The US, EU, and UK are all considering legislation to limit end-to-end encryption (the EARN IT Act in the US, Chat Control in the EU, the Online Safety Bill in the UK), and as Apple’s plan for client-side scanning shows, there is a good probability that they will achieve this by requiring backdoors in consumers’ devices.
And given that nobody is pushing back (recall the massive fight against the far less dangerous SOPA?), organizations like Purism and Signal must have well-thought-out plans to escape someplace.
These are my questions:
Where will Purism go exactly?
The only reason the Internet is still at least partially free is because secure Western protocols are so thoroughly engrained and because everyone depends on Western firms. When those are compromised, what will happen? Will it still be feasible to get around censorship?
What is the assurance that the new location of Purism will continue to respect users’ privacy? If there isn’t, running will probably merely delay the battle, so why not start it now? Work with Wikimedia, for instance, to plan a Wikipedia shutdown; but, this time, rather than merely taking it down for a day like they did to protest SOPA, they should keep it offline until the anti-encryption bills are scrapped. It’s not too late yet.
I don’t think you can weaponize Wikipedia like that. It worked for SOPA because the two were related. Taking it down for an unrelated issue, particularly for an indefinite amount of time, will just make people mad at Wikipedia.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. But if this is indeed regarded excessive, a straightforward banner would suffice. But at the very least, we need something. There is only an utter silence right now.
Is this really the case? As far as I know, many security protocols and devices are breached by western companies/governments. The latest example is Pegasus (Israel), PGP was ones forbidden, US security protocols got deliberate flaws, etc.
My point: there is no western or eastern security. You just cannot trust governments. Only technology and open source code/systems give people a chance to secure communication.
If the jack-booted thugs prohibit OEM sale of secure machines, we the people will respond the same way we do when they prohibit weapons. We will have home-built servers, desktops, laptops, tablets and phones – no hardware backdoors, FLOSS software, hardcore encryption and no serial numbers!
If my phone has to be as big as a literal brick, so be it. It will just make it all the easier to integrate 9mm firepower.
There’s just one problem.
Manufacturing semiconductors at home is a massive pain in the rear. You need a clean room, hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment (if not millions) and anything you can make will never even come close to what you can buy in terms of speed and efficiency, which gives the government an opportunity to ban in-home fabrication that can’t meet efficiency standards (that is, all of it) in the name of saving the planet.
Smuggling in components from enemy countries would make more sense.
And what’s this about “we the people”? “The people” are so computer illiterate they don’t even realize that there’s anything TO care about. In their mind the computer only does what it displays on the screen and nothing besides. I tell them about how their watches are spying on them and they tell me “that ship has sailed”, “no one cares”, “get with the times boomer (the person who called me that is older than me)” or worse “we need this to crack down on [insert group of people you wouldn’t say aren’t bad here]” or “take your meds, schizo”.
The people are ignorant, too many of them couldn’t handle the complexities of reality even if you tried to teach them, and they are powerless in their ignorance but don’t feel like they are because they can at least crush your hopes and dreams. The government could introduce a Chinese style social credit system TOMORROW and as long as they called it something else and did it in the name of “stopping racism” people would just roll over and take it. It’s not going to be the government wearing the jackboots. It’s them.
The EU thing seems unrealistic to pass. And at the moment EU may not have social media starting next year as the data transfers to US have been deemed illegal, violating privacy (draft document level stuff requiring keeping data in EU and Meta has responded by that it would rather remove itself than change).
The ignorant masses you refer to are certainly the “useful idiots” and “tools” of the current era, and the regime-required hardware backdoors are equivalent to King George quartering troops in our homes. That wasn’t so much about hot meals and a place to sleep as it was about access to people’s effects, papers and thoughts… and to put a chilling effect on any ideas of “insurrection”.
The useful idiots are far too wussified to actually put on jackboots, they just go along to get along. We, the people with our wits about us and our eyes/ears open will be forced once again to do the necessary, the Super Thing. I am reminded that only about 13% of the population of the thirteen colonies actively supported the American Revolution – most of the rest were useful idiots.
Persinally, I feel that this is grossly elitist. Most people care to get along and survive, and some people don’t have the mental ability to consider more than that out of no fault of their own (not everyone has average intelligence, not everyone had the right upbringing, not everyone can spare the attention, not everyone can escape network effects). I don’t see how blaming them for being “tools” is going to make a difference, it’s just useless complaining.
Not “elitist” at all. Most are sheep, some are wolves, and some are shepherds… as you say, “by no fault of their own”. That applies equally to those of us who are not inclined to suffer tyranny gladly.
You seem to have mistaken statement of fact for complaint.
As if one couldn’t use facts to complain Also, you seem to imply that the “sheep” will suffer tyranny gladly. They won’t, a lot of them are just unable to do much to prevent it for the reasons I outlined above.
Rather than complain about the sheep, the right course of action for the empowered is to do their best to fix the problem.
Also, you seem to imply that the “sheep” will suffer tyranny gladly. They won’t, a lot of them are just unable to do much to prevent it for the reasons I outlined above.