[tptacek]

That same argument could have been used to ban wiretaps, which after all synthesize permanent evidence from ephemera. But it didn't: instead of banning wiretaps, we systematized and legitimized them, and refined that understanding over and over again for 50 years.

[the8472]

Wiretaps generally do not come with time-machines that can resurrect past conversations.

[tptacek]

You mean like tape recorders?

[the8472]

No, tape recorders are not part of the normal operation of phone networks.

The point is that even if a user intends to have an ephemeral conversation over an internet service all kind of middle-boxes may keep more persistent copies.

Something that normally does not happen with either face to face or telephone conversations.

With unencrypted digital communication on the other hand past conversations can be dredged up from all kinds of places.

End-to-end encryption basically abstracts ephemeral communication over channels with some sort of persistence.

[mvitorino]

But there isn't an (at least widespread) equivalent of crypto for phone calls. So not really comparable.

[tptacek]

There will be. Of course there will be. Encrypting phone calls isn't a particularly hard problem; the hard problem has been getting the audio frames of a phone call into the clutches of software to begin with, and we've already just about killed that problem.

[mvitorino]

Absolutely. But my only point is that we can't directly transpose the legal experience over 50 years in wire taps since there was never an equivalent debate over it's privacy. Wiretaps weren't really questioned because there wasn't a real expectation of privacy on phone calls since we started out with human switchboards.

[schoen]

Wiretaps were really questioned in court. Maybe there was less public debate about them at the time or less awareness of how widespread wiretapping could become; I'm not sure.

[mvitorino]

Also, before computing, wiretaps were extremely labour intensive. So mass surveillance wasn't a possibility. This is what repulses people.

[tptacek]

I think I'm suggesting that mass surveillance can also be repulsive to the people who are concerned about "going dark".