I've started to despair a bit more about both technological and political solutions. I'm trying to adjust to the idea that nothing that happens online is private, and real privacy requires something more like tradecraft than mass adoption of encryption technologies.
Disempowerment is a common theme here - it is the case that the 'general public' (read majority non-technical) are concerned about the current and future ramifications of this surveillance but feel disempowered because of how widespread it is, and i think this is because it is difficult to make reasonable changes in the immediate term to effect anything. This is of course excluding publicising/talking about the issues from a political point of view.
If telecoms company A proved to be betraying the trust of its customers, customers might find it reasonable to move their custom to telecoms company B - however the issue is that if both telecoms company A and B are both guilty of surveillance there is no feasible choice for the consumer.
The same can be said about political parties. If all major political parties support mass surveillance there is no viable alternative to support.
Interesting theme on despair. I think it goes a little deeper - perhaps people feel disenfranchised by establishment politics as well. It gets worse if you assume Teleco A-Z are always watching; you could go the Tor route or GPG or Wickr or Telegram - but ultimately the level of espionage being carried out and for so long makes you wonder if any of the privacy solutions are for real. Sounds a bit paranoid but as we've seen the onion peeled back by Snowden it is quite clear.
I can imagine some will feel censored to a degree. There is some stigma to knowing about privacy and technology. Try talking to a lamen even casually and you might as well be wearing a tin foil hat. Even @moxie's recent thread on HN echoes that.
>>I've started to despair a bit more about both technological and political solutions.
Ditto the despair. I feel like I've been contributing to the construction of an oppressive pantheon, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
But then I see things like ipfs, and tor, and so on .. and somehow feel like there might be hope. But regardless of the technological solutions that are being proposed, we still need to reign in - and more importantly, make society more aware of the need to reign in - those who wish to oppress us all with technology. Its a daunting task, but the best thing I can possibly do is raise my sons to understand the need to understand things. Teach them cryptography. Save all the old machines for them, just in case. Impress upon them the importance of recognizing repression and fascism in the world today, and do what they can to stamp it out.
I'm also spending more time outside with them, enjoying the simple beauties of life. Its just as important as waiting for the keys to re-gen ..
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