{"id":44254,"date":"2021-10-04T03:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=44254"},"modified":"2021-10-04T05:15:15","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T12:15:15","slug":"our-job-part-iii-a-talking-about-communications-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/04\/our-job-part-iii-a-talking-about-communications-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Our job, part III-a: Talking about communications privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again I’m breaking a long, detailed screed into a two parter. I really have to stop splitting multi-part series into multi-part mini-series. But not just yet.<\/em><\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Many years ago I got a mocking write-up in one of the big national tabloids for suggesting that someday freedom lovers seeking private communications might resort to carrier pigeons.<\/p>\n

I’d made the remark only in passing (in a book chapter having to do with many alternate forms of covert communications, from modern adaptations of hobo sign<\/a> to dead drops<\/a>). But apparently I’d managed to come up with an idea so ridiculous that even a supermarket tabloid thought it was too stupid to take seriously.<\/p>\n

Well, welcome to 2021.<\/p>\n

Are carrier pigeons sweeping the nation? No (except as a classic hobby). But we’ve reached the point where we’re so weary of our communications being surveilled — and increasingly, ominously controlled<\/em> — by totalitarians that smart people are madly casting about for alternative private communication methods.<\/p>\n

Among people in my sphere, at least, those casts are between seeking more advanced privacy tech and an angry rebellion against tech altogether. <\/p>\n

On one hand, libertarians have always been enthusiastic tech creators and early adopters. On the other, I’m surprised at the number of people I hear from who’ve either abandoned or downgraded tech’s role in their lives — for instance, giving up smartphones in favor of 90s-style dumbphones or getting rid of home internet. The return of message-carrying pigeons is not out of the question.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

But why do we need alternative communications of any kind, high tech or low? And how ardently do we need them? If we’re merely sick of being spied on or worried that in theory<\/em> censorship will eventually become as bad as in the old Soviet Union, that’s not enough. It’s headed in that direction, no question. We’re weary and angry about being more heavily surveilled than East Germans ca. 1970. But we appear still to have time and surely, surely, we tell ourselves, someone will put a stop to the abuses before they get that<\/em> bad.<\/p>\n

No they won’t. We’re the only “someones” who’ll stop it and most of us aren’t sufficiently motivated yet. <\/p>\n

In the very first installment<\/a> of this series, I noted that developing new freedom-focused systems to replace the broken, abusive systems of the oligarchy is going to be hard. I said using them could be dangerous, and that unless we have a passionate commitment to taking back our lives and our freedom we won’t prevail.<\/p>\n

But just last week<\/a> I also said (with help of a lovely graphic from Dr. JB) that communication systems are among both the easiest and the lowest risk alt-systems.<\/p>\n

Contradiction? Actually no. Just complications.<\/p>\n