The problem, as the article points out, is that people are demanding greater security, and government abuse is driving this. That security comes at a cost for things like wiretaps. The choices are bleak and the showdowns are commencing. Dangerous times.....
Remember, though, this isn't just "government vs. the little guy". There are large interests that don't particularly care for the US government intercepting their every move. Some of these may sue, some may contribute to furthering encryption technology, who knows what else.
My personal feeling is that the NSA's surveillance is going to slowly but surely get much harder over the next few years. Centralization was convenient, but if there's enough push to decentralize, it can be done, and will be done. And further, the exact stuff that the NSA is most interested in is going to be the first to go.
We're overdue for another wave of decentralization anyhow.
It's already gone. That's what's so insidious about this whole NSA/CIA/FBI/DHS/DEA debacle: it's all a wasteful charade. They haven't caught __anyone__. They haven't stopped __anything__ of import. It's a bunch of bureaucrats playing cold war with real lives and money. They shouldn't have access to anything because they don't DO anything worthwhile with it.
The world is getting safer. Information/education (power) via technology is being shifted to the individual in a big way and they HATE it because it makes them irrelevant. The current state of the government three letter agencies is an ongoing FUD apparatus that exists for almost no other purpose than self sustenance.
The NSA has systematically and illegally shared information with the DEA and other domestic law enforcement[1]. It has done so while encouraging them to cover it up using “parallel construction” to establish probable cause for an arrest. The FBI entraps people into terror plots and then "busted" them[2]. The ATF sells guns to the Mexican drug cartels[3].
Look at the sources below. It's Forbes, The New York Times and The Washington Post. This isn't edge case conspiracy theory. This is systematic institutionalized corruption covered daily in the main stream press .
The military industrial complex and it's self-sustaining security theater is eating billions (trillions?) in real tax payer money and costing us god knows what via chilling effects and opportunity costs of human lives ruined or snuffed out. It makes me sick to think about the scale of the losses.
The only good news is we (as in we, the people) are winning, as of now. We can all still talk about this stuff without secret police showing up at our door. And, more importantly we ARE talking about it. Everyone is pissed, congress' approval rating is 11%. Pretty soon everybody will know everything. Obama, Holder, Clapper and co have a lot more to hide than we do. That's why the government and their financiers are so freaked out and paranoid.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-p...
[3]http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2011/09/28/fast-and-fur...
Once someone puts the whole picture together and the middle class continues to decline, and the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and the safety net gets dismantled more and more (although Obama Care is at least a step forward I'd say), and the prisons keep expanding, and the endless drug war keeps going on, and the debts keep rising, and the population keeps expanding, and the costs of goods keep going up and up, and the whole myriad of other things that are going on in secret and out in the open, well... I'd imagine it's not going to be pretty at best. Hopefully things can change slowly and we can avoid all the whole house of cards collapsing, but who really knows?
All this has happened before, all this will happen again:
The previous battles are I think small skirmishes compared to what is coming.
That was exactly the issue during the crypto wars. The cat was out of the bag by the time NSA agents showed up in Rivest's office and started treating it like a crime scene. The DOJ brought up stories about common criminals using PGP to avoid prosecution when Zimmerman was testifying before Congress. The crypto wars were an effort to prevent cryptography from becoming commonplace, not just about a few high-level targets using it.
"there will be much money to be made trying to build NSA-proof services"
First of all, privacy is not a service, at least not if "privacy" means "NSA-proof." Hushmail and Lavabit have proved that point beyond any doubt.
I also doubt that privacy-enhancing technologies will be very profitable. There is a general lack of understanding of what things like PGP actually do, which makes it hard to sell such things. People want convenience more than privacy. Business users are willing to accept systems with back doors, for both their own internal needs (a dead employee's files should not be lost forever) and for compliance with various regulations (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley).
What you almost certainly will see are lots of scams and snake-oil security.
Right. I totally get that. I am just saying it is totally different now that the government has given everyone strong incentive to use crypo as a matter of course. If people don't trust the government to be responsible regarding wiretaps, the government won't be able to wiretap.....
I imagine it'll be fought, but quietly and sealed under various letters/orders/statements for the next 30 years.