Overreacting is equally dangerous, I could argue that if they were really killing the freedom to communicate we should fight them as we would fight an enemy, possibly going to war, armed.
That's not what's happening here.
It might be useful to remember that our communications have never been encrypted before a few years ago and they haven't been less free.
Also: encrypted communication but clear text metadata kinda defeat the purpose of encrypted communication.
If I know where, when and who was involved in a call, I can easily tell that two people chatting and ending up in the same place every time both their partners phones are away from home, could be cheating
If I call an ambulance at the same time and place where an accident happened but the ambulance doesn't report a second vehicle, guess who probably didn't report an accident?
Privacy and secrecy are a broader subject, it's good we discuss about it, it's not good to blindly trust WhatsApp or Facebook with our data.
Bad as it might be, I have more control and trust more my state than a private company on the other side of the World.
First of all, I don't about you, but I am European and have been actively involved in the process of bringing encryption to all of EU citizens, as an obligation to the companies that supply communication software.
I trust the people of EU, on the other hand you seem not to trust other's people capabilities, not even your own parents
> "Apple does know better than the vast majority of its users. It's why I buy, and properly configure, iPhones for my senior citizen parents."
Anyway, back to the point: there is always a tension to find a middle ground between two different opposing interest: one is privacy and secrecy the other is safety.
You probably know technology better than me, you probably know there are technical solutions to the problem that, obviously, involve having some fate that the public servants will exercise the necessary due diligence.
One possible solution that popped out of my mind is to use the same functionalities chat applications use for groups (not because I agree, but because it is possible without compromising too much what we already lacked anyway - secrecy and privacy).
When you have an E2E encrypted group chat every person in the chat receives the encryption keys and messages are encrypted by each sender, signed, sent to the server that than forward it to any participant in the group.
Or you could do it the PGP way, each recipient has its own keys and the message is encrypted for each one of them.
What we need is to add to it separation of church and state.
The state is always participating in these chats, meaning that it always receives a pair of keys, but it has no access to the actual encrypted data, that is stored by the provider and inaccessible by anyone else unless authorized by the justice system.
Nobody, except the key owner, jas the keys to drecrypt them anyway.
It is exactly how it worked before with phone calls, companies kept records of calls and SMS, but they could only be accessed from authorized actors.
Records and keys would expire after a period of time (it was 10 years for phone calls)
objection 1: it means WhatsApp and the other will keep records of my communications -> they are already doing it anyway
objection 2: it would take a lot of space -> they are already doing it anyway
objection 3: that would give the state power over my communications -> it already has it
objection 4: that means anybody could decrypt my messages -> not really, and it would be a crime, you can't prevent crimes by not doing things, in any case it would be easier to steal your phone.
That's not what's happening here.
It might be useful to remember that our communications have never been encrypted before a few years ago and they haven't been less free.
Also: encrypted communication but clear text metadata kinda defeat the purpose of encrypted communication.
If I know where, when and who was involved in a call, I can easily tell that two people chatting and ending up in the same place every time both their partners phones are away from home, could be cheating
If I call an ambulance at the same time and place where an accident happened but the ambulance doesn't report a second vehicle, guess who probably didn't report an accident?
Privacy and secrecy are a broader subject, it's good we discuss about it, it's not good to blindly trust WhatsApp or Facebook with our data.
Bad as it might be, I have more control and trust more my state than a private company on the other side of the World.