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Comment by ben_w

While this is absolutely correct, it is also true that the world we live in is not the clean world of Boolean algebra.

The same security flaw that lets “baddies” pwn us, also lets us pwn baddies. The same indefatigable crypto that keeps us safe and makes online anything possible, also lets people conspire in secret to overthrow governments — heck, I remember reading the idea of onion routing that led to TOR was a U.S. military project to help anti-government activists in China, and even if that was just an urban legend, one team’s goodies are another team’s baddies.

I don’t have any good solutions here.

This is security vs security, and my weak fleshy hardware is vulnerable to exploding things owing to a lack of backup solutions, therefore if my options were perfect security for my body or for my data, right now I would choose my body, even though loss of data has the potential to be catastrophic.

That said, if it were up to me, police investigations would involve a lot more remote sensing tech instead of hacking… but I say that knowing even that isn’t a no-downside option, and I know that I am unaware of the full implications of police having the budget and power to spy on targets of their choice.

(I’m also in favour of radical decriminalisation of just about everything that can be decriminalised, because I think omniscient surveillance is unavoidable and I don’t want criminals using it to automate blackmail).

parent ben_w 5 years ago

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