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A Complete Guide To The New 'Crypto Wars' (dailydot.com)
blottsie writes: The latest debate over encryption did not begin with a court order demanding Apple help the FBI unlock a dead terrorist's iPhone. The new "Crypto Wars," chronicled in a comprehensive timeline by Eric Geller of the Daily Dot, dates back to at least 2003, with the introduction of "Patriot Act II." The battle over privacy and personal security versus crime-fighting and national security has, however, become a mainstream debate in recent months. The timeline covers a wide-range of incidents where the U.S. and other allied governments have tried to restrict citizens' access to strong encryption. The timeline ends with the director of national intelligence blaming NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for advancing the spread of user-friendly, widely available strong encryption.
It's fantastic that tech companies are fighting/discussing this in public, for too many years it been totally behind closed doors in secret meeting.
People are expected to learn at an age of around 4, that if you bite the kid next to you, he'll either bite you back or cry and make someone else punish you for the biting. Apparently, becoming a decision maker in the justice department, the FBI or the CIA, doesn't require having acquired such wisdom.
More seriously, though, the only realistic explanations to the imbecile behavior of American governance towards cryptography is probably a mix of a few lines of reasoning:
- "So what if my decisions of today have dire consequences in tomorrow's landscape? I won't be in power tomorrow, so I don't give a flying fuck."
- "I don't understand any technology beyond the automobile, and I really don't care. Just give me a way of invading privacy now and shut up."
- "So what if today's abuses of power make everyone use cryptography tomorrow? It will just be one more reason to abuse our power even more tomorrow. Everyone outside the 0.01% is a potential terrorist criminal revolutionary."