[Cryptography] Sadly predictable: Terrorism used as excuse to attack encryption

John-Mark Gurney jmg at funkthat.com
Tue Nov 17 12:52:49 EST 2015


Perry E. Metzger wrote this message on Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 11:12 -0500:
> I think part of the problem here is that most people are
> technologically illiterate and don't even know that they depend on
> strong encryption every single day to keep them secure, or how much
> worse off they would be if it ceased to exist. By contrast, if someone
> tried to publish a scare story saying "attackers used dangerous new
> AUTOMOBILE technology" no one would take the claims seriously.

Just last month, I was talking to an artist who isn't tech savvy... I
explained to him how 20 years ago most communications on the internet
were unencrypted...  He was surprised, and I didn't have to explain
encryption to him...

I think the normal person has been trained that since we protect things
like online transactions w/ encryption, that other things are encrypted
too, and if the normal person realized how much someone can read by
sitting in a coffee shop, they'd be scared...

Too bad coffee shops don't come w/ a Wall of Sheep:
http://www.wallofsheep.com/pages/wall-of-sheep

Including domains visited (unencrypted).  Roll that out.  Educate.

-- 
  John-Mark Gurney				Voice: +1 415 225 5579

     "All that I will do, has been done, All that I have, has not."


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