Liberties Report for week 38. With Scotlands independence referendum on one hand, and Apple and Google both announcing that theyll default to encrypting all phones in the future on the other, trust in the nation-state governments is eroding fast. Presented by Private Internet Access VPN: tinyurl/librep-piavpn/ https://youtube/watch?v=eucpKmzf5S4&feature=youtu.be Full transcript: Good evening and welcome to Liberties Report, week 38. This weeks independence referendum in Scotland highlights a worldwide trend that appears to be accelerating: trust in the nation-state, the government of countries, is eroding. Admittedly, Scotland decided to stay in the UK and the Union Jack is still flying over Edinburgh, by a 55-to-45 margin, but it was still a much closer call than many would have expected, especially a couple of years ago. If Scotland had seceded, it would have set off an interesting chain of events, with the UK likely leaving the European Union, leaving the federalists in charge of Brussels - which would double down on the spiral of mistrust in the nation-state. But this is part of a larger pattern that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, where people either feel the need to protect themselves against their government - the government of modern countries, of the nation-state - or downright try to evade it. Looking at Ferguson in the United States yet again, it is clear that an increasing number of people regard their government as an adversary, indeed a deadly adversary - quite literally. And this particular adversary has taken itself the right to listen to every conversation we make, to look at every piece of information we search for. Everything from our travel plans to our dating habits to our actual movement patterns. With spy agencies able to monitor everything we express and search for, this is the closest weve ever come to mind-reading. But its important to remember that it doesnt stop there. This government doesnt stop at reading our intentions and emotions - frightfully and forcing several reality checks, it apparently also desires to be able to change them. Facebook ran an interesting experiment in 2012 where they manipulated the feed of just over half a million users, seeing if they could affect the emotional state of those users. And they could. It worked. The study had connections to the United States Department of Defense. Dont you feel safe already? This is why, as early as the early 1990s, a couple of people started arguing that encryption should be the default. Some people were very ahead of the curve and argued there will come a time when the government can listen to everything, and therefore, all communications (which was e-mail at the time) should be encrypted as standard. This effort was spearheaded by Phil Zimmermann, who wrote PGP - Pretty Good Privacy, which is still the standard in E-mail encryption. They were generally considered tinfoil hats, and it was only with Snowdens revelations that perspectives started to shift. So this week, twenty years later, two corporate giants joined the battle against Western governments: Apple and Google. Both announced that their future phones will be encrypted by default, with no option to turn on to be protected. This is enormous, as it essentially means the tinfoil hats who have been screaming about how necessary this is since the early 1990s have finally - FINALLY - gotten heard. This means that by default, law enforcement and other government agencies cant read our private data as easy. Most importantly, big players are starting to take responsibility for people who dont have deep technical knowledge of security on their own. This is a landmark direction shift, and having big economic players on board this momentum marks a landslide of distrust against the nation-state governments abuse of privacy. Unfortunately, Id have to say, its well-deserved distrust. Bitcoin plays in the same league. Who would have imagined, ten years ago, that wed tell each other that we dont trust governmental money any longer - that we dont trust the government to not cheat us out of our savings, so were going to go with our own money? It was unthinkable. And then, of course, there are those who are really far ahead, like Bitnation, who seeks to outcompete the nation-state government on its own home field. But even if thats far ahead that this point, its all part of the same trend: people are starting to trust the government of countries - of nation-states - less and less, and its becoming visible in actions. Im Rick Falkvinge, and this is Liberties Report. Visit our sponsor, Private Internet Access. Good night.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 17:04:47 +0000
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