[liberationtech] What I've learned from Cryptocat

[Jacob Appelbaum]

Ali-Reza Anghaie:
> On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Jacob Appelbaum <jacob at appelbaum.net> wrote:
> 
>> It's interesting because one outcome seems to be that almost everyone
>> agrees that plaintext should not be considered reasonable. That's a
>> great outcome so far - I remember a time when people felt that it was
>> fine, most of the time, to have unencrypted communications as the norm.
>>
>> I look forward to the day when those same people start to get the big
>> picture on general social graph style traffic analysis.
>>
> 
> I don't think it's they don't get it - once explained to even the most
> jaded they accept the expertise - it's that in the time period with
> immediate windows of opportunity present people are looking for a usable
> solution for ~their~ definition of usable (not "ours"). And they want it
> ~now~ on systems they actually have access to.
> 

I regularly explain this to people. Many people have a normal
psychological reaction where they decide they're not important, not a
target, targeting is too hard and so on. Generally, they then say,
"well, whatever" and go on with their lives. It's a heavy burden to
consider the weight of the NSA's warrant-less wiretapping abilities and
ongoing realities.

> That's their acceptable risk standard even if we entirely disagree.
> 
> Breaking that dynamic isn't something you or I can fix per se. Is it? -Ali
> 

Sure - we tell people what the problem is as we see it, we find out how
it is being exploited, we build some solutions to address it and we try
to iterate from there.

All the best,
Jake