Hello out there! Anybody home! Remarkably, there isn't really anything pissing me off today. Not sure why, since I am on-call for my company. I guess I am just in one of those numb moods. Kind of Zen really. My mind is like an empty cup waiting to be polluted by tomorrows office politics.

Maybe part of it is that I had some pretty funny conversations with an old coworker today, and messed around with Gaim and the gaim-encryption plugin so that those evil carnivores couldn't eavesdrop on our conversation. Not that our conversation is really worthy of listening in on, but it felt good using encryption any way. It's amazing how much more fun you can have when you aren't worried about someone else hearing you. It's kind of liberating.

Speaking of someone eavesdropping on you, there has been a lot of fuss about the government "spying" on civilians looking for possible terrorist communications and such. While I don't particularly like anyone poking around in my closet and minding my business, I don't see what all the fuss is about. People act like it's something new. The fact is that it's been going on since the 50's with the PSTN phone system. Folks, I am here to tell you, both of you, that privacy is an ILLUSION. You do know that when when you hang up your phone, there is still an open connection - don't you?

You see, very few of you are doing anything to actively guard your privacy. The consequences of this are that your lives are an open book to anyone with a little technical knowledge. Do you realize, for example, that every email you send is stored on someone's server, usually in plain text? There are several, if not dozens of people that have access to the servers your email is on. With a little bit of patience, any one of those admins could find numerous credit card numbers, social security numbers, personal details like birthday, age, sex, height, weight, hair color, favorite sexual positions, whether or not you are cheating on your spouse, how many porn club memberships you have, etc. That doesn't bother you, but the NSA, FBI, or CIA looking for terrorists does. Wierd.

And what about IM? Do you and all your friends use encryption? I bet not. For one, every service has it's own proprietary clients. Those that do have encryption usually only work when the person you IM is using the same one. Oh, and don't even get me started on PASSWORDS! Most of you have pitiful passwords to start with, then you use them all over the place. Your email, IM, and other passwords are stored in clear text on dozens if not hundreds of intermediary servers. They are also typically sent over the internet, and your ISP's or company's intranet without encryption.

So until you start taking measures individually to protect your "privacy", stop whining and trying to blame the government for everything. Use encryption - it's free! I'll add some links in here tomorrow for you to follow. Hey, if you have your own weblog out there, post a comment, and include your log's address in your sig.

Peace. Refuse - OUT!