Matthew GreenIt is remarkable to think that only in the past 15-20 years have we moved most of our private communications to digital channels with centralized storage & the processing power to perform bulk scanning. Coincidentally that’s nearly as long as encrypted messaging has been around.
Many folks in law enforcement and politics seem genuinely confused about the popularity of end-to-end encrypted messaging, like we all just decided to become anarchists or something. That’s not at all the dynamic we’re seeing here. The entire basis of our communications infrastructure shifted in a direction that’s inimical to privacy; encryption is the obvious solution.
If you had the most cynical possible view of humanity and its governments, you’d expect government agencies to be making a *huge* push to end encryption right now; or at least adorn it with mass-scanning infrastructure. And sure enough, that’s exactly what we’re seeing all around the world. https://www.globalencryption.org/2023/04/statement-on-eu-us-cooperation-against-encryption/
Global Encryption Coalition Steering Committee Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption – Global Encryption Coalition
The members of the Global Encryption Coalition’s Steering Committee issued a statement on the EU-US collaboration against encryption.
Anyway one of the things I’m desperate to convey to people is that this is *not* just a continuation of the same fight we’ve been having for decades. The circumstances have entirely changed, in a way that can never change back. The folks leading this charge know that.
Christie Dudley@matthew_d_green it’s more an intersection of existing communication channels and the pandemic response of everything moving online. Following that conjuncture, thinking on how to address problems must change, on both sides. I personally will never forget the US government hacking into attorneys’ offices within the US to spy on a foreign trade delegation. They can do it. They have done it. They will do it, only it’s so much easier now.