“That gets at the more important way that the relationship between open/closed and encryption is relevant to data and privacy: just as encryption at scale is only possible with a closed service, so it is with privacy. That is, to the extent we as a society demand privacy, the more we are by implication demanding ever more closed gardens, with ever higher walls. Just as a closed garden makes the user experience challenge of encryption manageable, so does the centralization of data make privacy — of a certain sort — a viable business model.”
—Ben Thompson. “Open, Closed, and Privacy.” Statechery.com. April 25, 2018.
It’s an interesting comment. However, there are a number of technologies being developed that solve the problem of identity and seamless public key transfer in different ways, e.g., Autocrypt (email), Conversations with OMEMO (chat), Keybase (chat), etc. It is possible to have user-friendly, decentralized and private communications. But, it’s hard to do without state or corporate funding, and increased privacy doesn’t serve those interests. Still, it’s possible. We just might have to wait for it.
cafebedouin.org 