[jimparkins]

People will no doubt come on this thread and remind everyone that of course the government always had access - you must have been a fool not to think so. But I just can not get over how angry it makes me. Honestly I thought that using google products with some exploitation of the contents for advertising was an acceptable exchange. This is just a total betrayal and I cannot believe that the Google board is not aware of this! and if it is not it is because they choose to be!

[betterunix]

This might be a good time to go back and look at what you said to all those cypherpunks who kept talking about the need to build security into Internet protocols from day 1. Whitefield Diffie had pointed out this problem -- that online services could violate user privacy without any technical barriers -- in the 1970s and pointed to it to motivate public key cryptography. Throughout the 90s and 00s people were saying that we should be deploying cryptography more widely, yet these arguments were largely ignored or dismissed.

So really, this is not about the government. Rather it is about the inherently insecure design of today's email, IM, payment, and social networking systems. While the cryptography research community and the hacker community have proposed numerous solutions, few have worked to deploy such solutions. Worse, many hackers and computer scientists have actively worked against such deployment by building businesses that are monetized by violating user privacy.

Before talking about your anger, take a moment to think about what you were saying to people 5, 10, or 20 years ago when this topic came up (I am speaking to everyone now, not just jimparkins).

[dmix]

"You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it." - Albert Camus

The cypherpunk "2.0" generation is here. The adversaries are definitely way more resourceful and ten steps ahead now. So there may be some value in looking back with regret. But it's never too late.

[pit]

> But it's never too late.

Upvote for hope.

[w_t_payne]

Very good point; very well made. Thank you, good sir.