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0 pointsForHackernews1y ago0 comments

> demonstrating that privacy was a primary concern (e.g. Cypherpunk's Manifesto) decades ago. Also that mass surveillance was already happening even further back.

How does that debunk it? If they were so concerned, why didn't they do anything about it?

One plausible answer: they were mollified by cryptography. Remember when it was revealed that the NSA was sniffing cleartext traffic between Google data centers[0]? In response, rather than campaigning for changes to legislation (requiring warrants for data collection, etc.), the big tech firms just started encrypting their internal traffic. If you're Google and your adversaries are nation state actors and other giant tech firms, that makes a lot of sense.

But as far as user privacy goes, it's pointless: Google is the adversary.

[0] https://theweek.com/articles/457590/why-google-isnt-happy-ab...

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MattJ1001y ago

I think it's a bit dismissive to claim that "they didn't do anything about it", just because you're not living in a perfect world right now.

As one prominent example, the EFF has been actively campaigning all this time: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July of 1990 in response to a basic threat to speech and privacy.". A couple of decades later, the Pirate Party movement probably reached its peak. These organizations are political activism, for digital rights and privacy, precisely by the kind of people who are here accused of "doing nothing".

In a few decades, people will probably look back on this era and ask why we didn't do anything about it either.

warkdarrior1y ago

Sure, that line of thinking makes sense, but I do not understand the alternative. Are you saying that if we (the users) got new legislation (e.g., requiring warrants), then big tech wouldn't do mass surveillance anymore?

ForHackernewsOP1y ago

Yes, I think if there were laws that forbid mass data collection by private companies, or assessed sufficiently high penalties in the case of a breach (such that keeping huge troves of PII became a liability rather than an asset) then big tech firms would largely obey those laws.

immibis1y ago

I think they're saying if they couldn't do cryptography they'd push for legislation.

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