TLDR: David's post about encryption made me think, and my opinion is that encryption has missed the mark lately.

Your data only makes money when it's used against others or directly against you

Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and the hundreds of other vendors listed as ones with legitimate interest in the cookie settings list want to learn as much as they can about you. To oversimplify it, they can monetize this info by convincing you to spend your money as they suggest and even to embrace political ideas that serve autocrats. Both of them are against your interests.

You might say that you can't be indoctrinated, but the truth is that even the smartest, most critical thinker can be manipulated by controlling the information they can access. Even the life of those who don't use the internet can be affected.

As we have seen in the last couple of years, these data brokers sell other people's life and freedom, including those of the people of their own country, without hesitation.

End-to-end encryption means little to law-abiding citizens, yet it still makes data brokers richer

Shall we encrypt everything then, to keep the greedy data miners and the corrupt governments away? -- Not so fast.

Companies that guarantee end-to-end encryption can still wiretap your entire communication as they please unless the client- and the server-side codes are open source. Even then, they should provide evidence that they run the unmodified code on their servers. Without this, end-to-end encryption is an empty promise. Of course, it still helps people hide from law enforcement cheaply.

What I see as a solution: regulation.

Big data can be used as a weapon. It can cause genocide and can flip democracies into autocracies. It is not only cleaner than an atomic bomb, but it also doesn't trigger a military response. Should anyone be allowed to own such dangerous technology and do as they please? I don't think so.

My wishlist

• Data collection should be limited. (No power to any actor to arm itself.)
• Storing data should also be limited. (No stockpiling weapons for a coup.)
• Brokering data should not be done without safeguards. (Arms may be traded, but let's not arm autocrats against ourselves.)
• Encrypted message providers should be strongly community-audited. (No data secret data collection.)
• They should also provide law enforcement with a limited and hard-to-access and controlled way to listen in if they are entitled by a court order. (Encrypt if you insist, but criminals should not enjoy safety.)

This way you won't need to encrypt your birthday wishes to friends or your shopping list to your partner end-to-end. You also don't help autocrats or organized crime.

The original version of this post is part of the Blaugust 2025 series on my blog along with:

• Intro through traits
• Hospital visit
• Win 3.1 Nostalgia
• Poets of the Fall
• Project done!
• Video games that made me learn
• Blaugust