Actually it has been revealed that encrypting only puts a flag of suspicion on your messages. NSA has some of the best encryption geeks in the world, so they'll probably break it.
This is factually wrong. The attitude behind it is dangerously wrong.
As part of a secure system, cryptography works. In fact, it is usually far easier to attack a secure system at the endpoints than to try to forcefully decrypt the ciphertext.
If the NSA were to decide to expend computing power trying to brute-force your secret keys, then that buys you a few years, depending on algorithm and keyspace. However, while they can store all encrypted communication (at least for which they don't have access to keys), they still don't have nearly the computing power to forcefully decrypt all of that information. That treatment is probably only reserved for people they actively hate.
It's certainly true that metadata can be just as damning (or falsely damning) as the contents themselves, but if you're just talking about contents, then the cryptosystems can in fact meet (and likely exceed) their performance characteristics.
In any case, as I said above, holding an attitude which discourages use of cryptosystems is dangerous. Even if that's not your intention, encouraging everyone to demand proper crypto out of their software is vital for privacy going forward.
This is factually wrong. The attitude behind it is dangerously wrong.
As part of a secure system, cryptography works. In fact, it is usually far easier to attack a secure system at the endpoints than to try to forcefully decrypt the ciphertext.
If the NSA were to decide to expend computing power trying to brute-force your secret keys, then that buys you a few years, depending on algorithm and keyspace. However, while they can store all encrypted communication (at least for which they don't have access to keys), they still don't have nearly the computing power to forcefully decrypt all of that information. That treatment is probably only reserved for people they actively hate.
It's certainly true that metadata can be just as damning (or falsely damning) as the contents themselves, but if you're just talking about contents, then the cryptosystems can in fact meet (and likely exceed) their performance characteristics.
In any case, as I said above, holding an attitude which discourages use of cryptosystems is dangerous. Even if that's not your intention, encouraging everyone to demand proper crypto out of their software is vital for privacy going forward.