alt Hacker NewsTechnical solutions and alternatives can provide enough leverage for the common citizen to force the hand of those in power. It might not fully "solve" the issue, but making it easier to route around will always force those in power to bend somewhat.
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the_other • yesterday at 8:24 AM
I'm unconvinced. Look at the current wave of attacks on privacy-focused chat + file sharing. The niche tools and workarounds are getting vilified and used as _reasons_ for more elite control.
In practice the opposite happens - when new technical workarounds are popularized, more technical solutions are found to prevent them and legislation is proposed to mandate them.
Look at Chat Control in the EU: they started with mandating server-side scanning. Nobody liked that so everyone implemented E2EE. Now there's a new law that adds mandatory client-side scanning.
Most of my tech-brained friends are saying "whatever, we'll just compile from source or use alternative means of distribution. But is that becomes popular, what's the next step? I'm fully expecting the EU's to then try to mandate the service providers need to ensure their apps aren't tampered with, which can only be done by locking devices down to official means of distribution and implementing end-to-end cryptographic attestation. Then we truly are out of options.