DOJ: We don't need warrants for e-mail, Facebook chats
Guys, when will it sink through? The technology to protect yourself from wiretapping <i>is in your hands</i>. End-to-end asymmetric encryption has never been more accessible. Explain to your friends and family what PGP is <i>and start using it</i>.<p>Maybe the NSA has it cracked, maybe not. But the IRS sure doesn't, nor do the FDA, DEA, FCC, FBI, Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft for that matter.<p>EDIT:<p>Here's how it works: I run PGP/GPG (GPG is the open source/free version of PGP, they're the same protocol) locally and the first time I use it, it creates two files, a "public key" and a "private key". I post/share my "public key" online (and you assume it's really me sharing it with you - this is important).<p><pre><code>   gnupg --gen-key
   gpg --armor --output Desktop/mqudsi.asc --export "Mahmoud Al-Qudsi"
</code></pre>
For example, here is my public key: 
<a href="http://neosmart.net/downloads/miscellania/mqudsi.asc" rel="nofollow">http://neosmart.net/downloads/miscellania/mqudsi.asc</a><p>Anyone can now use this key to send me a text message encrypted only for me. They just need this file and their own pgp/gpg private key; they tell it to encrypt message X for user with public key Y.<p>The result of that command (gpg --encrypt --recipient 'Mahmoud Al-Qudsi <mqudsi@neosmart.net>' toencrypt.txt) will be encrypted text that no one but the holder of the private key (me) (which should never be shared) will be able to decode.<p>The result is plaintext. You can send it via email, text message, snail mail, whatever. There are apps that automate the encryption procedure as part of the sending process.