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Comment by smtddr | Hacker News Reader

If you're going to say your data not safe in Google's hands, then your data just isn't safe on the internet which I think is a needlessly extreme position to take. The OP is right, just focus your dissatisfaction on the government. It's not about is your data safe with Google; it's about your data safe with the government. If you can't trust your government, it doesn't matter where/who/what has your data. Yesterday it was Yahoo & myspace, today Google & Facebook, tomorrow who knows... the only constant is an abusive government. Fix that, then it won't matter what currently trendy company has your data.

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> If you're going to say your data not safe in Google's hands, then your data just isn't safe on the internet which I think is a needlessly extreme position to take.

Google isn't the internet.

Dump gmail, FB and other spy holes. Use public key crypto. Take your own network back.

Or continue on as usual. Our choice.

So basically communicating online only with people that will use pubkey-crypto? I think that's a needless extreme. Also, what happens when everyone does that and the government makes crypto illegal? You're back to the original problem, the abusive government. That being said, I did just suggest encryption in an earlier post today... but that was before I started getting the feeling this problem goes deeper into the government than just a small gov-agency & some cellphone companies.

The problem with PGP is that friction is in every message you send. For every email you have to make the decision about encrypting the message and entering your passphrase. It's a hassle.

The reason I recommend Bitmessage is because after overcoming the friction of installing it, it's frictionless. You don't have to remember passphrases or anything. It also has advantages over PGP-encrypted email like deniability, built-in spam minimization, broadcast messages (like Twitter), chan boards, etc.

No I'm not going to do any of that.

My mother doesn't even know what the words "public key crypto" mean.

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