Comment by sedatk
1 year ago
Government's power over companies does not negate cryptographic privacy protections. For example, one criminal who used ProtonMail got caught because ProtonMail handed over their recovery GMail address to the law enforcement after they were compelled[1]. However, that means end-to-end encryption worked: that was the only thing they could hand over. I think the same principle applies here.
[1] https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/proton-ma...
The government forces companies to backdoor their systems and use compromised implementations of what would otherwise be private and secure systems (see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit). It's also worth noting that the only thing preventing your searches being linked to your account via IP address and browser fingerprinting is to use Tor which conveniently will also not protect your from the US government either. Account settings can also link a person's searches to their account.
The good news is that while the NSA will absolutely be tracking everything you search for while using Kagi they also do the exact same thing with every other search engine you use so what difference does it make.
The difference is cost. Pervasive and unhindered surveillance is way cheaper than coordinating an individual to be targeted through court orders and all the bureaucracy and potential legal battles that come with it. That’s why EU/UK is trying to coerce Apple to disable end to end encryption[1]. If it hadn’t made any difference, we wouldn’t be seeing any complaints from governments.
[1] https://techinformed.com/uk-government-orders-apple-to-hand-...