privacy : Java Glossary

Anything you type on a computer is fair game for the Homeland Security people. There routinely screen all email. They can also track which websites you visit and what you read. If you encrypt your email, say with PGP mail, this will not stop them, just slow them down a little. Encryption is primarily to stop casual snoops.

There are so many bugs in Windows, hackers can exploit them to look at any of your disk files. Again, file encryption will only slow them down and keep out the amateurs.

The Homeland Security people (and brethren) know exactly what sort of pornography you like to view, and may at some point in future use that to blackmail or intimidate you. You position is something like the Gene Hackman character at the end of the movie The Conversation when he could not find the listening bug no matter how he stripped his apartment to the bare boards. He had to learn to live knowing he was being spied on 24/7, like the characters in 1984