Now, you 're attacking the messenger and sidestepping the issue. The kinds of surveillance the article talks about are inherent in the structure of the internet, hardly anything to do with hollywood lockdowns.
>The kinds of surveillance the article talks about are inherent in the structure of the internet
You're not talking about the internet, you're talking about Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. The internet allows you to share your public key with your friend in person and from then on connect directly to their computer and communicate securely. People can tell who you're communicating with but not what you're saying, and if you use an anonymizing service they can't even tell who you're communicating with. Distributed is good for privacy.
The problem is the centralization. The fact that you get your email from the same company you do your web searching with and the same company that hosts your blog means that they have access to all that information about you. If it was all different companies -- or no companies at all, because you host your own email or blog from your house -- then that wouldn't happen.
I suspect thats part of authors point. The Internet is not just the protocol, its what's built on it. So differentiating between google and Facebook vs the net is pointless.
We can slice and dice definitions as much as we like, but the fact remains that the usable, daily net is a panopticon.
That is largely a result of the efforts of governments and media companies. Encryption is not the default for email because of the efforts of the US government. People who run anonymity systems are routinely harassed by the government (try running a Tor exit not or an anonymous remailer -- you had better be ready for early-morning paramilitary raids). Peer to peer filesharing was effectivelly killed by the RIAA and MPAA. The world was forced to move to centralized, insecure systems because the more secure alternatives were all shut down before they could become entrenched.
I've been thinking about dumping Gmail for a few days now. What are good web-based alternatives, with an even better interface, that I can run locally and have it connect to a server on Heroku or something like that? I feel like I have relied on Google's software for so long, as a no-brainer, I don't even know what other good web mail clients there are, and I'd think there must be something great and open source out there.
Roundcube, and SquirrelMail are the two alternatives I can think of. Last time I tried Roundcube was years ago, so I don't know what the state of it is now, but it was an attempt at a more Gmail-ish interface.
1. I don't think that Node.js specifically is the answer.
2. Most of the alternatives are just web-based front-ends to IMAP. My feeling is that to make a 'true' OSS Gmail alternative would require an integrated solution (i.e. an 'email system' with SMTP, IMAP, Web interfaces).
3. I think that the 'state of the art' has languished because everyone has doubled-down on Gmail, and the (now defunct) free-tier of Google Apps for Domains.
You could easily just use another email provider that will take care of the "sewer of pain" while you use a web-based IMAP front-end (or develop your own).
E-mail is just a terrible mess of insecurity and spam no matter how you look at it. Rather than worrying about my e-mail provider I've been focused on eliminating e-mail from my life as much as I can. (I'll admit it's not easy and progress is slow.)
If a man bursts into the room armed to the teeth, points pistols at us and yells that the problem in society today is too many guns, it's okay to attack that messenger and point out that he is part of the problem.
Yes for brevity I skipped a couple of steps in my argument that I knew/assumed most folks on HN wouldn't need spelling out >> surveillance can be beaten by various forms of anonymizing technology >> such technology requires control of your technology environment, hardware & software >> big media companies such as the one printing the article (albeit one by a respected security researcher whose articles I read - via Google Reader - le sigh) are among those entities most aggressive in restricting access, by you and I, to control over our technology choices. [Updated to correct imprecise language]
So... the messenger - or at least the part I criticized, CNN - is not a neutral party in this story and as such it's perfectly legitimate to question their role and interests in the message.
