouts of their emails, which due to space constraints will be shredded or forgotten in ten years. The reality is that thanks to technology, what we say today is being stored and archived for-ev-er and can be indexed and retrieved easily and indefinitely. Why does that make a difference? Because today, what you say and do might be lawful. But laws and societies change over time, and the government will still be able to go back and dig up what you said decades ago and use it against you.
That's really what scares me--because today, I, like most people, don't have much to hide. But who knows what laws or culture will be like in 20 years, and what can be used against me that I said so very long ago? Can you imagine working at the WTC and having a bad day, and jokingly sending an email to a coworker about bombing the place because you're so mad. 9/11 happens a year later, the government looks in its archives for the email you sent, and in a post-9/11 frenzy sends you to Guantanamo to "await trial". Or it doesn't even have to go that far; some government spokesperson lets your name slip in an interview as a "suspect" and the media attention you'll get will forever ruin your life even if the government does nothing.
> I've said it before and I'll say it again: anonymity online and encrypted communications are one of the most important problems we're going to going to face in the coming decades. Hackers should be working on those, not clever ways to serve ads or geolocating your latest locally-sourced coffee.
Are you currently putting code behind that yourself? We could always use contributions and help with new and ongoing OSS projects at Open Whisper Systems.
> Or it doesn't even have to go that far; some government spokesperson lets your name slip in an interview as a "suspect" and the media attention you'll get will forever ruin your life even if the government does nothing.
Unless the government gets out of the business of handling birth certificates, driver's licenses, etc. they're simply going to have your name.
Secure communications channels is certainly an important topic though, but given what happened to Sunil Tripathi in the aftermath of the Reddit swarm to find the Boston Marathom bomber(s), perhaps it's possible that your biggest "online threat" in the future won't be part of the government at all.
You get the wrong Google, Facebook, or random datacenter sysadmin upset and you could find yourself in hot water with even less of a legal recourse. It's just as easy to imagine roving bands of vigilantes in that dystopian future as it is to imagine Big Brother, is it not?
I get why this (COMSEC) is an important problem; what I don't get is why so many otherwise very intelligent persons focus on the government as the sole problem area. The government is mostly staffed by either those who are actually idealistic, or those who are too incompetent to hack it in the private sector. Certainly Google and Facebook have better IT infrastructure than 99% of the government.
P.S. The U.S. Constitution forbids "ex post facto" laws that make previously legal behavior illegal after-the-fact. If you believe that the Constitution actually means anything you shouldn't worry about currently legal things being held against you in 20 years. If you believe the Constitution won't hold up in 20 years then it's kind of pointless to worry about any of the other laws, they'd be just as shredded.
I'm not saying you should not watch what the government knows about you. It is that you should also watch what everyone else knows about you.
I always get confused in these threads because I cannot separate those who are worried about the privacy of their data from those who simply hate the government (or even the idea of government).
If you're trying to deploy a cryptosystem that relies on popularity to be really useful, then you'll need to get "average Joe" to buy into it, and I suspect the best way to do that is to point out all of the possible Big Brothers out there, not just rabble-rabble about the gubbmint alone.
Using something said in the past to embarrass in the present is one thing. It is often justified, like with "mission accomplished" or the "the fundamentals of the economy are strong."
Prosecuting for something that was legally done in the past is a whole different issue.
Government sponsored embarrassment isn't the same as putting someone in jail, you are right.
However, taking away someone's ability to make a living (see the Hollywood blacklist, etc.) is leverage that can be used to control behavior. The HUAC hearings were a big bad thing that was done. It wasn't as bad as slavery, for example, but it is something that happened very recently and I think we want to avoid.
Strongly agree. Aside from the first-order benefits of encryption becoming ubiquitous (government can't read my) stuff, there are side effects that may be even more important.
If everyone is using Tor, for example, there is a lower probability that any given Tor user is engaging in activity the government does not approve of. And the more "legitimate" users there are, the harder it is to criminalize users.
If you don't believe the US is already permanently archiving vast swaths of communication, it's not a big leap of imagination to picture it happening in five or ten years. Likewise the government might not have the computer power to analyze those archives today, but in five or ten years, I'd bet on it.
Some people don't mind that the government stores their emails. "I'm fine with it because I know they're going to catch the bad guys" or "I'm fine with it because I have nothing to hide". Those are certainly powerful (though flawed) arguments for the situation today. Those people are perhaps picturing filing cabinets in some dank warehouse filled with paper printouts of their emails, which due to space constraints will be shredded or forgotten in ten years. The reality is that thanks to technology, what we say today is being stored and archived for-ev-er and can be indexed and retrieved easily and indefinitely. Why does that make a difference? Because today, what you say and do might be lawful. But laws and societies change over time, and the government will still be able to go back and dig up what you said decades ago and use it against you.
That's really what scares me--because today, I, like most people, don't have much to hide. But who knows what laws or culture will be like in 20 years, and what can be used against me that I said so very long ago? Can you imagine working at the WTC and having a bad day, and jokingly sending an email to a coworker about bombing the place because you're so mad. 9/11 happens a year later, the government looks in its archives for the email you sent, and in a post-9/11 frenzy sends you to Guantanamo to "await trial". Or it doesn't even have to go that far; some government spokesperson lets your name slip in an interview as a "suspect" and the media attention you'll get will forever ruin your life even if the government does nothing.