Trust no one
With this sort of attitude you might as well give up on life. Society doesn't work without trust between people.
So it's hard to "trust" in a single direction when the actions that cause distrust are so, so bald-faced. Every conspiracy-sounding theory surrounding surveillance has turned out to be true. And all that worry about being caught has had a net-zero effect. Maybe Let's Encrypt was at least partially a result, but that's about it. So why worry now? Turns out secret courts are just about guaranteed to green-light whatever the hell the NSA wants, so people finding out didn't really turn out as badly as they were worried about.
So "trust us" is about impossible anymore. I don't know if the relationship can be healed, to be honest. Obama was the ideal of our best shot, but that ship sailed like, day 2.
The #1 goal of the Neoliberal elite class is to crush the will of people like you. If you've already given up then you might as well be dead to them; they don't even need to spy on you at that point! If, on the other hand, you're out in public and organizing in large numbers then what can they do? You can force them to engage with the issues on your terms.
If people are upset, enough to effect change, they only have to start showing up. Find the game, learn the game, play the game.
Technology alone cannot solve political problems. The technology can be banned.
Technology can, however, raise the difficulty for sub-components of a government that are wanting to push the limits and do things outside the boundaries of the politically agreed upon systems. Encryption can't stop the NSA if it has widespread political support because the encryption can be banned. But right now intelligence agencies are absolutely hurting, because what they're doing is highly controversial and blocking them with encryption is not at illegal. If the political debate is won, even if it's just a partial win, then they're forced back inside their box for a long time to come.
I'm glad there are people fighting the political fights too, though I can't imagine where they get the patience. I certainly have nothing to offer in that arena.
I take your point about the NSA, but it doesn't appear that political action will stop them either, because they are happy to ignore political constraints (and lie to Congress about it, for example) and simply do whatever their technological capabilities allow them to.
A war on encryption would be much easier to enforce than a war on drugs because there are such fewer sources, and there's not a big market for its use.
This author's conclusions seem quite sound to me. They collapsed it in a way to comply with a gag order while silently sounding an alarm.
https://forum.truecrypt.ch/t/my-analysis-of-what-really-happ...
Anyone operating in this space is eventually going to get the same option as Lavabit's founder: compromise or collapse.
https://mastermind.atavist.com/
He created E4M (which truecrypt was based on) and is rumored to have been one of the creators of truecrypt. Apparently he's also been a US government asset for a while.
I think it's way more likely Snowden was intentional. He's still working for the Federal government and the leaks are intentional so that the Federal Government could announce to the world that they are spying on all their own citizens...and nothing happen. No real revolution, and no real end to the surveillance.
I mean yea, we have better security practices, more people use encryption, more people are aware about security ... but overall the landscape hasn't changed except in one crucial aspect: people are talking less publicly. People are afraid that what they say is monitored. There has been a chilling effect.
The Snowden narrative needs to be questioned. Since when does an NSA contractor working from home in Hawaii get VPN access to all the government secretes? Like...people actually believe that?
Back then the excuse was that they were only being used to collect foreign traffic. Snowden revealed their loose interpretation of "foreign" and many more domestic activities happening outside of AT&T NOCs.
Foreigners' rights aren't protected by the constitution. Citizens' are and now we have legal standing to force the government to respect the law which we didn't have before knowing that the panopticon was pointed at us.
Those who knew how much the system had changed from satellite-intelligence gathering (from the era prior to transatlantic/transpacific submarine fiber, where most phone calls and international data were satellite based), to tapping fiber at submarine cable landing stations and "partnering" with major telcos, were totally unsurprised.
https://fcw.com/articles/1999/06/02/congress-nsa-butt-heads-...
Anyway, it was all over US media from 1999-2001 plus European Parliament with plenty testimony and recommendations. And again, the link encryption recommendation was in US security requirements anyway.
If not, then like all conspiracy theories you need to account for everyone who would need to be in on the secret, how they're all keeping the secret, and why--what's in it for them.
Oh for goodness sake. Reality is too boring for you? You could engage with the real campaign that EFF and Snowden and others are trying to get going, or you could wander off and make up some other story that protects you from having to do anything.
Since when does an NSA contractor working from home in Hawaii get VPN access to all the government secretes?
Since the NSA got reliant on huge networks that aren't understood by their own management and they needed to hire in techies to keep it running.
Essentially: big organisations have to choose between (a) crippling levels of security that prevent them from getting anything done or (b) getting things done with a small risk of leaks.
(a) is pointless so everything is heading for (b) and thats why every major news story of the last few years and the next few decades is going to be based around leaks.
Re damage. Tens of billions to economy that military-industrial complex worked hard to get. Push-back against police state legislation. NSA ops and methods blown. Large uptake in products that reduce SIGINT. Businesses moving overseas. All with no benefits on the table for intelligence agencies.
Far as distractions, that's the media's job focing on mass shooters, North Korea, ISIS, etc instead of pending legislation and schemes by government.