| "Revealing details of legitimate practices does no good" Seriously? Excuse me for being harsh, but that statement is preposterous and shows a contempt for civil liberties, freedom of speech in particular, and ignorance of security principles. There is no such thing as technical practices being intrinsically "legitimate" or not without reference to who's doing them and for what reason. If by some fluke a government someday used a technique to pursue a person suspected of a crime, did so legally, and with moral justification (not a victimless crime), then it is legitimate on that occasion - but how would you propose to assure us that the same tehcnique can never be used by anyone else or in any other situation? There is no basis for any such assumption; the same knowledge, skills, devices and so on will also be used by illegal, immoral and other actors at any opportunity (notably including NSA and LEAs). Therefore it is legitimate to expose, and discuss how to defeat these and anything else that might compromise anyone's security. Saying "shut up about it because someone might have a legitimate use for it" is like saying that science should stop because there are bombs, or that lock picking techniques should still be kept from the public. Such fallacies have been debunked at least since the 19th century. "To the extent that revealing them encourages the NSA to resort to less legitimate practices, it's harmful" Another fallacy. If we stop would-be terrorists from bringing guns into a building, are we then responsible for their resorting to mortars? How about, the NSA and other state actors should restrain their conduct to respect people's rights, regardless of their tricks being revealed. |