wrote in message news:alpine.DEB.2.10.1308210902070.1344@debian... On Tue, 20 Aug 2013, Randy Brukardt wrote: ... >> And I claim it is irrelevant. The use of the public internet is never >> very >> secure and you can be certain that at least basic behavior is monitored. > >Whatever you mean by "basic behaviour": You *can* communicate securely >over the internet, for some very reasonable notions of "secure". But >firstly, there is no "absolute security", and secondly, you pay a price. >Often, the price is inconvenience. In any case, your "we are all doomed" >attitude is too pessimistic. "Basic behavior" means, at a minimum, who is connecting to whom. Systems like Tor help, but as recently proven, don't necessarily hide that behavior. I've never been accused of being too optimistic about anything, but unfortunately, I find that I often *am* too optimistic in reality. (For example: "I can build an Ada compiler." Sure, but other people can build it faster, and it turns out it doesn't matter at all if yours is better.) >> I don't much care about the world outside of the US, at least as far as >> living goes. (It's impractical to move somewhere where I don't understand >> the language, and all English-speaking countries are as bad or worse than >> the US.) > >What about Ireland? Don't they mainly use some language whose name I forget? Or is that mainly ceremonial? In any case, they have the same problem as Canada: too close to a "bad" country, who is in position to strong-arm them if necessary. >Also, the Republic of Malta might be an option for you (yes, they actually >speak English there), and, in a few years, Scotland could became >independent as well. > >But hey, it is not so bad in the US! You have a secret court that secretly >decides that it is secretly OK to secretly spy at you. So everything is >secretly legal, isn't it? (Well, this has become off topic for c.l.a, but >I just couldn't resist.) I rest my case. ;-) Randy. ------ I love the taste of Cryptanalysis in the morning! ------ --Stefan.Lucks (at) uni-weimar.de, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany--