The internet is mostly known for being a nightmare for your privacy, but I also think there is another side to that coin. I mean, it is insanely easy (and common) these days to do all your internet communication with messengers, that have pretty much unbreakable encryption (Signal). That was not possible for the average person before computers and the internet. The government could easily read all you private letters.
Also, all our web traffic is fully encrypted with https (although that is more of a security than a privacy thing) and most modern phones automatically do full disk encryption for your files. It is also trivialilly easy to use a proper end to end encrypted cloud storage (proton, tuta etc.) or even use unsafe cloud storage like Google Drive as long as you encrypt your files locally before uploading.
I know, the internet is still a net negative for most peoples privacy, but it is pretty cool how far we’ve come with encryption.
The internet is a net positive for privacy and freedom of speech.
Corporations and governments are the net negative.
That’s why we’re fighting as much as we can to actually own our hardware. Linux, Graphene, FOSS, etc.
Encryption is pointless when someone else has the keys.
Microsoft’s bitlocker handed over keys to the FBI when asked. Something closed source like Whatsapp you can’t verify if Meta stores encryption keys and/or also has access to your messages, defeating the entire purpose of encryption.
Signal, even when subpoenaed, couldn’t produce any information besides account creation date. Because there was no data to share.
Make sure to be smart with your opsec:
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Restart your phone when you go out so it’s before first unlock.
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Disable any biometric locks, use a password. You have a right to remain silent, but police can show your phone to you to unlock it if something like faceID is enabled.
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Use hardened forks of Signal, like Molly, to include a password for encryption for your chats, so even if feds get into your phone somehow, they’re still encrypted.
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Set disappearing messages. The shorter the better.
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Turn off notifications as information can be stored in temporary cache locations and unencrypted
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Some options, like Graphene, allow you to set a reset password. Instead of entering a password to unlock your phone, a 2nd separate password can be set to wipe your device.
As shown with the recent cases against protestors im Texas getting 50-100 years (way more than any pedophile) even if you use Signal, it’s not 100% effective if you don’t take the necessary steps. Honestly, read the case documents, they contain a lot of info on how to better protect yourselves as well as the groups out there protecting your rights and fighting against fascism.
What’s so different about fascism today is the speed in which information travels. And that goes both ways. Stay safe out there, the internet is the last bastion of freedom. And it’s under assault, just like everything else (KOSA, Parents Decide Act, Age Verification, Section 230 repeal, VPN bans being discussed, etc etc.)
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You’ve made some excellent points highlighting how common and needed encryption is. Which also highlights how important it is to defend the right to encryption from government overreach.
A key under the mat for the cops is a key under the mat for the neredowells as well. Which also begs the question, how comfortable are with the cops showing up in your living room uninvited?
You are either AI or talk like you are
Which part made you say that? (genuine question, their comment just seems well written to me, is all)
Mainly the first part, especially the "You’ve made some excellent point highlighting… " just sounds very off to me.
Oh dear… *commences sycophancy routine
I guess, I was wrong, sorry
No worries, better to be cautious and not trust by default in the current climate.
happens to some of us
And it was hard-fought, read the story about what the creator of PGP went through: https://hiddenheroes.netguru.com/philip-zimmermann
Signal is great sure but encrypted information on transit is sorta irrelevant in this day and age because people don’t control their own devices.
Who cares about encryption when face book can read both ends of the conversation for most people.
That doesn’t even begin to get into the various ‘management engines’ (or whatever they are calling them now) that modern processors are packaged with.
weren’t those guys framed for some cockamamy conspiracy around white house wrastlin using signal.
Contrast that to no one needing encryption for anything fifty years ago. Kinda feels like it solves a problem created by the internet in the first place.
Nah, people were always spied on. The internet actually made it possible (if you know what you are doing) to communicate safely under authoritarian regimes or if you are under investigation by the government, even across borders.
That was not really feasible in the Soviet Union etc.
Not like today. Today every single person carries a surveillance device and gps tracker on their person at all times. The fact that you can send messages that are encrypted isn’t any different than the fact that two people could whisper fifty years ago. The government still knows everything you are up to, we can just hide a bit of data.
People were way more free when I was a kid than they are today. Encryption wasn’t necessary for 99% of people. To the extent it was necessary, people had one time pads and shit like that. Today I’m concerned whether I’ll be allowed to vote after facial recognition cameras catch me wearing a pride shirt.
It seems like you didn’t fully read my post
I did. Encryption still solves a problem we didn’t have fifty years ago. A handful of folks under direct state surveillance excepted.
Leave your damn phone at home and use a vpn.
If I didn’t live such a boring life, I probably would on occasion leave my phone at home. That said, I probably only leave my house a couple of times per week, so it’s a moot point.
Also, VPN is only one component of online privacy. I have looked at the effort required to achieve complete opsec and it’s not worth the effort. And there is no point in half-assing it.
walks on into your unlocked house
reads your mail
listens to your answering machine messages
pilfers your bank statement
investigates your medicine cabinet
makes photocopies of your lewd photos
‘but encryption is a solution for a made-up problem’
Safety and privacy has always been a factor in people’s lives. Being empowered to do something meaningful about it in modern times is a huge improvement in people’s lives.
I had no need of encryption before the internet. Because no one does those things. The government doesn’t have the resources to walk into everyone’s houses, even if I weren’t protected by the 4th amendment.
It’s only with the advent of the internet and mass surveillance that I have any need of encryption. If I needed to speak privately with someone, I’d visit them. Or even just pick up a phone because wiretaps require a warrant.
It doesn’t have to be the government. It can be a suspicious spouse, a nosy family member, a judgemental neighbor, an opportunistic burglar, even a murderer. You’re thinking in way too narrow of a scope.
But to really drive the point home, since “no one” does those things, please leave your front door unlocked on Monday for me. Thanks!
People have been cheating for millennia without the benefit of encryption.
There are 350 million Americans. My door is unlocked most Mondays. Good luck. I don’t even own a gun. Find me and you win.
Or even just pick up a phone because wiretaps require a warrant.
Oh, my sweet summer-child.
Your local police may need a warrant for a wiretap, but do you think intelligence services care about that? Let alone foreign ones?Legal requirements don’t stop the really problematic entities from spying on you. Privacw was easier back in the day, because it required effort and manpower to surveil you.
Nowadays, an automated computer program can do it.It didn’t matter. The government has limited money for that shit. They couldn’t even spy on everything they wanted to, much less the general population.
Privacw was easier back in the day, because it required effort and manpower to surveil you. Nowadays, an automated computer program can do it.
There you go, making my point for me. That program wouldn’t be possible without the internet. So encryption became needed by us nobodies because of the internet.
Well, yes. I’m not arguing against your general idea. Just the notion that laws would protect you.
But strictly speaking, the internet isn’t a requirement for automated mass surveillance. Powerful enough computers to analyze and process our phone calls would have sufficed. The internet just happened to predate those.
And yes, it’s always also a matter of ressources. But if you rely on that, your privacy depends on the assumption, that you’re just not interesting enough to be surveilled. Since you had no way to verify that, relying on that notion is somewhat similar to the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” argument today and yields the protection of your privacy to the decisions of the surveillant.
Encryption was needed 50 years ago, though. Encryption has always been needed, people we just optimistic about the world then and didn’t bother.
Nonetheless, Steve Wozniak was a Blue Boxer.
It was not needed by anyone other than governments. Mass surveillance was not possible, and you could correspond about criminal activities over the phone and through the mail and unless you were already under criminal investigation, no one could ever know.
The enigma machine is over 80 years old now. That was just the last machine before modern computing. There were all sorts of other machines and techniques for cryptography long before the modern era. The first forms of encryption are over 3500 years old.
The enigma machine is over 80 years old now. That was just the last machine before modern computing. There were all sorts of other machines and techniques for cryptography long before the modern era. The first forms of encryption are over 3500 years old.
well of course they existed. But I can’t think of an example of a pre-internet era where forms of encryption of a grade high enough to stop law enforcement, and probably all/most government can read them, was easy and accessible enough that your average highschooler would without thinking about it encrypt a grocery list he’s sending to his mom.
So easy a child could use it… or the current secretary of war (with some minor mistakes of adding in reporters into rooms etc…).
The enigma machine was for government use for a military purpose. Common people had no need of anything like that. If I somehow implied I thought encryption was invented for the internet, let me clarify that: I don’t.
It seems like folks are under the mistaken belief I thought encryption was something that post-dated the internet. I don’t see what I might’ve said to give that impression, but that is not the case.
