Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

> With the Temporary Cyber Act, we will make optimum use of the data carried on our cables to protect The Netherlands against Russian and Chinese hackers

Twenty years ago, the excuse was "we are restricting your freedom because of what happened in 11/9."

Then in the internet age, the excuse became "we are restricting your freedom to save the children from online abuse."

Now, Europe has unlocked the option to restrict its citizens' freedom because of the "war."

I ask my fellow computer engineers what the hell are we waiting for to pool our minds and resources towards a truly decentralised, encrypted and anonymous overnet. Something a little more practical than I2P, Tor, Freenet, etc. "Oh bad people will use it to do crime" is not a serious enough excuse to just passively accept the government tightening the noose around our digital presence, for total control by the State, all in name of safety and security. Was Bitcoin (2009) the last hurrah of the crypto-anarchist ideals of freedom of thought, freedom from the Big Brother and freedom from the ever-looming State?

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/cryp...

> I ask my fellow computer engineers what the hell are we waiting for to pool our minds and resources towards a truly decentralised, encrypted and anonymous overnet.

I often hear this somewhat loose idea and have to say that I also have such reoccurring thoughts myself. We currently enjoy pretty great freedoms to do stuff, we have the chance to set something up, and those freedoms might be severely restricted in the future. It may be easier to develop something like that now than it will ever be in the future. The problem seems to be that there is no coordinated plan. Stuff like Tor exists, but it hasn't really caught on as much as one would hope. Also it is built upon a rather specific architecture (the internet) from what I understand, which could basically be shutdown by authorities at any moment.

For example, I can't currently safely communicate with people in my geographic area independently of the internet, even though my devices theoretically have the hardware to do so (think of radio capabilities, for example). There might be some lose projects out there capable of some of it that 99.9999% never heard about, but nothing that could actually be considered general-purpose. Why is that?

It isn't an easy problem to solve. And it isn't enough of a problem for people to actually apply themselves nearly enough. Once it is needed in a way that more people would devote their time to it, it might be too late.

It won't happen people choose comfort instead of freedom. Eventually it will become a full blown totalitarian state, and we are going to relive 20th century again it seems.

I can't wait to pay ESG tax because I am breathing.

I used to be so optimistic and less cynical.

Now I look at this and all that comes to mind is that actions like this would provide a basis for tapping people closer to source.

All the p2p and e2e encryption in the world won't help if someone is reading every key you type, or in the near future, every thought that crosses your mind.

Still, I applaud your spirit.

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