If people knew they had an easy way to send messages no government could decrypt, I believe this would subtly but meaningfully change the world, probably for the better.
I find this unlikely. Wikileaks had a lot of trouble to get journalists with whom they communicated to use basic encryption that’s much easier to use then any OTP system could be.
The ‘basic encryption’ you have in minds is a Computer Thing. To the journalists in question, it was a New Computer Thing. If you’re a Computer Person, you’re probably underestimating the reticence associated with attempting New Computer Things when you’re not a Computer Person.
much easier to use
I think that’s false, albeit on the merest technicalities. The OTP system I have in mind is awkward and time-consuming ( . . . and probably inferior to Tor for Wikileaks’ use case), but in terms of easiness it’s something you could (probably) (eventually) teach the average (sufficiently motivated) tweenager.
It’s not just Tor. It’s also “please use Signal instead of unencrypted email” that wasn’t an easy sell. Part of Wikileaks work was not just receiving documents but coordinating with journalists who write stories about those documents. Partly, documents that resulted in people like Andy Müller Maguhn getting a hardware bug on his cell phone.
As far as I know, the New York Times still runs on Slack instead of using a solution that provides end-to-end encrypion.
Another illustrative episode was the Guardian journalists who famously published the password to decrypt the Wikileaks insurance file that contained the clear names of the carefully redacted diplomatic cables and documents about the wars.
Teaching someone to use PGP is also something you can do with an average teenager. It’s not that complicated. It’s just awkward enough to use that it’s very hard to get the people who share important information to do so.
I find this unlikely. Wikileaks had a lot of trouble to get journalists with whom they communicated to use basic encryption that’s much easier to use then any OTP system could be.
You make a valid point, but . . .
The ‘basic encryption’ you have in minds is a Computer Thing. To the journalists in question, it was a New Computer Thing. If you’re a Computer Person, you’re probably underestimating the reticence associated with attempting New Computer Things when you’re not a Computer Person.
I think that’s false, albeit on the merest technicalities. The OTP system I have in mind is awkward and time-consuming ( . . . and probably inferior to Tor for Wikileaks’ use case), but in terms of easiness it’s something you could (probably) (eventually) teach the average (sufficiently motivated) tweenager.
It’s not just Tor. It’s also “please use Signal instead of unencrypted email” that wasn’t an easy sell. Part of Wikileaks work was not just receiving documents but coordinating with journalists who write stories about those documents. Partly, documents that resulted in people like Andy Müller Maguhn getting a hardware bug on his cell phone.
As far as I know, the New York Times still runs on Slack instead of using a solution that provides end-to-end encrypion.
Another illustrative episode was the Guardian journalists who famously published the password to decrypt the Wikileaks insurance file that contained the clear names of the carefully redacted diplomatic cables and documents about the wars.
Teaching someone to use PGP is also something you can do with an average teenager. It’s not that complicated. It’s just awkward enough to use that it’s very hard to get the people who share important information to do so.