[liberationtech] One approach to accomplish the modest proposal

[Jim Fruchterman]

Kate:

We've found that most human rights groups and journalists (Greenwald and Tibetan groups excluded) will not go to great lengths to use crypto tools.  One approach is to bury the strong end-to-end crypto and security under the hood of other tools that are more usable.  That's what we've been doing with Martus over the last decade, and plan to do much more of (while incorporating other open source best-of-breed tools like Tor and Guardian).  

I think that we are unlikely to shift people's usage of many of the privacy and security destroying tools of modern life (Facebook, Google, Microsoft email, web browsers).  But, I think that our duty to protect vulnerable populations (and sources) require a higher standard of behavior when we're handling confidential data.  

And, Katy posits something unattainable: I think we can move from where we are today to something closer to the (frankly, almost certainly impossible to guarantee) ideal.  But saying it's a requirement to serve the groups we're trying to serve is an overstatement.  

Enrique Piracés and I have written a piece on this topic that should be out soon.  

Jim
From: Katy Pearce <katycarvt at gmail.com>
>Not to be a downer here, but until this is addressed:
>
>- security is incredibly easy to use
>- security does not slow down the internet or the computing power
>- security does not attract the attention of security services
>
>then all the training in the world isn't going to make people take these
>precautions.

Jim