Let's have some fun with the NSA...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

This sounds like such a fun idea.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... ist-plugin

Sorry, Ian.

[Ayaan]

[Ian]

Guess what? They're not listening.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

They're always listening. They're in the walls.

[Warren Dew]

Fun idea, but I don't really think it's any better if the NSA is looking at the emails of clearly innocent people than if they are looking at the emails of suspected terrorists.

[Ian]

Assuming the NSA is reading your emails and listening to your phone calls is kind of like assuming the military is laying plans to to bomb your house. Yes, they have the capabilities to do exactly that. But do you really think they're going to bother?

[Brian Peacock]

As long as you don't mention words like Allah, jihad, arrangements, Obama, shrapnel, and infidels in your email you should be OK.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

As long as you don't mention words like Allah, jihad, arrangements, Obama, shrapnel, and infidels in your email you should be OK.

That's why I am always really careful that no post of mine in an open forum (like this one) ever contains such words.

[JimC]

As long as you don't mention words like Allah, jihad, arrangements, Obama, shrapnel, and infidels in your email you should be OK.

That's why I am always really careful that no post of mine in an open forum (like this one) ever contains such words.

Quoting counts...

Now I'm in trouble with the NSA...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

As long as you don't mention words like Allah, jihad, arrangements, Obama, shrapnel, and infidels in your email you should be OK.

That's why I am always really careful that no post of mine in an open forum (like this one) ever contains such words.

Quoting counts...

Now I'm in trouble with the NSA...

Like all your talk of catlick schoolboys never got you flagged!

[laklak]

I'm very careful not to mention things like FERTILIZER or DIESEL or PRESSURE COOKER. Those get flagged, you betcha. Same is true if you write CONSTITUTION or PATRIOT. That's why I don't use those words.

[Calilasseia]

I can see quite a few bands choosing names for themselves based on this. Though Anthrax already have.

[JimC]

The NSA can shove it up their Khyber Pass!

[Skepticus]

Anybody who ever read Stephen J Gould's essay called 'The Pandas Thumb', would understand the folly of perpetually trying to jury rig a broken or faulty system. Some times it best just to cut your losses and opt for a bottom up design, that takes the full scope of needs and issues into account. That's not so easy in biology with genes being a hereditary pattern. Email is a human design and never took into account the security features of the modern world that has allowed politics to pollute the internet. The fundamental email protocols don't fully support encryption and even then you usually have to be able to apply it yourself. Another design flaw, is that email, like DNS and other pre-ninties protocols, failed to avoid central control and third party dependency. Thankfully, that era is coming to a close with a raft of new protocols, that differ in the important aspect of not using any third party servers to establish connections and pass data. That is the essence of peer to peer software. It returns to the idea that nodes on the network should be independent and autonomous. They should talk to each other without intervention or consent of a third party service. For the purpose of electronic mail, made as it should be from the ground up, I give you bitmessage.

This is a peer to peer application, that allows one to send mail in a manner naively encrypted by the protocol. Being able to communicate without fear of eavesdropping governments or other malicious entities, is just basic human privacy rights. I find it appalling that we don't resist this insidious travesty more tenaciously.

[Coito ergo sum]

Assuming the NSA is reading your emails and listening to your phone calls is kind of like assuming the military is laying plans to to bomb your house. Yes, they have the capabilities to do exactly that. But do you really think they're going to bother?

It depends whose in the White House. I bet W would use this capability for nefarious purposes, because he was like Hitler and all he wanted to do was line the pockets of his oil buddies while he cozied up to the latest Arab dictator.... It's all well and good when the good guys have the power, and we of course know that Obama would never take personal data, like IRS data, and use it for political purposes. But, we can't be too careful because since the Republicans have control over all the voting machines (Diebold, cough cough) and since the Repubicans are also in charge of the Carlyle Group and Halliburton and the rest of the military industrial complex, then clearly they will be back in the White House soon. They rigged an election, probably two, in order to get Bush elected. Heck, it's even fishy that the black guy got elected in the first place, given the ability of Republicans to control the voting booths. But that's another matter altogether....