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tpb772000 OP t1_iuj6io5 wrote

Reply to comment by Lithuim in eli5 What came of Edward Snowden leaking all of that classified intel? by tpb772000

Is there a way to stop this?

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synmotopompy t1_iuj7lxd wrote

Your mail is stored as a plaintext, so everyone that has access to mail providers could read it. Stop using mail systems. Or encrypt your every message with PGP and have the other parties do the same. Both are really cumbersome.

Is being not spied on possible? Yes. Will it exclude you from the society? Yes.

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bradland t1_iuja3ii wrote

Your mail is not necessarily stored as plaintext. It depends on where your mail is housed. You can absolutely encrypt email at rest. The hard question is whether everyone you correspond with also encrypts email at rest.

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synmotopompy t1_iujc6v7 wrote

Sure, my mail can be encrypted in storage. It all depends how much you trust your mail provider.

Note that encrypting uses more CPU than plaintext does, so it costs more money in the long run. Now think from the perspective of a mail provider: "What do they care that their emails are not encrypted if they have no way to verify that?" At some companies (Google for instance) I'm sure they do everything in their might to store the mails securely. But they have to obey every order from the government and yield mails, so that means they store encryption keys which makes it a moot point. Note that even privacy advertised mails like protonmail obey government subpoenas and lie to their users that they don't store the keys while they do.

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bradland t1_iujfgvm wrote

I only pointed it out because it's not a great blanket statement because it gives the impression that there is something inherent about email that means it is stored as plaintext. I fully agree that security is hard, and securing against a government while operating within their jurisdiction is just about impossible, but your email may not be stored in plain text.

Just as an example, ProtonMail offers encrypted email with protection that is good enough right up to the point that a major nation-state takes a very strong interest in you. They're based in Switzerland as a means to make it more difficult to compel access to user data. Nothing is impossible, of course.

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Lithuim t1_iuj75vb wrote

Neither political party seems particularly interested in dismantling the deep state.

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prozak09 t1_iujh7n3 wrote

I don't believe I am relevant enough to matter to them, if I was, I probably would already know. I am not an activist in any way. All I want is for the US government to go back to when they were able find a middle ground to actually help society. I don't think that can be considered radical.

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tpb772000 OP t1_iujhcqt wrote

Same here, I do not matter like that but want theme to do more good than harm.

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jm7489 t1_iujbtkw wrote

Well there are literally hundreds of millions of people to actually spy on, and I doubt an agency like the NSA even cares about your run of the mill illegal activity either.

But no. You haven't had right to privacy since 2001

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tpb772000 OP t1_iujc2mu wrote

Right, I know I am but a insignificant person and not worth watching watching, but it is a sobering thought.

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jm7489 t1_iujcx0z wrote

Well here is one that might help. The only difference between now and when you were ignorant of it was your own blissful ignorance.

Not to say I condone or necessarily believe the NSA is a lesser evil. But I made peace with the reality of things a long time ago.

What's truly alarming is the pure lack of real reaction from the public when the horrible things that happen behind the scenes get brought to light

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tpb772000 OP t1_iujd897 wrote

I was aware of it when it first came out, then I had some family problems, saw that EU made decisions and after that I forgot about it like the forgetful person I am. Remembered it every now and then but never saw anything.

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celestiaequestria t1_iujgaj2 wrote

To stop yourself from being monitored? Unless you're planning to drop out of society and live in the woods, no.

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Latin_For_King t1_iujbb7s wrote

Not as long as the government wants it this way, and they sure as hell are not asking for it to be on a nationwide referendum.

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