"Suddenly, everybody knows, and nothing's changed," security technologist and author Bruce Schneier told Ars. "It was never a campaign issue. We tried to make it one. We failed... the subsequent changes are very small."
2FA, E2E communications, TLS everywhere, tightening security on our phones and computers, Congress rolling back some of the NSA’s dragnet powers, allied countries switching to open source and re-evaluating intelligence sharing agreements, and a sharp rise in VPN use is nothing?
What popular by masses E2E encrypted comms are there?
tl;dw people care when dick pics are being surveilled
Here's the hard truth: the overwhelming majority of Americans don't care about being surveilled. They may say they do, but at the end of the day, the issue doesn't affect most of them directly (or even indirectly) and therefore goes to the bottom of the pile.
So... well played, government.
Then, Rome.
We’re also perfectly happy making money in the employment of those making the problem worse, e.g. Facebook. Silicon Valley has neither the political stamina nor moral high ground for solving this problem. In its absence, there isn’t a clear coalition leader.
"Yes you do. Do you have curtains on your windows? Do you wear clothes? If you don't care about privacy, open your curtains and walk down the street naked."
But the fact is that apathy is so high, that people don't give a damn when they're installing some app -- we're too focused on getting what we want (at that moment in time), and really not caring about sending up personal details to the cloud.
When I try to talk about apps (eg Messenger, WhatsApp) that requires access to the contact list -- everyone I've spoken to really don't care. They don't care that my details are sent to some company (FB) because they want to use WhatsApp.
When I try to talk about state level surveillance, I try to liken it to some sleazy guy taking photos up a woman's dress. It's wrong, no matter how you go about it. Just because I'm "in public" in no way suggests that I should be subjected to a "fully exposed" surveillance system. The same goes for the internet. Of course, this last part is non-legal rhetoric of mine, but I genuinely feel that if I think that I should have an expectation to privacy, regardless of my location, then the civil and polite thing to do is to respect that. State level surveillance all too easily disregards civility and politeness in the pursuit of their goals.
A simple example: recently there was the article about the DEA and ICE putting cameras in streetlights [0]. It is easy for the common person to understand how such a thing could be hacked and used to stalk someone. But the examples you use should target your audience and illustrate why they personally should be concerned. Because talking about turnkey tyranny is fairly abstract to most people.
[0] https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-surveillan...