The sins of the 90s: Questioning a puzzling claim about mass surveillance
Strong encryption and the “crypto wars” of the 1990s are revisited as people argue over whether technical victories on secure communications distracted from the harder work of legislating real privacy protections. Commenters contrast government and corporate surveillance, emphasizing how metadata, data retention, and business incentives have enabled mass tracking despite widespread deployment of TLS and end-to-end encryption. Many conclude that privacy is ultimately a policy and societal problem—compounded by user apathy and convenience trade-offs—rather than something cryptography alone can solve.
Corporate incentives, liability, and surveillance
- Several comments argue corporations only invest in security when forced by regulation or liability; “fig leaf” crypto is common.
- Some suggest strong liability for data leaks (e.g., unique email addresses sold to spammers) as a better motivator than tech alone.
- Debate over whether weak crypto would have forced better privacy laws or just resulted in more exploitation by both companies and states.
Crypto wars, export controls, and technical history
- Reminders that 90s export controls targeted export, not domestic use; strong crypto was widely used inside the US.
- Practitioners describe chilling effects: long waits and strict redistribution rules for libraries, protocol design distorted by ITAR.
- Others note strong crypto would likely have emerged outside the US anyway, making long-term restrictions unsustainable.
Privacy vs security, metadata, and mass surveillance
- Strong disagreement on whether metadata is “as bad as” content:
- One side calls metadata extremely powerful (traffic analysis, social graphs, targeted killings).
- Another pushes back on claims that metadata can fully reconstruct message content.
- Some see metadata retention as an acceptable compromise for law enforcement; others stress it can be lethal or politically weaponized.
- Examples raised: browser/OS phone-home checks, pervasive TLS blocking transparent caching, and the difficulty of avoiding metadata leaks.
Law, policy, and “sins of the 90s” framing
- Many argue the real failure was not crypto policy but lack of robust privacy rights and meaningful penalties for corporate data abuse.
- View that technical communities focused on cryptographic security while broader privacy legislation lagged.
- Others counter that activists and organizations did work on privacy; the problem is political and economic, not technical apathy.
Children online, COPPA, and social harms
- Dispute over whether allowing under-13s online was socially harmful.
- Some highlight community and belonging for kids; others focus on liability waivers, predator risks, and parents losing control over minors’ exposure.
DNA, consumer behavior, and attitudes to risk
- Long subthread on DNA databases: some very worried about future insurance or law-enforcement misuse; others see risks as remote and overblown.
- Illustrates broader divide: people differ sharply in how they value convenience/curiosity versus long-term, hard-to-quantify privacy risks.
Practical privacy and constrained consumer choice
- Suggestions: avoid smartphones, smart TVs, social media.
- Pushback: “dumb” options are scarce or impractical (e.g., smart TVs, app-only services), so “vote with your wallet” is limited.
- General sense that most people don’t understand or don’t prioritize privacy, making market pressure weak.