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All data that is not under your direct control must be assumed to be immediately accessible by the authorities.

Thinking at the extremes is a really useful thought model because it makes stuff like the above relatively unsurprising. It also modifies one's behavior to protect oneself from the most likely worst case scenario.




Yep, I've always assumed if it's not encrypted by a key you yourself hold privately (and not feudal security cloud encryption) wherever that data is kept is subject to some sort of backdoor shady process by either copyright lawyers, US feds or even worse some dangerous government posing as the US and spoofing some faxes that look legit to steal all your emails and data.


That doesn't't mean citizens shouldn't fight for better privacy rights, or at least enforce the ones they have, though. Comments like that always sound defeatist to me.


It's not defeatist because it doesn't imply you just can't do anything about it, it implies you should be responsible for your own key management and encrypt sensitive data appropriately. Government agencies silently seizing an appropriately setup truecrypt container are not a threat.


Another possible way of looking at things:

Everyone has access to all of your data if it would be problematic for you.




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