Tinfoil Underwear

Atlantic, The, May, 2006 by James Fallows

How concerned, really, should ordinary computer users be about the evidence we leave behind when we browse, shop, communicate, and amuse ourselves on the Internet? Early this year, as controversy built over the government’s warrantless surveillance of telephone and computer messages, I asked a number of technology experts whether they were worried about their own privacy, and what steps, if any, they would recommend to the nonexpert computing public. I found strong agreement among them about the scale and nature of the problem, and a surprising emphasis on the need and the right way to deal with it.

The main thing the experts said they know, and the public probably doesn’t, is how completely modern life has shifted to an “on-the-record” basis. You can drop a letter in a...

Read the full article with a Free Trial at MyWire.

Premium Content Partnership | MyWire provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.