zlacker

Very good, but it's funny how on the "why IPVanish" page he links to, the first reason given for using a VPN is, to watch Netflix from any location! Oh the horror of limited localised Netflix content. We must protect ourselves. (Really it is awful, I use a VPN for that purpose too). But the point is, it doesn't seem popular to hide metadata from ISPs with VPNs. Will it ever be popular? I'm not so sure. For good or bad, I'm suggesting most people don't care that their IPs are recorded. Email content is not seen, nor what I type into this comment form.

Also, when I send an email to my friend "laserpants@something.com", sure the data captures the send-to email address. But the data doesn't know who laserpants actually is, nor does the email content get saved. I'm not saying laserpants can't be found if the law decides to investigate, but I doubt it's a matter of pressing a button to bring up the real name of laserpants. Especially if laserpants uses different email addresses and a shared internet.

>>exodus+(OP)
I think Snowden showed that it is as easy as pressing a button which is why he went and blurted it out. The NSA were also working to make it easier to track people.

My take on it is privacy is dead or nearly and we have to have good legal protections of who can use what data and when. The privacy arms race will mostly be won by big government with lots of resources and enough willing/foolish patriots (Depending on your point of view).

>>tdyen+Ac
I agree. And the logical next step is that there will be inevitably abuses, that some of the victims of these abuses will ultimately access power, and that we will have proper privacy protection after that, like we do for regular mail or like we do for your physical home.

It is just a shame that we have to go through the whole cycle given that we just know it should happen. But in a way, the more extensive the surveillance is, the quicker this cycle will happen. And right now we are in a pretty bad place already. So let's be optimistic!

>>exodus+(OP)
But the problem is, it IS easy. Even anonymized at assets are de-anonymized trivially,using secondary datasets. You can uniquely identify more than 87% of the US population with gender, birthday, and zip code. For more than 50%, you can use the municipality name instead of zip.

If your friend uses a separate, privately maintained email address for everyone and every service, that will help a lot. Then we only know his identity because email is sent in the clear, even between his own server and home computer. Of course, everyone uses separate email addresses for everyone, right?

>>exodus+(OP)
Who cares about a "real name"? A "real name" doesn't tell you anything about a person. Or at least nearly nothing. It's an arbitrary label. If I know how much money you spend on what, which other people you communicate with, how often, and at which times, I know way more about you than if I knew just your name. And I don't need to know your name to recognize you by your cookies. Or your email address. Or your IP address.

If you regularly send emails back and forth with a specific doctor, I have a pretty good idea which condition you have. If you regularly call a specific company at specific times, I have a pretty good idea that you work there. ...

Also, private surveillance is not about "finding you", but about influencing groups of people. For business purposes. Or maybe for political purposes. If I know that you are likely to be receptive to a specific kind of emotional message, I don't care what your birth certificate says, I care about how to get that message onto your screen in front of your eyes.

And finally, as other have mentioned: Yes, it is a matter of pressing a button. That is the essence of what Snowden revealed, if you will.