> So what does he suggest? I think we are supposed to read between the lines, but I am not sure what that is yet.
I think the larger implication of the essay is to consider addressing privacy from a systemic/game theory perspective. The underlying threat isn't technological, but in the response to technological capabilities. Encryption is just another capability that provokes a response.
That's valid. I think they way it is presented it is easy to mis-read it. I kind of hinted at finding a better way to respond to the problem in the PR domain.
However,a technological solution can still help. For example, focusing on plausible deniability, traffic hiding, dead man switches and so on. Technology is just another approach and for some it might be easier to work with for some and easier to disseminate.
I agree that by pointing out how technology can potentially make the problem worse, the essay can easily be interpreted as a call to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Perhaps that was the intended message, but I'd like to think it was deliberately provocative to stimulate the right kind of thinking.
Is it just pointing out an interesting contradiction and we should enhance and improve existing products, or there a message about moving back and reverting to using weak encryption like before or treating it like "munitions" for purposes of export control. So you you end up in prison just as long long for using OpenSSL as for reselling grenade launchers.
Yeah I can see how PR is on government side here -- "look terrorists use this and other horrible criminals, this needs to be stopped".
The answer usually is -- "Ah, but think of the human rights people from <insert far away country>" or make a reference to some generalized principle from the Constitution about freedom from search. Both of those lose in comparison to an image of scary guy with a bomb under their arm.
So the answer is to operate at the same level of PR. Bring in issues people can identify with: for companies and enterprises remind them of the Target credit card breach, about the Sony hack and how embarrassing that is. Or for private individuals talk about identity theft. Everyone has heard about that how disruptive and upsetting that is. "We need stronger encryption to protect you from criminals" kind of message.
(I am not the first one to think of this, I noticed Apple applied this in their response to FBI. I just thought it was a great approach).