An alt-history version of the latest UK / USA digital snooping revelations

So, the governments of the USA and UK have managed to acquire unwarranted access to pretty much any and all digital communications, and now they can crack encryption?

Scary stuff - apparently the price of freedom was freedom itself.

Or was it?

What if it was all a clever, audacious gambit?

What if they had spent too much time and money waging war on foreign soil, first for oil and latterly against an extreme emotional response to traumatic events (or “terror”, if you prefer)?

What if they had realised that a tipping point was fast approaching, a point where the countries that used to look up to them will overtake them in terms of population, economic power, military might, and global relevance?

What if they realised that their imperialistic position was set to crumble, that their hold on the reins was slipping, and that soon they would be consigned to the history books as former conquerors laid low by their own hubris - the next, fallen Roman Empire, perhaps?

What if they realised that their own citizens had lost faith in their own nations and fallen into dystopian thinking - through economic meltdowns, political crises, and the ever more obvious disconnect between the ruled and the rulers - and that they no longer needed to worry about maintaining their trust at all?

What if they figured that they had nothing to lose, so they decided to play one last spin on the roulette table - all or nothing, betting firmly on black?

What if they could concoct a compelling set of evidence that presented them as masters of data, omniscient overlords of the information age? What if that was then leaked to great fanfare and choreographed outrage, with the man responsible fleeing to a state with which they had been at political loggerheads with for at least half a century, in one way or another?

How would the rest of the world react? Would they beleive that their secrets were now an open book? Would unfriendly regimes suddenly have to change their game and switch up their covert communication strategy?

And would that sudden change mark them out more clearly in the ebb and flow of global data, effectively making them easier to identify and track rather than harder?

You know what? It just might… unless it was all a bluff…

Originally posted on Tumblr