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afterall, there's always analog solution to every problem

Indeed. Complex, modern cryptography ain't got nothing on a good old analog Cone of Silence.

To be more efficent, you could use one or more conical shaped pieces of this material that are just large enough to surround a single person's head/upper-body. This could then be lowered down from the ceiling only when you need to use it. You could call it, "The Cone of Silence".

THE CONE OF SILENCE! http://www.cinerhama.com/getsmart/innovations.html

Control thought of these things way back in the 1960's. Their highly advanced Cone of Silence(TM) and other innovations would be no match for such technology... er, would you believe that it's the other way around?

What? I told you not to tell me that!

Yeah, like the Cone of Silence

Each viewer sits under a "cone of silence". I'm sure they'll get the bugs worked in time.

Ah, the old gun-in-the-inflatable-seahorse trick.

http://www.cinerhama.com/getsmart/innovations.html

-Don

"See Chief? It's working fine!"

"We're supposed to be sitting, Max!"

"We are sitting, Chief."

"I'm telling you Max, this isn't a good idea!"

"You see? Stuck!!"

"No Max! Not THAT way!!"

"AAAAAAAAAaaaaaagh!"

"censored"

... they just need to come up with an updated, portable, cone of silence.

I can't believe no one had hacked a cell phone to create a "shoe phone" yet. Has anyone seen one?

Both wrong. It is from a late 60s tv series called Get Smart

So, in all, this paper is not insignificant, but it's also not a reason to completely give up on security or to install a cone of silence around your computer.

I'm not sure that I could fit this around a computer in the first place.

Get Smart was prohetic to say the least! Would you believe this much?

by America's top intelligence agencies. See here.

Maybe, maybe not. But I was more considering business, which is probably most email. I'm also on several mailing lists, discussing various technical issues -- there's no way I'd want that in spoken word. Text is so much easier for the reader -- you can skim the boring bits, reread the important parts, cut and paste and forward easily. You see it on SF movies all the time for the same reason you hear beeps when text appeas on a monitor in a movie -- not becasue it's realistic, just that it's more dramatic, not really more useful. At work you can get dozens of emails a day. It would take hours more to have to listen to them rather than read them.

If you're going to extrapolate 20 years, hopefully voice recognition actually works by then. If someone chooses to send a spoken message they can, but the recipient can choose to read it as text if he prefers.

Also other problems of voicemail -- interference from ambient noise at both ends, annoyance to those nearby (unless we have portable Get Smart Cones of Silence. Radio and TV can't replace newspapers. There will be more voicemail, but it can't replace email. And the horrors of voicemail spam...

if someone could build a "wave cancellation" device

What you REALLY need is the Cone of Silence.

...we use the cone of silence something terrible happens. Can't you just write it out to me on a piece of paper?

This was already done in the Get Smart! T.V. series.