People with power pretend if they just had more power everything would be better. But, reality is if everything on a computer where private not much would change.
Until very recently, most conversations were plausibly deniable, and off the record. The internet and cryptography changes that.
Edit: [Both plausibly deniable in the formal/cryptographic sense, and in the informal "You're misremembering, there's no record in writing of me saying that" sense]
By Internet, I think you mean phonographs, magnetic tapes and pocket recorders.
Cryptography brings some of that back.
They aren't equivalent.
In fairness, until very recently it was also extremely difficult for two people to privately plot to murder hundreds. Technology has changed the balances on a lot of scales.
To be clear, I'm not advocating for government back doors in encryption here. But I am saying we should not pretend that encryption just puts things back "the way they were". It most definitely does not.
One is about information. Modern technology allows new kinds of communications and learning and collaboration. It also means that for the first time it is technologically feasible for governments and other powerful organisations to monitor entire societies pervasively.
Another is about automation and efficiency and scale. Modern technology allows individuals or small groups to do many wonderful things. It also potentially allows individuals or small groups to cause far more damage than they could before, whether that is physical, emotional, economic, or any combination of those.
There is a certain amount of overlap. For example, some of the implications of widely distributed surveillance are concerning, but some of the implications of not just monitoring but actively influencing large groups of people by modifying (overtly or otherwise) the information and communications they receive are downright terrifying.
However, I think these are two quite separate issues in principle, and they each introduce risks of their own along with the benefits. Encryption is the counter to one form of risk in the communications area, and in that sense it does roughly speaking bring back the privacy that everyone used to enjoy automatically. Restoring that privacy necessarily means that bad people can use those communications channels to discuss doing bad things as well, but they could discuss those things in other forums instead if they needed to. We need other ways to control the risks of new technologies enabling larger scale threats, regardless of what we do about communications and encryption.
We have also forgotten a lot of this crap. EX: 40 to 81 people killed from a time bomb in 1875. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Keith,_Jr. Note, this was for insurance money not terrorists, but I don't think the dead care.
Some historical examples where donations where probably accidental. The Delft Explosion of 1654 killed 100-200 people. In 1769 ~3000 people where killed when a depo @ Bastion of San Nazaro in Brescia was struck by lighting. A lighting also sparked another detonation in 1856 killing ~4,000.
I've heard small conspiracies called out to justify mass surveillance. You don't really need mass surveillance of your own citizens unless you are concerned about very small conspiracies. Bigger conspiracies can be uncovered with more traditional detective work.
Freak fires are also not a great example. An arsonist cannot cause hurricane force winds to assist and push a fire through a city. This is effectively an act of God. The time bomb is a better example, though again I would ask for evidence that this was a fairly common event the way mass shootings and similar terrorist attacks have sadly become.
In terms of most kills by a single person one sniper is credited with ~700 kills and a mounted knight in plate was expedition to equal 100 peasants on average so 200+ in exceptional cases seems reasonable especially considering the Spanish conquest of South America where in the 1500's where ~300,000 vs 2000 and the 2000 won with minimal casualties. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca...
The fact that something is a convenient and effective narrative for propaganda purposes doesn't mean it is a significant and common threat.
Was what McVeigh did highly technical?
Modern tech has made it a bit easier, but it was still fairly easy throughout most of history.
Fires? I'm not sure it was that easy to set an out of control fire that would consume enough of a town to kill hundreds. Does everyone just fail to notice as you splash pitch on buildings all day leading up to the final act of starting the fire at night?
Of terrorism, the newscasters on TV who sensationalize the act and the politicians who fan the flames for their own benefit are just as guilty as the person who blew themselves up.
(Though obviously, only the latter is guilty of murder)
0. Voice over The Air. :-)
This is why technology has changed the balance. You don't need dozens of people to gather enough explosive material to pull this off today. And with fewer people involved, traditional detective work is harder, and those involved are less likely to leak details.
Again, if you want to kill lot's of people disease, and fire where the most common historical examples. It's actually much harder for a lone person to kill thousands today than it was 500 years ago due to effective methods of firefighting.
Sadly, they weren't.
> With crypto this changes.
Actually, with crypto it is much harder to claim that a judge's authorization isn't required to even try to subvert the privacy intent.
> There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin.
There's no way because legally the system (for the most part) considers it outside the scope of fraud laws.
> That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it.
TLS doesn't create a real loss of intervention. It requires that the intervention be far more explicit and/or targeted.
No doubt, but the issue is that a judge's authorization can be ineffective in the face of crypto.
> TLS doesn't create a real loss of intervention. It requires that the intervention be far more explicit and/or targeted.
That targeted intervention is really easy to block for those who want too. All it takes is not revealing a key/passphrase.
> There's no way because legally the system (for the most part) considers it outside the scope of fraud laws.
Not just that though, it is also impossible because the conditionals introduced by a court system are very hard to encode in a crypto system, even more so if you want to do this and be able to retain trust.
Only when it should be. Crypto just means you need a secret to access the data. If you can't compel the secret, why should you be able to compel the data?
> That targeted intervention is really easy to block for those who want too. All it takes is not revealing a key/passphrase.
You say that like it is an easy thing. Try keeping your key/passphrase protected against an adversary that can replace/intercept your keyboard, your touch screen, your mouse, your network, etc. It's just a lot more intrusive and a lot more work, which is why it has to be far more explicit and targeted.
> > There's no way because legally the system (for the most part) considers it outside the scope of fraud laws. > Not just that though, it is also impossible because the conditionals introduced by a court system are very hard to encode in a crypto system, even more so if you want to do this and be able to retain trust.
Those conditionals were all choices made by the legal system. Those rules can always be changed if so desired. If they aren't... maybe it is because they shouldn't be. ;-)
Don't we have an extensive legal system to deal with fraud? The fact that a lot of payment providers elect to deal with fraud themselves probably shows that that legal system isn't working as smoothly as it should; but that's really something that should be fixed in the legal system, not in the payment channel.
With cash, you seize the cash. Bank accounts can be frozen, Credit card transactions canceled, wire transfers flagged (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/29/464859624/episo...).
However, the law has frequently decided it can't treat Bitcoin like it treats cash, which has created problems...
We're only in this present quandary because of professionally irresponsible "web 2.0 services" that siloed up user data for their own surveillance goals, creating enticing targets for governments' desires of control.
Tell that to J. Edgar Hoover.
This is a social problem of bitcoin. The bitcoin people consider this a feature.
However, it can be dealt with at an exchange. "MyBitcoinExchange(tm) only allows transfers to other members of MyBitcoinExchange(tm) and yourself. All transfers will be escrowed for 5 days to ensure that they are not fraudulent."
The problem is: nobody in bitcoin would use that exchange.
People who want non-traceable will stay away. People who are using it to sequester wealth out of countries will stay away. People who want fast liquidity will stay away. etc.
So, who's left? Um, people who are perfectly adequately handled by existing credit cards, thanks.
It shouldn't. Listening in on a conversation should be illegal whether or not the conversation is encrypted. But we realized that if we weren't encrypting our conversations that our rights were being illegally infringed upon, so we started taking matters into our own hands.
Before crypto, basically all guarantees where conditional on a judge's say so. With crypto this changes. The issue also comes up, in a clearer way, with crypto currencies. There is no way to deal with fraud or mistaken tranfers in bitcoin.
That loss of intervention hurts, and we gotta think about it. Even though no government has given a satisfactory solution, that doesn't mean there isn't a problem in need of solving.