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It's interesting that, historically, privacy didn't need protecting because it was trivially available and people won't have thought much about the possibility that in the future it would not longer be technically available.

Privacy didn't need protecting in history before bugging. If a founding father wanted to talk to someone privately they just went stood apart from everybody else.

50 years ago, standing apart no longer provided privacy because of long range microphones etc, but those were targeted attacks on diplomats etc.

Nowadays, you can probably do a nice undergrad project to recreate conversations from lip reading streetview video clips.

Privacy was defacto available hundreds of years ago, but is technically impossible now. (Imagine the kinds of body checks that will be introduced before you enter a US SCIF post the chess cheating scandal!)



The recent emphasis on internet anonymity is mostly not a response to better tech for eavesdropping.




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