I agree John...it's why I don't use encryption or anonymity software, unless I am forced to, such as for banking or other financial matters. If someone wants to read one's stuff, encrypted, anonymised or not; they can, particularly if they have the resources, the dedication, the reasons and the knowledge. There would have to be some fundamental changes in society, the law and policing the internet, before there was a chance of increased privacy or security...and even then there would be no gaurantees. One's movements are tracked most of the time, these days, and that includes speech...and increasingly...thinking, feelings and emotions...as well as movements physically and electronically. We all watch one another, and always have done, after all...Profiling is an art as well as the use of technology.
And I dare say that some young enterprising individual, top of the class of academics at the various schools, universities, think tanks and private foundations, who has been positively vetted or whatever the phrase is these days, and whose every library book, and other material has been identified tagged and collated, whose background or legend has been thoroughly checked, and after taking the oath of allegiance, is trusted enough by a "higher" individual who gives them an enterprising job description on finding out what dissident and criminal groups there are in society who may be a threat to the state, in the past, in the present or in the future, as part of their qualifying thesis or phd. And part of that job may be to investigate and enquire into the likes of cryptome and its associated affiliates and links, and those who contribute or post to it, and when and how and how often...including the metadata you mention, and all the other stuff...(not including content...of course...that goes without saying...:-) .) You will notice that I put criminal and dissident in the same sentence...that is always the way, guilt by association. In the gulags of the Soviet Union, the criminals were treated by the "comrades" as more trustworthy and more honourable than were the dissidents. The dissidents were the scum.
There is a place in Gosport, just South of Southampton, here in England, where the locals are asked on a regular basis to supply their credentials, such as passports, or birth certificates, or some other form of proof of i.d. All sorts of pretexts are offered for their production. Time limits are placed upon the askers and points awarded for the use of creativity, imagination, procedures and speed. It happens regularly enough for some of the more discerning and wise locals to know which pubs they can pop into to meet up with some kind chap or chappess, particularly the day before pay day, who kindly plies them with drink, in return for which they receive the details of such documents. Some of these locals have got it off to a fine art, bringing the necessary documents along with them, so that the young people and themselves aren't inconvenienced, or put to the expense and waste of drinking time, of returning home to get them. The young people,little knowing of this little ruse, which after all, undermines and subverts the game, because they go home with an illusion of how clever they have been, and after expending their state funded expense account and recovering their sobriety, the next morning then take such details back with them and give them to their superiors as part of the qualifications for their project to become top of the pot of intelligence, and to serve the state of their country in a quiet and patriotic way, knowing that they are bound by an oath of loyalty and in pain of criminal prosecution, in the event of ever revealing the truth...no matter how terrible or awful or inconvenient that truth is...
The world is full of different degrees of awareness and unawareness...and it changes so much over time...I just don't know how one gets by quietly these days, pursues ones daily business without interference....but for the grace of god go I...perhaps...:-)
ATB Dougie. On 06/09/14 11:34, John Young wrote:
URLs are privacy transgression tools, the longer they are the morethey harvest, profile, pinpoint, sift, cross-fertilize, contaminate, deludeand entrap both users and victims. Short URLs give the appearance of innocence but still execute the full rapacity of the long. HTTPS only compounds the transgression by adding a layer of delusion similar to false reassurance of encryption, anonymizing, privacy policies, on and on up to necessity of spying and amply funded national security nirvana and unctuous deathbed promise of heavenly layabout forever, sign this change of will, my child. In line with treacherous privacy protection (spit), annual reports of surveillance oversight are fishwrap for overseers' slothful miscreancy commensurate with spies' indolence, featherbedding, prevarication and deadbeat dependency upon delusional inebriates of national protection (hawk, spit). Natsec and comsec, privacy and citizen rights, long URLs and ashort, Barnum and Bailey.
