[throwawaaarrgh]

It was a completely foreseeable result of a very small minority's war on internet standards. First forcing everyone to use TLS, and then forcing everyone to use stronger forms of TLS that couldn't be inspected. Absolutely no fucks given about the many downsides, no alternatives considered.

What did they think countries were gonna do? Just give up governing? Did they really think a web browser was going to defeat an entire nation state's domestic and foreign policy?

Rather than allow the user to determine their own level of security and privacy, they forced the user to choose the strongest method, which of course forced governments to use more extreme measures to fulfill their legislative requirements. Rather than just spying on users or filter their traffic, now they outright just block the internet. Thanks internet standards paternalists! Having no internet is so much better than internet without privacy.

[xvector]

> result of a very small minority's war [...] forcing everyone to use TLS

You are seriously suggesting that the move to TLS was a bad thing? Before the era of TLS, I, as a child, could see everyone's private information on any network I was on.

> user to determine their own level of security and privacy

Because your average person can be trusted to understand the nuances of cybersecurity? Get real! The average software engineer would struggle with these settings.

> Thanks internet standards paternalists! Having no internet is so much better than internet without privacy.

You're saying this sarcastically but it's absolutely true. If the government blocks a service because they can't use it to spy, citizens get angry at their government. Working as intended.

[derefr]

I mean, the real end-state of network security design is to force governments into a situation where they only have two options: let through everything, or completely block the entire Internet. At which point said government can’t pretend to outside observers that it’s actually offering anything called “the Internet” to those people, and has to admit that it is instead some kind of North Korea-like totalitarian state where only an elite class of proven patriots can be trusted to access the outside world. So then those outside observers can get mad, impose sanctions, etc.

[its-summertime]

Without TLS, blocking is unneeded yes, because they can just rewrite what you would read, make individual news articles disappear, etc. With TLS, you are near-explicitly informed that the people between you and your information source want to be involved in your access to knowledge.

Rather be clueless than have a mind full of lies, no?

[geraldhh]

> which of course forced governments to use more extreme measures to fulfill their legislative requirements

fuck this

[PrimeMcFly]

> First forcing everyone to use TLS, and then forcing everyone to use stronger forms of TLS that couldn't be inspected. Absolutely no fucks given about the many downsides, no alternatives considered.

Absolutely. Forcing strong TLS is absolutely a good thing. Enforcing privacy is absolutely a good thing.

The problem isn't with that decision, but the governments who don't understand that, and thus it is up to the citizens to change that.

[throwawaaarrgh]

That's like saying we should just end world hunger. Yeah, we should. But is it gonna happen? No. So giving people food aid is better than just saying all hunger should just disappear.

[PrimeMcFly]

Word hunger is outside of most peoples control. But overthrowing a local government is directly within the population's control.

[rektide]

> Rather than allow the user to determine their own level of security

You're proposing we let users "opt" into insecurity. And it doesn't seem like anything user's want: it seems like what governments what to coral their citizens into.

Further, I'm not sure what viable insecure plans we have that make sense; what has been on offer that we ought have considered?

It's just getting messy now, and who knows what's next, but I have a hard time seeing insecurity as going well for governments. I don't think they have the iron will to deny their citizens internet access, which is their only real power.

[fomine3]

Right way