This policy fight isn't a fight to regulate the market (like the automobile regulations you mentioned). It's a fight for a fundamental right to privacy. Any technology improvement that can protect privacy can be made illegal, and enforced by a boot on the face (see China).
If the government makes encryption without government key escrow illegal (not at all outlandish, has been discussed in many countries), will you personally, nikcub, continue to use encryption without key escrow? If you are willing to risk imprisonment to do so, you are among the bravest people. It is a small group.
The policy fight is massively more important than the tech. A tech that takes 100 years to develop can be made illegal in a day.
If everyone starts using VPNs, ISPs will ban them. There might be some game of cat and mouse, but eventually the same lobbyists that lobbied to remove these privacy rules are going to lobby to take some of tech options off the table.
This policy fight isn't a fight to regulate the market (like the automobile regulations you mentioned). It's a fight for a fundamental right to privacy. Any technology improvement that can protect privacy can be made illegal, and enforced by a boot on the face (see China).
If the government makes encryption without government key escrow illegal (not at all outlandish, has been discussed in many countries), will you personally, nikcub, continue to use encryption without key escrow? If you are willing to risk imprisonment to do so, you are among the bravest people. It is a small group.
The policy fight is massively more important than the tech. A tech that takes 100 years to develop can be made illegal in a day.
If everyone starts using VPNs, ISPs will ban them. There might be some game of cat and mouse, but eventually the same lobbyists that lobbied to remove these privacy rules are going to lobby to take some of tech options off the table.