What's the diff?
Compare the current donnybrook about encryption with the situation in the 1950s. There's a drastic shift in attitude about codes and ciphers.

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Then: Everyone was aware that the government read our mail when it wanted to. Many envelopes had an unsealed side flap, with a notice printed right on the envelope: May be opened here for postal inspection. No mystery.

Everybody knew that phone conversations and telegraph messages were only semi-private. Especially on long distance, the operator was always popping in.

Nobody was upset, because most people trusted the government.

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Now: Until Snowden, most people seemed to be genuinely unaware that NSA was reading everything. In fact it's no mystery. Known for at least 30 years among some tech types. Snowden brought this into the media, and everybody got angry. Tech types appear to be especially angry.

The little pissing contest between FBI and Miss Timmy Cook brought out the equally non-mysterious fact that digital ciphers can always be broken.

Everybody is upset. Some are shocked!shocked!shocked!, others are genuinely surprised.

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What's the diff? Two things. One definite, one guess.

(1) For sure. Trust is gone. In the '50s most Americans trusted the Feds, WITH GOOD REASON. FDR had pulled us through the Depression, giving useful work to people who needed it, punishing the banker culprits, and expanding the infrastructure to make farming and industry run better.

When we were attacked, we fought hard and BEAT the enemy, then went home. Korea was the first break in trust, but Ike responded to public anger by pulling out. The system was working reasonably well.

Since 1962 we've had an accumulating pile of GOOD REASONS to distrust the Feds. A dozen pointless and endless wars, no response to public anger on anything, a solid barrage of OBVIOUS lies on all possible subjects, constant destruction of jobs and civilization.

(2) Hypothesis. In the '50s, Americans had more experience in more aspects of real life. We knew how the system worked. Graybill's Law, plus the draft. Most men had SEEN how encryption and secrecy help to defeat the enemy. Some had participated in coding and decoding. Many women had been phone operators, others had been secretaries dealing with commercial codes on telegrams.



Now the all-volunteer army has become a special-ops outfit. Military types form a small and permanently separate caste. The all-destroying tsunami of Free Trade has removed most of the jobs that formerly gave us real experience with real messages and real secrecy. "Anti-terrorist" and "anti-hacker" security removes responsibility from ordinary clerks and office workers. Secretaries no longer have the key to the office or the key to the code. Only the specialists and government workers are allowed to see and know anything.

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Clearly Snowden is a false flag. Snowden hasn't revealed anything that I didn't already know, and I'm a perfect outsider. The mediasatans stir up the strongest anger about the most normal and justifiable parts of Snowden. We're spying on Germany and Israel???? HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION!!!! Why, for christ's sake? Germany and Israel are NOT our allies or friends. Germany has a long criminal record of burning down Europe every time it gets the chance. Foreign leaders are EXACTLY the proper targets for spying. Historically normal.

Getting us to focus on the normal stuff drowns out the abnormal stuff, but even the abnormal stuff isn't worth worrying about.

Real criminals and terrorists don't use encryption. Never have. Any criminal or terrorist organization big enough and smart enough to pose a real threat knows how to pass messages through non-public channels or hidden in plain sight. True for at least 3000 years, still true now.

As with Bitcoin, the whole dustup is simply a sting, a detour. Wannabe criminals and alienated youths are steered into channels where FBI can turn them into "real" terrorists and increase the FBI budget and workforce. Just Parkinson, nothing more.

Labels: Age of Stings, Asked and answered, Make or break

  ¶ 1:35 AM