Law Professor: Tech Companies Are Our Best Hope At Resisting Surveillance

An anonymous reader writes: Fusion has an op-ed where Ryan Calo, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Washington, argues Google, Apple, and Microsoft pushing back against government surveillance may be our only real hope for privacy. He writes: "Both Google and Yahoo have announced that they are working on end-to-end encryption in email. Facebook established its service on a Tor hidden services site, so that users can access the social network without being monitored by those with access to network traffic. Outside of product design, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft have sent their formidable legal teams to court to block or narrow requests for user information. Encryption tools have traditionally been unwieldy and difficult to use; massive companies turning their attention to better and simpler design, and use by default, could be a game changer. Privacy will no longer be accessible only to tech-savvy users, and it will mean that those who do use encryption will no longer stick out like sore thumbs, their rare use of hard-to-use tools making them a target."

Comments

Winston, hide your razor blades

[Jahat]

Just look at all the ways that big tech companies partner with the very governments we are supposed to be protected from. Google especially looks like a branch of DARPA.

Re:Or the Gordon Dickson approach

[GLMDesigns]

Wholesale auction? Surveillance is not a bug - it's a feature of government.

You want less surveillance? Then you need a government that does less. You know "small government." ooooooo can't have that.