Servant of Two Masters

[listo factor]

On 08/24/2016 02:23 PM, Robert J. Hansen wrote:

> If I ask "how should we permit privacy tools to be circumvented?" and
> someone's answer is "Pressure them.  A wrench comes to mind," well...
> I've received an answer to how the person believes governments should be
> permitted to obtain secrets.  It's not a very good one.

How about we stop considering 'the government' to be an adversary
in a class by itself? From a technical cryptographers' point of
view, there is a user that wants to keep his stored or communicated
data secret, and the adversary that wants to break the secrecy.
It is perfectly normal for a technical professional to offer his
or her services to one or the other, depending on either monetary
consideration or on some ethical, political, or philosophical
criteria. But attempts to be a servant of two masters have resulted
in either catastrophe or a farce so often that not much can be
said about that has been said or written already.