My only contribution is the mantra: "Take comfort in your own unimportance." That is to say, paranoia has more than a smidgen of self-aggrandisement to it, and though everyday worrying is not paranoia, it's important to remember the allure inherent in thinking yourself a certain target. Most of us, perhaps all of us on this list, aren't worth it; whatever we do which might displease the government or a real or fictive person with power is almost certainly being done at the same time by a lot of other people.
Fear of being watched is part of the plan of anyone maliciously watching.
Except, of course, that while you as an individual may be unimportant, information about you is. Your email address is important to spammers, who seem to go to extraordinary lengths to get it and to break through any barriers you might attempt to erect to prevent them from filling your email file[*] with crap. Mass marketers want your physical mail address, to which they direct entire old growth forests worth of paper to entice you to refinance, change your phone carrier, or reshingle your house, usually with some deceptive come-on to dupe the slow-witted. Telemarketers. . . well, you get the idea. In the future, your shopping cart will spy on you as you cruise the aisles of your local megamart, phoning home whenever you slow down in front of the Oreos display, buy cheese, or condoms. Your TiVo already reports what programs you record, what commercials you skip and which ones you rewind and watch again. Your CD or MP3 player will probably be soon uploading your music preferences back to the RIAA. And if you wish to live anything resembling a comfortable life, you will have no option but to submit. Your every move will be watched, not just by TIA and the CIA but Nielson, Safeway, Wal*Mart, Fox, and Nike. The government only cares about your politics. The real Big Brother cares about your wallet and is thus much, much, more motivated. spl -- [*] I hate the "mail box" metaphor. It's not a box. It's a file. Or a directory. Whatever it is, it ain't a box. But that's another rant for another day. ----------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]