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

Posted by samzenpus on from the you're-our-only-hope dept.

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."

5 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. No by TCM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cryptographers are our best hope.

    What is this headline supposed to suggest? Trust cloud providers? LOL.

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    1. Re:No by Sloppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Communication is too basic to not be a commodity. If you have a software "vendor" then you're doing it wrong.

      What is really getting fucked up here, is that we are using the names of these three companies in our discussion, rather than the names of standard protocols. Because the public isn't using standard protocols. That's intolerable.

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  2. Re:Or the Gordon Dickson approach by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    There is a special government program going on in the US right now where for $0.49 a uniformed representative of the government will hand deliver your sealed correspondence to its destination.

    I find this to be a useful way to communicate and do business in the Digital Age.

  3. Re:Get a bear to guard your honey by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly. With the exception of Microsoft (which sells software, yet still doesn't have a great track record, especially with the Windows 10 fiasco), all of the listed companies have business models that rely on collecting as much information as they possibly can from their users (not to be confused with their customers). If you want to resist surveillance, then don't buy into large centralised communication systems.

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  4. Hotmail wouldn't attach encrypted zip file by sasparillascott · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yesterday I wanted to get a small file from one computer to another, didn't want to use a thumb drive (didn't have cloud storage on one as well) so I just figured I'd Hotmail myself (via its web interface) an e-mail with the attached file zipped and encrypted (it was a tax doc) to another e-mail address of mine...no problem right? So I try to attach the file and Microsoft decided it had to be able to scan and identify (and log?) what I had in that zip file before it would allow it to be attached (since it was encrypted it wouldn't allow it to be attached...tried it several times...the NSA must be pleased)....so much for user's privacy.

    With all the information, since Snowden, about Microsoft working hand in glove with the U.S. government I have to laugh a little at them being included here - as it seems a PR stunt on their part.

    http://www.theguardian.com/wor...