I posted this in another thread, but maybe it makes sense here, too:
All of the danger and controversy about messaging platforms/companies being required to install master keys (colloquially called “backdoors”) into their encryption algorithms by western governments so these governments can spy on citizens en masse—all of that goes away if the phones we carry were general-purpose computers (like our desktop computers).
The mathematician-cryptographers solved the problem of how to communicate privately. And the free software movement wrote the code and provides the software freely.
With general-purpose computers, governments can’t pressure an Apple or a Microsoft to remove a software title from your computer—cause it’s your computer. And there’s no such thing as a company like Signal having to threaten an oppressive government that they’re going to pull out of their market/territory. With general-purpose computers, peers just run the software they want to run, and they communicate peer-to-peer.
So why do we tolerate closed, controlled devices?
