Before reading this article, I used to believe that IT companies deeply respected users’ human rights, spending millions of dollars to build end‑to‑end encryption. But thanks to this very article, I learned that they were actually saving tens of millions in administrative litigation costs – costs they would otherwise have had to pay every month to respond to wiretap warrants.

Some might call this a “cryptographic innovation.” I call it “the technical outsourcing of legal disclaimers.” Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have a Harvard Law School legal team on my side.