We should consider if almost all free software ethical hackers, and their fan journos, over last 2 decades have been very “useful idiots” for NSA, and similar, by unwillingly conveying a hugely false sense of security on the techs they have been providing.

That has had catastrophic consequences, allowing NSA and similar: (1) to spy on a ton of people sharing very valuable critical data via the Net which they wouldn’t have if they knew better, (2) to cry for “going dark”, and (3) to push for laws to outlaw access privacy.

Nov 27th 2014 UPDATE: I regret the choice of the term “useful idiots” which may be regarded as offensive, even though that is not its original meaning.