> "Trust no one! Suspect EVERYTHING!", I can say today without sounding crazy.
It's really not that hard to say this seriously without wearing a tinfoil hat. I've been doing that since high school.
The key is thinking in terms of operations, rather than in terms of generic trust. You need to know what you're doing, maintain opsec and have a strong, realistic threat analysis. For me, the Snowden cascade hasn't changed anything: if someone can penetrate the USGov's defenses, then they can almost certainly penetrate mine.
And that has always been true.
The revelations are a matter of ideological trust--trust in whether or not someone agrees with you--, but the USGov has never had much of this kind of trust, not even at its founding, nor has it ever acquired it.
It's really not that hard to say this seriously without wearing a tinfoil hat. I've been doing that since high school.
The key is thinking in terms of operations, rather than in terms of generic trust. You need to know what you're doing, maintain opsec and have a strong, realistic threat analysis. For me, the Snowden cascade hasn't changed anything: if someone can penetrate the USGov's defenses, then they can almost certainly penetrate mine.
And that has always been true.
The revelations are a matter of ideological trust--trust in whether or not someone agrees with you--, but the USGov has never had much of this kind of trust, not even at its founding, nor has it ever acquired it.