Forcing Their Hand

Not being a "Gubmnit sucks!" kinda guy, I don't subscribe to the theory that everything government undertakes is bad or inherently corrupt.  So long as our planet is subject to the unpleasant whims and urges of its most prolific mammalian denizens, government will be necessary for the existence of civilization, such as it is and for whatever that's worth.  On the other end of that equation, so long as government is for and by said mammalians, it's going to be subject to corruption, misdeeds, and small thinking.  

Small thinking is the primary culprit behind the subject of this New York Times article.  In short, because I know some of you won't read anything the New York Times would print, "government officials" and "law enforcement"--why not name names?--would like Congress to pass a law requiring all communications software developers to give the government a "backdoor" through their security so that eavesdropping warrants could be more efficiently served.  

Besides the utterly depressing fact that this would only make it easier for our government to spy on us, it's blindingly stupid.  Any point of entry in a piece of software is a potential point of weakness and one that could be exploited by, oh, say, a foreign government or a kid in his basement in Uzbekistan to break the back of major communications companies.  Even worse, the government would by necessity have to compromise the security of their own networks each and every time they accessed these back doors.

The reality is, it's this kind of crackdown by nation-states on the communications networks that will lead to the eventual splintering of the internet and the rise of darknets.  And it won't just be the crazy dirty-fucking-hippies and the technologists that jump ship.  Corporations who can no longer trust RIM and the Blackberry because every government this side of Thailand can snoop through their "encrypted" e-mails will deploy their own encrypted networks.  The only outcome laws like this can have is to force the corporations to make increasingly bolder grabs for power as they seek to avoid the governance of any one nation and the will of those who are not their loyal customers.  

Thankfully, I don't think even the Republicans are dumb enough to pass any such law, but then again, Congress did give us the Patriot Act.