As long as it's easier for the mass majority of people to not use encryption (or even know what it means) then it is for them to use it, then there will be companies/people which exploit it.
People have been told for years to not give out their social security #'s unless absolutly necessary, but the majority of people still place it on any form which asks for it, regardless of who it is for. It's easier to comply then to ask what they could possibly need the # for.
Also, the strength of these online info grabbers (huge amounts of information) is also their weakness, as they allow for huge amounts of disinformation to be taken in. Don't like that online vendors are taking and saving your info? Then screw up their system a little bit...transpose a few numbers, etc... Read Robert Heinlien's Friday. Laws will be years coming, and due to the nature of the internet, hard to enforce. In the end, the only thing that will make a big difference is educated individuals. Where non-physical privacy invasion is concerned, it should be left up to the individual, not the government.
Slashdot Mirror
People have been told for years to not give out their social security #'s unless absolutly necessary, but the majority of people still place it on any form which asks for it, regardless of who it is for. It's easier to comply then to ask what they could possibly need the # for.
Also, the strength of these online info grabbers (huge amounts of information) is also their weakness, as they allow for huge amounts of disinformation to be taken in. Don't like that online vendors are taking and saving your info? Then screw up their system a little bit...transpose a few numbers, etc... Read Robert Heinlien's Friday. Laws will be years coming, and due to the nature of the internet, hard to enforce. In the end, the only thing that will make a big difference is educated individuals. Where non-physical privacy invasion is concerned, it should be left up to the individual, not the government.