Recently, American Edward Snowden exposed a ton of information about what information the US government, via the NSA, is collecting off the internet. The NSA, naturally, had given anything but a straight answer. It seems the NSA program exists in some form, but many details remain murky. No matter, Edward said he wanted to have a discussion about surveillance, and perhaps privacy, and that is what this post is really about.

Although Nexodyne continues to work well, I came across another site that allows me to add the nifity envelope to the image, so I decided to change my little “Email me” picture. The site gives you three options, but the downside is you have to host the image yourself (Nexodyne would host it for you) and it only works for GMail. If you have another email provider, check out Nexodyne, but if you like the envelope and have a Gmail account, get your own image here! (The only downside is figuring out how to get a transparent background - Photoshop doesn’t seem to like me today).

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

— Albert Einstein

With new technology, comes new concerns. In the case of electronic mail, it is that of spam. At least when we get junk mail at home, we can quickly sort through it and drop it into the recycle bin. The fact that you have to pay someone to print and deliver the flyers does serve to deter companies from filling up everyone’s mailbox with non-addressed mail. Spam, on the other hand, can be sent for almost free. I guess they must make some sales out of it, or you would think that they would have given up on the tactics long ago. But where do they get email addresses to spam? Unlike delivering flyers, where you can just walk down the street, you have to actually know someone’s email address.