The internet is mostly known for being a nightmare for your privacy, but I also think there is another side to that coin. I mean, it is insanely easy (and common) these days to do all your internet communication with messengers, that have pretty much unbreakable encryption (Signal). That was not possible for the average person before computers and the internet. The government could easily read all you private letters.
Also, all our web traffic is fully encrypted with https (although that is more of a security than a privacy thing) and most modern phones automatically do full disk encryption for your files. It is also trivialilly easy to use a proper end to end encrypted cloud storage (proton, tuta etc.) or even use unsafe cloud storage like Google Drive as long as you encrypt your files locally before uploading.
I know, the internet is still a net negative for most peoples privacy, but it is pretty cool how far we’ve come with encryption.
I had no need of encryption before the internet. Because no one does those things. The government doesn’t have the resources to walk into everyone’s houses, even if I weren’t protected by the 4th amendment.
It’s only with the advent of the internet and mass surveillance that I have any need of encryption. If I needed to speak privately with someone, I’d visit them. Or even just pick up a phone because wiretaps require a warrant.
It doesn’t have to be the government. It can be a suspicious spouse, a nosy family member, a judgemental neighbor, an opportunistic burglar, even a murderer. You’re thinking in way too narrow of a scope.
But to really drive the point home, since “no one” does those things, please leave your front door unlocked on Monday for me. Thanks!
People have been cheating for millennia without the benefit of encryption.
There are 350 million Americans. My door is unlocked most Mondays. Good luck. I don’t even own a gun. Find me and you win.
Oh, my sweet summer-child.
Your local police may need a warrant for a wiretap, but do you think intelligence services care about that? Let alone foreign ones?
Legal requirements don’t stop the really problematic entities from spying on you. Privacw was easier back in the day, because it required effort and manpower to surveil you.
Nowadays, an automated computer program can do it.
It didn’t matter. The government has limited money for that shit. They couldn’t even spy on everything they wanted to, much less the general population.
There you go, making my point for me. That program wouldn’t be possible without the internet. So encryption became needed by us nobodies because of the internet.
Well, yes. I’m not arguing against your general idea. Just the notion that laws would protect you.
But strictly speaking, the internet isn’t a requirement for automated mass surveillance. Powerful enough computers to analyze and process our phone calls would have sufficed. The internet just happened to predate those.
And yes, it’s always also a matter of ressources. But if you rely on that, your privacy depends on the assumption, that you’re just not interesting enough to be surveilled. Since you had no way to verify that, relying on that notion is somewhat similar to the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” argument today and yields the protection of your privacy to the decisions of the surveillant.