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What really gets to me about this short sighted approach to ‘our’ security is that it won’t work. Just like the introduction of Big Brother style mandatory data retention laws in Australia which has seriously boosted the fortunes of offshore VPN providers, it doesn’t work. It can’t work. We’re not more secure. We’re not safer. We’re spied upon, and in the case of Australia, an unregulated plethora of government and related interests sans warrant, sans judicial oversight.

How so? Grab an Android based phone and build your own kernel, your own operating system. It’s not that hard to do. And those who would seek to terrorise us become our own governments. The real villans can simply side step these interventions. Have VPN will travel (and be invisible especially if you pay in bitcoin). Grab a burner SIM and set yourself up. Easy. I mean, seriously, how can this even happen today when we’re supposedly so well informed? How and why do we let this erosion of our freedom from unwarranted and unnecessary spying take place?

Rant precipitated by this zdnet article.