(Posted to both extropians and cypherpunks.) Is there any way for a process running in a computer to verify that it has privacy? How could an AI, for instance, ever know that it had privacy? How could a person preparing to be uploaded provide for their continuing privacy? Assume these things, for the sake of argument: Strong public key crypto. Truly tamper-proof computers. Capability-based operating systems with proven protection between processes. We might ask Norm Hardy for a rundown on some of the wonderful things that are possible in these types of systems. You might even assume that... Humans can memorize things, and these things can't be decoded from their uploads' memory dumps. (See note on torture below). The process/person seeking assurance of privacy is capable of being downloaded into a humanoid robot with enough compute power. Can you prevent the bad guys from copying you and torturing information out of the copy? Can you be secure even if they can do that? Even with the best assumptions, I find this question tough. But then I'm dense sometimes. -fnerd