[ExI] internet privacy

Tara Maya tara at taramayastales.com
Tue Jul 29 00:04:06 UTC 2014



On Jul 20, 2014, at 7:03 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Germans and the Japanese found out that you could not decode a language - namely Navaho.
> 
> So why try to encrypt net traffic so that people can't read it?  Any code can be broken by supercomputers, right?
> 
> Then why not create a language and use that?  I know there's probably a very simple answer to this, but this nontechie doesn't know it.  Please forgive if this is a 'duh' question.
> 
> bill w

I think you are right. If you really belong to a community that has a true, living language, and you all use that, you could probably maintain your privacy. I am not convinced that our decoding skills are sufficient to break a living language yet.

The problem is that if you don't already belong to such a community -- and I'd venture to guess that almost no one who is worried about computer privacy, unless they are secretly extra-terrestrial aliens living amongst us, does so -- then it's very hard to reap the advantages. If you pick an existing rare language and learn it, what is to stop the Snoopers from doing the same? If you invent the language, how can you make sure it is both sufficiently expansive and different from known languages as to be indecipherable yet sufficiently easy and relevant to modern life as to be learnable? 

Finally, how do you communicate with people who do not speak this language -- ie. most of the world with whom you need to do online socializing, never mind business? 

Tara Maya
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