[eternalban]

> That's probably going to be a fundamental limit of any application that serves billions of people from many different demographics all over the world.

Moxie, some of us are of the opinion that [that] (implied) goal is certainly noble but ill-considered.

Modern state surveillance has 2 general unstated goals:

1) Create an atmosphere of fear to affect self-censorship. Some states (such as China) announce this as a matter of state policy. Others (such as US) drop hints. UK is somewhere in between.

2) Identify emerging memes, clusters, and thought leaders. This information is then used to counter, disrupt, and discredit/isolate (respectively).

(And yes, the stated public goals are to prevent terrorism, child pornography, and crimes.)

From the political angle -- activist angle, if you will -- the goal of "serving billions of people from many different demographics all over the world" is minimally misguided, and counter productive, and maximally a hazard.

[ComodoHacker]

I think you are wrong. When only a small portion of the population can use end-to-end encryption in their day-to-day communications, a state can declare it (e2e enc.) "suspicious" and achieve both goals far more easier.

[ncallaway]

I am not convinced of the conclusion you've drawn based on the things you've outlined.

Would you mind elaborating on your chain of reasoning a little bit further?

[abecedarius]

I don't understand. How is it misguided, and who is it a hazard to? Are you saying the unstated goals of state surveillance are good ones which conflict with popular use of crypto, and therefore popular use of crypto is bad?

[likeclockwork]

I THINK the commenter was saying that "serving billions of people from many different demographics all over the world" is inviting all of those different people together so you can betray them all at once.