Read on Twitter
This is wrong-headed, and here is a smattering of reasons in no particular order. https://twitter.com/SteveBellovin/status/1199009744092061696
"You only need crypto good enough to stop crooks." Narrator: Except in cases of civil forfeiture at traffic stops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Traffic_stops
"The NSA wouldn't do X, it's illegal!" Narrator: The NSA did. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/
"The NSA or FSB wouldn't spy on all their innocent citizens!" Narrator: Spying on innocent citizens is the one of the primary functions of these agencies, and entire non-profits are dedicating (in part) to educating you about it. https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying
"The NSA isn't interested in random citizens!" Narrator: Just your personal photographs. https://www.salon.com/2015/04/06/the_nsa_is_still_collecting_your_dick_pics_edward_snowdens_terrifying_warning_for_john_oliver_and_america/
"You only need crypto good enough to stop crooks!" said Jeff Bezos as he predicts your tampon purchasing habits. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
"Your data just clogs up disk space!" My dude, you personally witnessed disk space go from 10MB hard drives in 1983 for a few grand to 4TB hard drives in 2019 for a few hundo. Disk space is possibly the most hyper-inflated commodity in history (unless you count usd HEYO).
"You only need crypto good enough to stop crooks!" Narrator: Except when the non-crooks are super lazy with their security. https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-voter-records-from-19-states-sold-on-hacking-forum/
To be absolutely fair to Prof Bellovin, it's easy to argue that an NSA employee stealing your dick pics or cops using asset forfeiture at traffic stops are the real crooks here. Maybe even he'd argue that govt insecurely storing our data is also criminal behavior...
But it's really hard to argue that spy agencies with histories of spying on civilians in their own nations whose functions intentionally include spying on civilians in their own nations wouldn't spy on civilians in their own nations.
It's also absolutely absurd to reason about the intent and actions of an espionage agency using the cost of disk space as a starting point.
At the very best, "you only need crypto good enough to stop crooks" is similar to "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." This is an authoritarian idea: authority is generally good, laws reflect not only your own opinions/values, but those of society at large...
You only need crypto good enough to stop crooks? How about "you only need crypto good enough to stop social control by malicious entities?"
And before anyone dunks on me while I dunk on Prof Bellovin: note that @SteveBellovin prefaced his comment warning it was controversial, and that he authored many important papers in CS that acknowledge the above problems. For example... https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/1/1/69/2367066
