why privacy and security matters

[Patrick Freundt]

To give those who care a bit more background information why I seem to
act like a super troll within the thread "proper procedure regarding
bug reports":

In the appartment next door a 21 year old girl lives with her mom. Her
dad seems to be working for some online university and has influence
on certain network infrastructure that is involved with Freenode's
and OFTC's Internet Relay Chat servers aswell as certain FTP mirror
sites.

Every time when I make a posting online or when I am ranting at
someone on Freenode or OFTC that 21 year old girl gives immediate
feedback, making the sound of a barking dog, knocking on the wall,
etc.

Since you cant choose neighbours by sanity it would not matter much,
but about 14 months ago I was part of a strange game that was almost a
copy of the movie "The Game" with Michael Douglas, where I ended up on
remote hosts that displayed content that was manipulated, just to
carry me through several quests.

People who know me would be like "well, you have been harassing people
online with your rants about morals and ethics. this 21 year old girl
only helps to teach you to be less schizophrenic".

But since a few months this 21 year old girl is totally out of
control. She makes loud noise for hours and when you politely ask her
to tune it down she is acting up with a self confidence that is simply
unreal. Even when the police talks to her.

So no matter what I do online it mixes with real life in a way that is
not a game anymore. And the main point is that a 21 year old girl
seems to have power over my life - with the help of certain people
obviously.

Now to come to the point of privacy and security:

In such a context, when people play games on the internet, it really
matters that your local computer does only do what you want it to do.


Patrick