That's a good analogy, but there is an entirely orthogonal dimension: A significant part of out telecom and computing ecosystem was built to be friendly for surveillance. And why not? The US was far in the lead in the surveillance and hacking race.
APTs are showing us that era might be over. Someone might get it into their head that the only way to win is not to play. If computing and telecom rebalance in favor of security from outside hacking and surveillance threats, as we are seeing in OTT communications apps, that will propel a virtuous cycle.
> A significant part of out telecom and computing ecosystem was built to friendly for surveillance.
A very interesting point. We've all collectively raised the cry against building backdoors into products when the very backbone of much of our (commercial) network infrastructure has been friendly to backdoors (required by law, I believe) for decades.
Perhaps, in the near future, some catastrophic network incursion will make the concept of "tapping a phone line" a relic of the past, requiring much more intensive, in-person intelligence gathering to collect similar information.
Although, given the complete lack of progress on homicidal maniacs with guns in the US, it seems unlikely that a massive telecom breach will really change anything, unless it reveals the improprieties of a majority of our elected officials. (Note: I'm not arguing that legislation will fix that particular problem (read: maniacs w/guns), just that inertia has prevented any real progress or attempts at progress from being made in that regard)
APTs are showing us that era might be over. Someone might get it into their head that the only way to win is not to play. If computing and telecom rebalance in favor of security from outside hacking and surveillance threats, as we are seeing in OTT communications apps, that will propel a virtuous cycle.