Cryptophobia:

(noun) Someone who irrationally fears cryptography (noun) Someone who believes that terrorists, death dealers, and other undesirables lurk behind every cypher.

Related words:

cryptophobe(s), cryptophobic

It’s Not Just the NSA

Thibault Serlet

The cryptophobes will often argue that cryptography is immoral; that it should be illegal; that bad people may escape the watchful gaze of the law. Those arguments always assume that only the American government spies on us.

For the sake of discussion, let’s make the unrealistic assumption that every agency in the American Federal Government is incorruptible, composed only of well meaning saints.

Now, it could be argued, that the only people who need cryptography are the undesirables: terrorists, warlords, drug dealers, and human traffickers. Who else would need to hide from Uncle Sam?

What the cryptophobes almost always forget is that the American state isn’t doing all the spying.

The enemies of our ancestors, now our most faithful allies, the British, also spy on us with their GCHQ. A cryptophobe can always say: “What’s so bad if the British spies on us? They helped us fight the Germans during WW2, and we haven’t been at war since 1812.”

Fair enough, let’s make another unrealistic assumption: that all of our allies are incorruptible, and will never turn on us.

What about the Chinese? Hackers from the People’s Republic have been caught time and time again hacking American targets. It is very reasonable to think that the Chinese might be also listening or otherwise watching us.

Or what about our Russian “friend,” Vladimir. To think that, especially in this age of political tension, the Russians have no interest in spying on Americans is ludicrous.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s make the insane, post-modern, absurd argument that not just our allies are holy, but so are our nuclear neighbors, the Chinese and Russians.

ISIS, the very terrorists our NSA is supposed to protect us from, have a highly effective cyber-caliphate. Recently, they may have hacked into the website of Malaysia Airlines. They also reportedly terrified an American veteran’s family.

Spying is a bit like nuclear warfare. It’s great when we have nukes, but once the Soviets have them too, you stand on the precipice of global nuclear annihilation. Americans, British, Chinese, Russians, and yes, even terrorists all benefit from encryption. Privacy needs to remain a choice.