"If cryptography is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."

Fortunately, all outlaws and terrorists are law-abiding citizens and therefore have no objection to having their mail intercepted, stored and analysed! 😋

If you think that using WhatsApp or Telegram for your communications is a good idea because it uses end-to-end encryption, I suggest you think again. WhatsApp is proprietary (which means its code can't be inspected for back doors and weaknesses) and property of Facebook/Meta. Given that company's careless and slap-dash attitude/approach to the privacy and security of users' data, I avoid using it as much as I can. As for Telegram, end-to-end encryption is opt-in (meaning it's not turned on by default; you have to choose "secret chat" if you want your messages to be encrypted). That's why I use Signal (by Open Whisper). If it's good enough for anti-government protesters in Iran, it's good enough for me.

Anyway, the idea that stopping people from using encryption will either hinder or stop terrorists from planning and conveying activities has no basis in fact. (Where there's a will, there's a way. If people are determined to use cryptography/encryption, they will. Most programming languages offer support for cryptography, either built in or through libraries. As a case in point, ISIS has developed its own encrypted communications application. How hard can it be? Not very, as it turns out: With little more than knowledge of how to use certain libraries, I've used PBKDF2 and AES-256 in C# to hash passwords in such a way as to confound hashcat, not that hashing should be conflated with encryption and decryption. Hell, a few lines of Python with the cryptodome library make it remarkably easy to implement.)

In fact, denying people the use of cryptography (or inserting back doors into algorithms) makes all communication more vulnerable to interference by nefarious parties (not just government agencies) and less secure. Do you really want your financial transactions with online retailers (including ones selling "adult" items, even if you don't buy any of them; see Sinclair's quote below) tampered with or viewable by anyone who wants to know? If you've ever bought anything from Amazon while logged into Facebook, you've unwittingly answered "yes" to that question. Say "hi" to Grandma with that "personal massage device" ...

"Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
 — Edward Snowden; NSA whistleblower and contributor to both Signal and Z-Cash (ZEC)

As I've writ before: If you have lockable doors and curtains on the windows in your house, to keep out uninvited people (including peeping Toms), why do you object to observing the same practices online (or worse, giving a free pass to companies which abuse you and your data under the guise of offering you convenience "for free")?

It's not just criminals and terrorists who are negatively impacted by mass espionage, surveillance and tracking; minority groups that face discrimination (such as redlining or denial of certain services) are often affected. (It's one of the reasons why I find right-wingers involved in the cryptosphere so baffling; they clearly don't know/realise that Satoshi Nakamoto's vision entails many things that they're against.) Corporate espionage is also a thing (perhaps why Apple is such an endorser of cryptography and privacy for its customers and products, despite the internal conflict of interest that causes the company).

"Not merely was my own mail opened, but the mail of all my relatives and friends — people residing in places as far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile of a government official to whom I complained about this matter: "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear." My answer was that a study of many labor cases had taught me the methods of the agent provocateur. He is quite willing to take real evidence if he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized himself with the affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will be convincing when exploited by the yellow press."
 — Upton Sinclair; The Profits of Religion (1917)

To my mind, it is the use of cryptography (and the implication of privacy, though not all cryptocurrencies are automatically privacy coins) that makes any cryptocurrency more than just "magic Internet money"; PayPal's got that covered (not that I like PayPal, for various reasons). The people who see it as such (particularly under the lens of a way to "get rich quick") are missing the point, the bigger picture. As Neil Stephenson (author of Cryptonomicon) said to Lex Fridman (paraphrased), "the use of blockchain/cryptocurrency as digital money is actually one of its least interesting aspects".

That's just some food for thought, a little something that came to mind as I begin the process of learning about developing with cryptography, cryptocurrencies and blockchains ... I had best get back to it.

Go ask Moonalice; I think she'll know ...

Thumbnail image: Photo by Cottonbro on Pexels