[reason.com]

The first time I heard anyone discuss the possibility of an officially sanctioned blackballing of encryption was on a podcast I listen to called Security Now, back in October. It brought the topic to the forefront of my mind, and made me realize how things have truly changed in terms of lower level surveillance. With the internet now pretty much running on behind TLS and other protocols also rapidly adopting more secure alternatives, all levels of law enforcement are increasingly being given the boot.

Which is indeed, the point.

What I concluded at the time was that no politician in their right mind would try and implement this, because it would likely end up in a short career. After Snowden and Manning . . . Mandated broken encryption and back doors?

Good luck.

I was also considering that even if ISP's were mandated to block blind packet traffic, that would'nt fly since it would break the internet. It would depend somewhat on the back end programming (are ISP's scrutinizing packet destinations, or just dumping packets?), but one still can't help but foresee a nightmare. And maybe even lawsuits, should legitimate software of business be caught up in the dragnet.

I come at this discussion from a prospective of bias.
I/We reap the security and privacy benefits of strong cryptography in context of the internet. And I understand exactly the transition to TLS was rapidly adopted. However, since my introduction to the topic came from a place of bias, it's natural to reflect that even upon ones own attempts to contemplate.

Thus, I open up the floor for everyones opinion.

Is this much ado about nothing? Is this something indeed worth worrying about? Or do you have something else to share?