Comment by Hizonner
2 years ago
> You're suggesting a deviation from the norm (99.99% of users)
Which still leaves you in a large enough group that it's not practical to deploy full-press individualized surveillance against all of them. A group which contains a fairly large number of people who're doing it just to piss off the spies, and an even larger number of people who happen to be of no interest to you as a particular spy deciding where to apply your resources.
As for mass surveillance of that group, that can happen, but there still aren't such good, cheap choke points to use. The cost per bit of actionable information is still relatively high even if the group is relatively rich in targets.
> by installing a custom operating system (which they will now also be on the hook to secure and update regularly)
... as opposed to the stock operating system, which may very well not get updated at all.
I get constant updates for GrapheneOS. And they're automatic.
> by developers with nothing to lose.
What the hell does that mean? They have reputations on the line, much more so than the faceless people doing the OS work inside the vendors. Some of them depend on this for their livelihoods.
> Which still leaves you in a large enough group that it's not practical to deploy full-press individualized surveillance against all of them.
Assuming no advances in technology obscured from public view, of course.
> Some of them depend on this for their livelihoods.
You sort of answered your own question there. Consider whether foreign nationals writing software in near destitute are susceptible to MICE, in relation to Bay Area millionaires.