[lbblack]

I find it extremely alarming that law enforcement almost everywhere around the world is attempting to undermine almost a century-fold of legitimate mathematics and science with regards to encryption and cryptography.

It's a tad embarrassing that lawmakers (who aren't even computer scientists like c'mon are we for real here?) somehow forgot how and who broke the Enigma Machine. Alan Turing did that.

Same thing with the Tor browser developed by the US Navy. Either everyone has access to a tool which can guarantee that you can blend in with the rest of the crowd, or every civilian has a special color and we all pop out while the lawmakers and police are somehow wearing grey.

How did cypherpunks and computer scientists get blasted from the government like this? Shouldn't there be some laws regarding digital privacy for US citizens?

Somehow AD revenue is caked everywhere but I can't use a computer without the FBI wanting my social security card? What the duck. Shucks I thought this was America.

[laurent92]

We need to make it strategic to hide our communications. The day the CIA decides that [place any enemy] has routers all over the place in US territory and that their spying is bad, they will mandate the use of Tor instead of discouraging it. We don’t need to be at war, but we need a capable enemy.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

I heard the balance of power argument before and, well, you were already granted this wish ( and I would argue that you had it granted twice ). Both China and Russia are very capable adversaries at this time and US is slipping from its top dog position. It is genuinely sad to watch.

[throwaway53453]

Russia isn't a threat to the US. Foreign policy maybe, but not existential like China.

[drummojg]

Russia is a terrible threat to the US. How much/many of their disinformation and memes (in the traditional sense) are correlated with disrupted political discourse, extremism, and disunity in the US? They don't sponsor squads of disinfo/misinfo actors just for giggles. It has a profound destabilizing bang for their buck.

[spacephysics]

Similar disinformation happens domestically, see russiagate

[voldacar]

Tor is not an end-all solution. Hidden services can be trivially unmasked (for an actor like the CIA/NSA) with traffic correlation attacks

[r3trohack3r]

Targeted surveillance is different than mass surveillance, different threat models call for different tools.

https://everytwoyears.org/2020/07/13/tactical-privacy.html

[mPReDiToR]

When all it takes is a quick online search for any agent to access the mass surveillance, all privacy invasion is targetable.

[at-fates-hands]

>> Either everyone has access to a tool which can guarantee that you can blend in with the rest of the crowd.

This is already happening. When the NSA decided the best approach to combat terrorism was to scoop up all emails, text, voice and internet browsing of every citizen on a daily basis, they inadvertently created a way we can all "blend in" now.

A perfect example is the Jan 6th capitol attack. It was being planned out on the open, on social media channels. They didn't use any obfuscation in their language and still, even with all the technology they have, the massive surveillance machine couldn't stop it from happening.

I still firmly believe encryption is needed for privacy, but over the last 10-15 years, the insane amount of data being vacuumed up is allowing people to hide in plain site.

[LordDragonfang]

>A perfect example is the Jan 6th capitol attack. It was being planned out on the open, on social media channels. They didn't use any obfuscation in their language and still, even with all the technology they have, the massive surveillance machine couldn't stop it from happening.

While the rest of your point is salient, this example is flat out false. The FBI and multiple police departments were aware of what was about to happen and warned those in charge. It was summarily ignored, because the people in charge believed the rioters were on their side. It could have easily been stopped had they reacted with even a fraction of the force they did with the BLM protests a year earlier. The events of January 6th was a result of institutional prejudice and nothing less, not a lack of information from surveillance.