Comment by zx10rse

> Every government have structures and laws to prevent such activities, in absolutely no shape or form it does not need to read every single message of it citizens.

Indeed, the state doesn't need all of them.

That it's all-or-nothing is due to how the tech works, in that you can't break it *only* for the targets — a point I make when I'm trying to explain the dichotomy to the politicians who want to spy, that this absolutely will be abused to reveal *their own* secrets, too.

The way politicians talk about this stuff, suggests they think computer code is like law, that words may have precise meanings but there's still an element of human judgement and common sense, and at human speed, not cold logic operating on bits faster than us by the degree we are faster than geology, where the potential harm from errors can be irreversable total loss of an entire business due to one single error made one time by one person, nor where mistakes from 20 years ago might be discovered and exploited at any time.

That's why I said "I can't even square the circle". If I thought the government position here was just absolutely fine, it wouldn't be difficult to square the metaphorical circle.

The difficulty is that despite their wrongheadedness about the consequences of what they're trying to do, what they're trying to do is actually necessary.

And that's just the crypto parts of this.

I left the UK for two reasons: The Investigatory Powers Act, and Brexit. Kinda related cause I thought Brexit would make it harder to fight the IP Act. Went to Westminster to talk to my MP to try and convince them to vote against the IP Act. I remain convinced that the British government was straight up lying about its reasons for having that Act.