this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
145 points (94.5% liked)
Privacy
32130 readers
359 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That makes absolutely no sense - at the very least, this is unimplementable for an email provider.
I am trusting someone for my data. Ownership belonging to the people running it, who just want to make a living, has the meaning that our interests are better aligned than a multinational ad agency or a nation state whose subject I not even am. That relationship is more healthy, the contract is clearer and more balanced.
If one ignores the collection of metadata, then this is the very purpose of PGP.
The point that I am trying to make is that one should never have to trust someone with their data -- if all data is encrypted, for example, from a privacy perspective, it really doesn't matter where it is stored. Of course, metadata can still be gathered, but that is, in my opinion, a lesser issue, and the user has some, if not complete control over it.
I should also say that it depends on what you mean by "trust". My response, and original comment are under the assumption that "trust" is referring only to privacy.
After the WhatsApp scandals, my trust in encryption is limited. I'm not a mathematician (which is a goddamn shame), and if there is a backdoor in the mathematics themselves, I wouldn't be able to catch it even if I read the source code. And there is always the possibility of decryption by quantum computers....
So where we store our data is very important, even if it is decrypted. Encryption is just a secondary defense, the primary is limiting the accessibility to the data itself. And where you store the data, and to whom you allow access, determines the accessibility