General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: NSA Leaks About Spying Are Scaring Some Americans Away From The Internet [View all]bemildred
(90,061 posts)for what used to be done by mail and in person, don't you think this sort of regression could upset some people?
Do you think our surveillance activites will still be useful for catching terrists? I doubt it, if it ever was worth the trouble, it won't be now.
But that is not the real issue, the real issue here is that a lot of people on the planet will stop using OUR internet. It's entirely optional, and we have made it clear that from their point of view, it's a bad idea, we cannot be trusted.
You do point out a very real technical problem, which is how do you provide security on the internet where you need it without compromising the connectivity and information sharing advantages? The guys who came up with IP just wanted it to scale up well. Everything else came naturally from that, once they could do that.
And the answer to the question seems to be encryption, which nobody wants to do much unless it involves no work or they feel insecure for any of many reasons.
We already have a "secure" network (https://) and an insecure one (http://) but this has been subverted by several different factors (laziness, greed, ignorance, etc.). We probably ought not be pushing people who are not comfortable with these issues onto the internet just to make a few extra bucks anyway.