[false-mirror]

Then the question is: are technical experts the only ones who deserve privacy? Are the strong the only ones who deserve safety? etc etc.

While I also prefer a system which assumes no trust in government policy, it is still prefferable provide legal protections for the little guys whenever possible. In this case, the little guy is the vast majority of people who don't understand how the internet works.

[brokenmachine]

I agree completely. Taking an interest in the laws is important because if the technical solutions are made illegal then there is no real solution.

We can't assume VPNs will always be legal for individuals with the horrible direction things are going.

I would like to add however that it would be really nice if the super-intelligent programmers on HN could come up with an open solution that is super easy to use that actually preserves the little guy's privacy. Like just a tickbox in Firefox that makes your whole PC untrackable.

Something so easy that anyone can use it, yet as secure as all the complicated technical solutions that are being presented in these comments.

[jdoliner]

It seems a lot more plausible to me that privacy technologies can be made accessible to the masses than that policies can be passed which protect the masses. After all the masses are only in this situation because other technologies which were once only accessible to experts became accessible to them. Does the government have a particularly good track record of protecting the little guys in your opinion?