[chrischen]

It's not an "oh well" attitude. In fact, I'm advocating that if you actually want your data private and secure, you shouldn't be hosting on someone else's computer at all! You shouldn't be practicing security through good-will (good will assurances by a party that they aren't snooping).

I send most of emails through gmail because I don't care if the NSA reads them. For my cross-border drug deals, I use carrier pigeons with encrypted handwritten messages.

[frenger]

Do carrier-pigeons count as a third-party?

> It's not an "oh well" attitude.

> I don't care if the NSA reads them..

Indeed. However, I've used Royal Mail (postal service in UK) all my life without thinking that I needed to worry about what I said - I always found that very liberating, looking back. Even postcards I assumed wouldn't be read by anyone, and certainly not photographed and archived permanently against my name. Given that IP traffic is replacing the postal service, to not have this assumption any longer is painful on several levels.

> You shouldn't be practicing security through good-will Fair enough. That said, the need to defend myself against a well equipped foreign government is just not a job I'm up to on my own. I'd prefer it if the government demonstrated goodwill, which would seem to be their job.

I believe the solution is political.

[majelix]

> However, I've used Royal Mail (postal service in UK) all my life without thinking that I needed to worry about what I said

This is true for the United States Postal Service as well. I've always thought it'd be interesting to look at what historically brought about the strong privacy expectations to postal mail when it's technically so easy to intercept.

[chrischen]

The whole situation arose because the government wasn't supposed to invade privacy, but it did anyways. So if policy is changed we'd just be back where we were before.