April 08, 2005

Underencrypted and Overexposed

During the late 90's and before RIPA reversed the burden of proof encryption was a hot topic. It looked like it would make online converstion that you wanted private really private and was the key to getting people to actually spend money on the internet. Of cause the anti-freedom types hated encryption as it meant that everything wasn't open to snooping by Big Brother whenever He chose to look. There argument was always 'If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide', as if it was constantly up to us to prove our innocence and justifie our actions 24 hours a day. This argument has always been wrong, and not just because it reverses the basic rules of a civilised society, but because there are plenty of things that people do, or are, that are not 'wrong' but that they would rather not have the world know about. Such as this case where a couple in love conducted a series of sexual exhanges via the internet as they could not be there to show their feelings in person. This is obviously a highly private exchange, but one that is not against any moral code, if they where married it would even acceptable to Islamofacism. Then the hard drive that the woman in question used to store some of the intimate moments that see had had with her boyfriend was stolen and now both have to worry about these private exchanges suddenly becoming public. Had the disk been encrypted that worry would simply not exist. Privacy is important, without it there can be not true intimacy. As how can you reveal things that knowone else nows about you when everybody knows everything about you?

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