I take your point, but I think it's important to distinguish two issues that are raised by modern technology here.

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.

What are you talking about? There have been plenty on bombings and shootings for hundreds of years.

200 years ago there were "plenty" of bombings and mass shootings orchestrated by groups of 1 or 2 people that resulted in hundreds of lives lost? Can you provide a few examples of this?

That's a rather artificial limitations, few modern plots are from 1 or 2 people with hundreds killed. Historical examples are generally things like fires not bombings / mass shootings. As an example of the risks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Meireki for example was extremely deadly, though estimates of ~100,000 dead where probably exaggerated.

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.

> That's a rather artificial limitations, few modern plots are from 1 or 2 people with hundreds killed.

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.

200 years ago world population was 1/10th what it is today making most events more common now. Something like 5% of everyone ever born is alive right now.

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...

> I've heard small conspiracies called out to justify mass surveillance.

The fact that something is a convenient and effective narrative for propaganda purposes doesn't mean it is a significant and common threat.

Not to mention smallpox and other infectious diseases where one person could kill thousands easily, even if unintentionally (with some instances intentional).

Over a dozen involved, zero lives lost (excepting the conspirators).

> 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.

Was what McVeigh did highly technical?

It was dependent on having modern technology, like a truck and cheap fertilizer; it's a lot harder to kill 168 people (and wound almost 700) with an oxcart and a crossbow. Even with a carriage and black powder you need a _lot_ of people to be in on the plot. (Black powder was not cheap, not deniable, and not easily transported or concealed.)

What about poison? or fires? I'm sure there's other means I can't think of right now

Modern tech has made it a bit easier, but it was still fairly easy throughout most of history.

It was not easy to get enough poison to kill hundreds. You get some hemlock, dump it in a well, and it dilutes enough that a dozen people get stomach aches and one elderly person dies. It's feasible to pull this off on a larger scale, but you'd need a lot of poison, and therefore a lot of resources.

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?

Pitch, or indeed much premeditation at all, wouldn't be necessary in a village with five foot alleyways and dried grass roofs. Additionally, tar was a common caulking material. Oh, and running water/chemical foam wasn't usually a thing. And, you know, no trained quick response teams, or well maintained roads and swift transit systems to escape on, or any way to tell the difference between the smoke that always hung around the fireplace and the smoke from the roof being on fire... I could go on.

Face it people -- terrorism is a problem of technology.

Exactly. Primarily the technologies of mass media and democracy.

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)

When you talk about two people plotting to kill hundreds, do you mean any two people or do you mean two people who are otherwise physically apart but are brought close together by technology? Coz if the medium of communication used by your two would be mass murderers is VoTA (0), that technology is as old as human beings.

0. Voice over The Air. :-)

Mandela spent 20 years in jail for plotting to blow up a hotel, I believe? And that was nearly a century ago.

Your timeline is skewed. Mandela was born nearly a century ago. His involvement in bomb conspiracies was in the 1960s, about a half century ago, when most conversations were not guaranteed private. Wire taps have been around as long as phones.

Gunpowder plot of 1605 is a rather famous counter example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot

That's really not a counterexample to my point. This was a conspiracy involving over a dozen people. It's a plot that unraveled because someone leaked the details.

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.

There are plenty of accidental detonations that killed hundreds which could have easily been caused by just one person as noted in another post. Though, wartime sabotage is not exactly terrorism.

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.