The case for quitting e-mail; Washington Post, 3/20/15

Anne Applebaum, Washington Post; The case for quitting e-mail:

"What to do? Increasingly, the answer — not just for government officials but for all of us — is going to be: Don’t use e-mail. Or at least don’t use e-mail for anything that you wouldn’t put on a postcard. And maybe don’t use e-mail for anything that you wouldn’t mind seeing published in a newspaper. Although we are used to thinking of e-mail as a “private” form of communication, it’s just become too easy to steal and will only become more so.

As a result, these methods have become readily available to all kinds of people, not just those who work for governments. The same is true of bugs and recording devices, many of which are now so cheap, small and portable that they don’t require special investment to install, let alone special espionage training. In London, the Sunday Mirror is on trial for hacking into celebrities’ telephones, repeatedly, over many years. If tabloid journalists can do it, anybody can. Recording a telephone conversation is easy, bugging a restaurant or a hotel room even easier. Public officials are just now waking up to the fact that they live in a world of total surveillance. It won’t be long before the rest of us are going to discover the same thing.

Technology may eventually provide solutions, perhaps in the form of user-friendly encrypted e-mail systems, perhaps in the form of new-generation sweepers that can detect the latest bugs. The legal system may eventually catch up, too. But until then, life for anyone who wants to be protected from any kind of prying — from snooping companies, from governments, from media, from ex-spouses — will have to move in the opposite direction and use less technology. If you don’t want to be overheard, it’s not enough anymore to stay away from Facebook: Don’t use e-mail, don’t talk on the phone and do speak in person, preferably outside. Above all, write letters. The postman might read it, but the government, your colleagues and the Sunday Mirror probably won’t."