[Cryptography] Signal hypothetical use case becomes practical since cellular providers have started censoring private text messages

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 01:06:52PM -0500, Erik wrote:
> It's one thing to block spam calls, but blocking general chatter
> from customers, especially on political grounds, is a massive
> violation of consumer trust from my point-of-view. That's why
> cryptography is so important; as the world gets more connected, the
> need to bypass the gatekeepers, censors, propagandists and
> eavesdroppers becomes more critical to our basic function. Mass
> adoption of cryptographic protocols to bypass the meddling of bad
> actors is the most important societal function of cryptography.  It
> separates us from the dystopia certain elites would like to impose
> on us.

Distinguishing "general chatter" from spam is the trick.  I don't want
to individually block each spammer after they have annoyed me once
with an unwanted contact.  Hence, some kind of hueristic which is
employed by default by the service provider is always going to be
necessary.  Should someone be able to "opt out" of spam protection?
Sure.  Perhaps on a global level, or on a user-by-user basis ---
although that's not a complete solution, since it's trivially easy to
fake the source address with SMS text messages.

That being said, after seeing how irrational so many people are, to
the point where they are drinking bleach or showing up at hospitals
after poisoning themselves with horse medicine, I have to say I'm much
less convinced by the claim that "free spech is an unalloyed good"
than I was 5 or 6 years ago.  I suppose if the stupid people managed
to kill themselves without impacting others, I might not care as much,
but when they start impacting the rest of society, I'm much more
willing to accept society providing gatekeepers to keep misinformation
from the stupid people as an acceptable alternative to more
unpalatable solutions or outcomes.  Which is another way of saying
these past 5 or 6 years has convinced me that "this is why we can't
have nice things."

"Lies can travel half-way around world before truth has a chance to
put on its sneakers"

						- Ted