El Kabong wrote:

>>On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>>What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>>move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer is
>>probably more content.

> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.

> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
> speech.

Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express their opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization just to use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.

> I don't trust tor because too many agencies with almost unlimited
> funds have been trying to deannonomise it for years. I like IPFS, and
> I love i2p. Freenet never spoke to me.

http://rslight.i2p/computers/thread.php?group=alt.fan.usenet

Freenet seems more of a club obsessed with anti-spam over anonymity. At least FMS seems that way.

--
Retro Guy

On Sun, 31 Mar 2024, El Kabong wrote:

>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>> What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>> move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer is
>> probably more content.
>
> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.

I use my regular laptop, but at least it has linux on it which has
successfully protected me and my family for many years against a lot of
malware.

> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
> speech.

I don't own a smartphone, and I do suffer for it. I cannot use the
government electronic services, pay 3-4x for taxis, and those are probably
the two things I miss the most. Government services I can of course work
around, but it does hurt to pay that much for taxis. What I do, when
possible, is to Stallman my way to Über and Bolt taxis if I know the
person.

The same is true in sweden. If you say "negro" or say anything bad about
islam you can be fined.

In fact, the political left is funding an organization who's only job it
is to monitor facebook and try to fine old people who are not up to date
on woke language. Sad state of affairs in a modern western democracy.

> I don't trust tor because too many agencies with almost unlimited
> funds have been trying to deannonomise it for years. I like IPFS, and
> I love i2p. Freenet never spoke to me.

I think tor is fine as long as the government is not after you. If the
government is after you, nothing will help you except powerful friends
(other governments).

On Sun, 31 Mar 2024, Retro Guy wrote:

> El Kabong wrote:
>
>>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>>> What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>>> move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer is
>>> probably more content.
>
>> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.
>
>> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
>> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
>> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
>> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
>> speech.
>
> Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express their
> opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization just to
> use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.
>
>> I don't trust tor because too many agencies with almost unlimited
>> funds have been trying to deannonomise it for years. I like IPFS, and
>> I love i2p. Freenet never spoke to me.
>
> http://rslight.i2p/computers/thread.php?group=alt.fan.usenet
>
> Freenet seems more of a club obsessed with anti-spam over anonymity. At least
> FMS seems that way.
>
>

Speaking of i2p, I tried to use it 2 or 3 times in the past, but it was
always so painfully slow, even after hours and hours of staying online.
Has that changed?

On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 22:51:52 +0200, D wrote:

> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024, Retro Guy wrote:
>
>> El Kabong wrote:
>>
>>>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>>>> move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer is
>>>> probably more content.
>>
>>> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.
>>
>>> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
>>> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
>>> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
>>> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
>>> speech.
>>
>> Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express their
>> opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization just to
>> use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.
>>
>>> I don't trust tor because too many agencies with almost unlimited
>>> funds have been trying to deannonomise it for years. I like IPFS, and
>>> I love i2p. Freenet never spoke to me.
>>
>> http://rslight.i2p/computers/thread.php?group=alt.fan.usenet
>>
>> Freenet seems more of a club obsessed with anti-spam over anonymity. At least
>> FMS seems that way.
>>
>>
>
> Speaking of i2p, I tried to use it 2 or 3 times in the past, but it was
> always so painfully slow, even after hours and hours of staying online.
> Has that changed?

i2p seems to have improved a bit. Still it's common to find eepsites not
load at all, but it's much better than in the past.

On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 13:36:29 +0000, Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> wrote
in Message-ID: <3be50976a793095c63727f7f6121e516@www.novabbs.org>:

> El Kabong wrote:
>
>>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>>> What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>>> move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer
>>> is probably more content.
>
>> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.
>
>> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
>> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
>> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
>> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
>> speech.
>
> Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express
> their opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization
> just to use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.

Unfortunately, anonymization (or at least pseudonymity) is *absolutely*
necessary if one wants to avoid prison, even in the so-called "free" United
States of America. There was a man by the name of Frank McCoy -- he was
convicted and imprisoned for sending a link to where 'obscene' materials may
be found to an undercover officer.

These 'obscene' materials consisted of text-only stories written by him, as
well as some materials that he edited on behalf of others. McCoy was obsessed
with challenging Miller v. California, the Supreme Court case that defines
obscenity in the United States to this day.

Mr. McCoy was a resident of Minnesota; apparently, some of his stories were
found on the hard drives of a Georgia man arrested for some type of sex
offense. The Georgia authorities tried to have McCoy prosecuted in Minnesota,
without success. They then hit upon the idea of an undercover officer posing
as a fan, and emailing Frank asking where his stories could be obtained.

Frank, always willing to help a fan, replied to that officer and included 3
links to sites where his stories could be downloaded from. What McCoy did
not realize was that in doing so, he violated 18 USC 1462 -- one of the so-
called Comstock Acts passed in March 1873.

McCoy's home was raided by a party of armed Federal Marshals, and he was
placed under arrest. Two years later, he was put on trial in the Middle
District of Georgia, and found guilty in the summer of 2013. Frank served
between 18 and 24 months in jail for this 'crime'.

After Frank's release from prison, he was arrested again and charged as a
repeat offender -- this time he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, to be
followed by a further 10 years on parole (he was approximately 70 at the
time of his second trial.)

Frank died of Covid-19 contracted in prison on April 2nd, 2020; 4 years ago
tomorrow.

In 2019, a man by the name of Thomas Alan Arthur (a.k.a. MrDouble) was
arrested by the FBI in Texas. Arthur ran a subscription bulletin board
featuring works by Frank McCoy and other authors. He was tried under the
same statute: 18 USC 1462, and found guilty. He was sentenced to 5 years per
story, for 4 stories, the sentences to be served /consecutively/.

That's 20 years in prison for 4 text stories! Last year, another man, Ron
Kuhlmeyer, was convicted of running a site like Arthur's, and was sentenced
to over 33 years in prison.

Both McCoy and Arthur tried to petition the Supreme Court for a review of
their cases (i.e. certiorari) but both petitions were rejected.

Over the last year or so an increasing number of online story sites have
begun refusing to accept stories featuring underage characters, and deleting
materials already uploaded with underage characters.

The only site still extant with a number of such works is ASSTR, the Alt Sex
Stories Text Repository. A user in the UK mirrored ASSTR, and was arrested
for this just before last Christmas.

All these people: McCoy, Arthur, Kuhlmeyer and Jaxah made no real attempts
to hide their identities, and so all were easily located, identified and
arrested.

On Sun, 31 Mar 2024, Retro Guy wrote:

> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 22:51:52 +0200, D wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024, Retro Guy wrote:
>>
>>> El Kabong wrote:
>>>
>>>>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>>>>> move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer is
>>>>> probably more content.
>>>
>>>> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.
>>>
>>>> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
>>>> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
>>>> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
>>>> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
>>>> speech.
>>>
>>> Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express their
>>> opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization just to
>>> use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.
>>>
>>>> I don't trust tor because too many agencies with almost unlimited
>>>> funds have been trying to deannonomise it for years. I like IPFS, and
>>>> I love i2p. Freenet never spoke to me.
>>>
>>> http://rslight.i2p/computers/thread.php?group=alt.fan.usenet
>>>
>>> Freenet seems more of a club obsessed with anti-spam over anonymity. At least
>>> FMS seems that way.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Speaking of i2p, I tried to use it 2 or 3 times in the past, but it was
>> always so painfully slow, even after hours and hours of staying online.
>> Has that changed?
>
> i2p seems to have improved a bit. Still it's common to find eepsites not
> load at all, but it's much better than in the past.
>

Thank you, that's good to know. Maybe I'll have another look.

On 2024-03-31, El Kabong <Quickdraw@HannaBarbera.com> wrote:
>>On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>

> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
> speech.
>

Is that true? I've heard people say you get visits from the police
just for things you posted on the Internet. It has happened in
Australia a couple of times when people were organising anti-vax
rallies, but arrests for such criticism? Seems hard to believe this
has somehow become a reality in what should be a Western country.

>On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 13:36:29 +0000, Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> wrote:

>Freenet seems more of a club obsessed with anti-spam over anonymity. At least FMS seems that way.

The only thing I like about Freenet is that on FMS there's a section
named "Humor" that has the best politically incorrect memes on the
internet. I mean, it's to die for.

I've been following your Rocksolid hierarchy and it's positively noble
that you'd do all that work to help people get informed and to
communicate and just give it away. It's good to know not everyone is a
greedy selfish bastard.

I wasn't aware of i2pn2.org but I saw it in somebody's headers and
checked it out. That's pretty cool too.

On 2024-04-01, El Kabong <Quickdraw@HannaBarbera.com> wrote:
>>On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 13:36:29 +0000, Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> wrote:
>
>>Freenet seems more of a club obsessed with anti-spam over anonymity. At least FMS seems that way.
>
> The only thing I like about Freenet is that on FMS there's a section
> named "Humor" that has the best politically incorrect memes on the
> internet. I mean, it's to die for.
>
> I've been following your Rocksolid hierarchy and it's positively noble
> that you'd do all that work to help people get informed and to
> communicate and just give it away. It's good to know not everyone is a
> greedy selfish bastard.
>
> I wasn't aware of i2pn2.org but I saw it in somebody's headers and
> checked it out. That's pretty cool too.

Is Freenet called Hyphanet now?

>On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 22:51:03 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>I think tor is fine

https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/1aym73t/tor_developers_caught_colluding_with_the_us_govt/
https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/1bjavfg/more_tor_maleficence_revealed/

>On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 13:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Is Freenet called Hyphanet now?

Yes

Nomen Nescio wrote:

> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 13:36:29 +0000, Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> wrote
> in Message-ID: <3be50976a793095c63727f7f6121e516@www.novabbs.org>:

>> El Kabong wrote:
>>
>>>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 11:31:01 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> What I think about is what I'd need to drop the internet completely and
>>>> move over to gopher except banking and shopping, and I think the answer
>>>> is probably more content.
>>
>>> I do banking/shopping with Whonix on a Kicksecure host.
>>
>>> It didn't start out that way, but smart phones and a regular internet
>>> connection have become a way to spy on people; and not just
>>> advertising. In England if you complain online about the immigration
>>> policy the cops come to your house and threaten to arrest you for hate
>>> speech.
>>
>> Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express
>> their opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization
>> just to use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.

> Unfortunately, anonymization (or at least pseudonymity) is *absolutely*
> necessary if one wants to avoid prison, even in the so-called "free" United
> States of America. There was a man by the name of Frank McCoy -- he was
> convicted and imprisoned for sending a link to where 'obscene' materials may
> be found to an undercover officer.

> These 'obscene' materials consisted of text-only stories written by him, as
> well as some materials that he edited on behalf of others. McCoy was obsessed
> with challenging Miller v. California, the Supreme Court case that defines
> obscenity in the United States to this day.

Yes, it's a problem in the US also. I believe I remember this case, and it is just written words. It's a serious issue to face prosecution/jail for what you write (or say).

I'm even more shocked with what we're seeing in the UK and some other European countries recently. It really first caught my attention with Mark Meechan (prosecuted for a silly dog/hitler salute) when the same country has a television show about a silly Hitler. It's only gone downhill from there.

Canada is scary now.

--
Retro Guy

>On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 13:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Is Freenet called Hyphanet now?

I'll probably always call it Freenet, like I'll always call X Twitter.
Proof again, as if any was needed, that grouchy old men don't like
change.

Grant Taylor wrote:

> I don't know what sort of governance various area / regional / national
> coordinators have over FidoNet any more.
>
> If memory serves, it was possible to add points without contacting any
> coordinator as they were subtended off of a node.
>
> I think nodes required minimal coordination with the area coordinator
> mostly so that they could update the list.
>
> I don't know what is technically required to function vs what should be
> done by accepted convention.

FidoNet works with a file called the NodeList. That file contains the
information that the program needs to directly contact any other BBS in
the network. I have no idea of the status of the rules and update
process today, but I can describe what it was when the whole system was
active.

The geographic organization was network and node, where the networks
were generally an area code. So if you were in Chicago, network 115, if
you wanted to start a FidoNet BBS you contacted the local network
coordinator (who you could see in the NodeList) and were given a node
number, so the address of your BBS might be 115/777. The network
coordinator added your node to the local NodeList and send it to the
Zone coordinator. There were six zones - North America, South America,
Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Updates to the NodeList flowed up to
the Zone Coordinators, who send their updated lists to the Zone 1
Coordinator, who merged all the updates and sent back the updated list,
which then was communicated back down to the individual BBS sysops.
According to that universal font of knowledge, Wikipedia, at its peak
there were 40,000 systems in FidoNet.

One of the duties of the network coordinator was to handle mail for the
nodes in that network, so if you as a sysop had mail for another node,
you did not contact them directly but instead sent you mail to the
network coordinator who, during National Mail Hour, would send it to its
network host and receive anything incoming to their network. During
National Mail Hour, which was during the wee hours in North America, the
BBS was not available for human use and was configured only to accept
mail from other FidoNet systems.

On top of this infrastructure was EchoMail. It used the same philosophy
as Usenet (and Facebook, and Reddit) of having interest-based groups
where people could post and interact with their peers in that group. A
given BBS would carry a subset of these based on the interest of their
users, and this data was exchanged via a collection of systems that
wanted to dedicate resources to providing EchoMail to their users.
Turnaround was generally daily, with some systems exchanging data on a
more frequent basis. At their peak, these forums were very active and
operated pretty much identically to Usenet newsgroups in terms of
usefulness, users with great insight, users who were clueless, and
trolls. In fact, if you step away from the formatting and latency
issues, nothing much has changed except the technology since mailing
lists / EchoMail / Usenet / Facebook / Reddit / the rest of what we call
"social media" today.

All of this sounds horribly complex, but the software behind it made
things very routine for the BBS sysop once things were set up.

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024, El Kabong wrote:

>> On Sun, 31 Mar 2024 22:51:03 +0200, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>> I think tor is fine
>
> https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/1aym73t/tor_developers_caught_colluding_with_the_us_govt/
> https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/1bjavfg/more_tor_maleficence_revealed/
>

Exactly my point! Thank you.

On 4/1/24 10:06, Steve Bonine wrote:
> FidoNet works with a file called the NodeList.  That file contains the
> information that the program needs to directly contact any other BBS in
> the network.

That sort of surprises me. I'm not surprised that such a file exists.
I'm surprised that such a file is needed.

I'm sort of surprised that all nodes in the list are directly accessible
from every other node, a la. full mesh.

I'm not at all surprised that IP connected nodes could establish a full
mesh with each other if they wanted to.

But I suspect there are still some holdouts that are dial up and only
connect to specific local boards.

> I have no idea of the status of the rules and update process today,
> but I can describe what it was when the whole system was active.

ACK

> The geographic organization was network and node, where the networks
> were generally an area code.  So if you were in Chicago, network 115, if
> you wanted to start a FidoNet BBS you contacted the local network
> coordinator (who you could see in the NodeList) and were given a node
> number, so the address of your BBS might be 115/777.  The network
> coordinator added your node to the local NodeList and send it to the
> Zone coordinator.  There were six zones - North America, South America,
> Europe, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Updates to the NodeList flowed up to
> the Zone Coordinators, who send their updated lists to the Zone 1
> Coordinator, who merged all the updates and sent back the updated list,
> which then was communicated back down to the individual BBS sysops.

That matches my understanding of what happened.

> According to that universal font of knowledge, Wikipedia, at its peak
> there were 40,000 systems in FidoNet.

:-)

> One of the duties of the network coordinator was to handle mail for the
> nodes in that network, so if you as a sysop had mail for another node,
> you did not contact them directly but instead sent you mail to the
> network coordinator who, during National Mail Hour, would send it to its
> network host and receive anything incoming to their network.  During
> National Mail Hour, which was during the wee hours in North America, the
> BBS was not available for human use and was configured only to accept
> mail from other FidoNet systems.

Yep.

> On top of this infrastructure was EchoMail.  It used the same philosophy
> as Usenet (and Facebook, and Reddit) of having interest-based groups
> where people could post and interact with their peers in that group.  A
> given BBS would carry a subset of these based on the interest of their
> users, and this data was exchanged via a collection of systems that
> wanted to dedicate resources to providing EchoMail to their users.
> Turnaround was generally daily, with some systems exchanging data on a
> more frequent basis. At their peak, these forums were very active and
> operated pretty much identically to Usenet newsgroups in terms of
> usefulness, users with great insight, users who were clueless, and
> trolls.  In fact, if you step away from the formatting and latency
> issues, nothing much has changed except the technology since mailing
> lists / EchoMail / Usenet / Facebook / Reddit / the rest of what we call
> "social media" today.

Agreed all around.

> All of this sounds horribly complex,

Not really.

> but the software behind it made things very routine for the BBS sysop
> once things were set up.

So I've heard.

My question is if nodes outside of your zone needed to know specifics
about your BBS or if they were satisfied with just knowing to send it to
the node for your zone trusting that it would get the message to you.

Think IP aggregation today. ;-)

Maybe the full list was more convention than it was a technical requirement.

--
Grant. . . .

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 14:01:50 +0000, Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> said in
Message-Id: <37aeab382cf5408f3119469a6d7cfc75@www.novabbs.org>:

[snip]

>>> Sometimes I don't realize what issues some go through just to express
>>> their opinions. It's pretty sad that people need to consider anonymization
>>> just to use Usenet, but it may be necessary for some speech.
>
>> Unfortunately, anonymization (or at least pseudonymity) is *absolutely*
>> necessary if one wants to avoid prison, even in the so-called "free"
>> United States of America. There was a man by the name of Frank McCoy --
>> he was convicted and imprisoned for sending a link to where 'obscene'
>> materials may be found to an undercover officer.
>
>> These 'obscene' materials consisted of text-only stories written by him,
>> as well as some materials that he edited on behalf of others. McCoy was
>> obsessed with challenging Miller v. California, the Supreme Court case
>> that defines obscenity in the United States to this day.
>
> Yes, it's a problem in the US also. I believe I remember this case, and it
> is just written words. It's a serious issue to face prosecution/jail for
> what you write (or say).

It's been a problem for /decades/ -- it's just that the law has not been
enforced, by and large. It reminds me of that quote by Frank Zappa:

"The United States is a nation of laws... badly-written and randomly-enforced."

That is likely true of most countries, not only the United States.

When the original Canadian child pornography law (Bill C-128) was passed, in
late-1993, this was just prior to an election, and even though some of the
parties and Parliamentarians had reservations about it, they voted for it
nonetheless, fearing that to fail to do so would leave them liable to being
painted by their opponents as "soft on child pornography" during the imminent
election.

What was truly remarkable, was that even the Editorial Board of the Toronto
Star (Canada's equivalent to the New York Times) slammed the bill as over-
broad, and going too far. In the 30-odd years since then, the bill has been
expanded again and again. Affirmative defences (including artistic merit, if
I am not mistaken) were repealed, and replaced with a far weaker 'public
good' defence.

Over the years, a lot of people have speculated that Stephen King's horror
novel "It" could be condemned as child pornography, since it includes about
10 pages depicting sexual activity involving underage characters. Happily,
Stephen King's novel has never been put on trial, but a Quebec author, Yvan
Godbout, was. Not only was Mr. Godbout put on trial, but so was his publisher,
Les Editions ADA. Thankfully, they were both acquitted, but the publisher's
business (and reputation) is more or less trashed, as is the author's
reputation.

This entire prosecution was based on ONE PARAGRAPH out of a 200-odd page
novel.

As far as the STates are concerned, it's a mess, albeit not as horrific as
a situation as we have in Canada.

I was a friend of Frank's... he died of Covid-19 four years ago on April 2nd,
2020. He contracted it in prison -- he got sick, and a week later he was
dead.

What really astounded me about Frank was the /ferocity/ with which the
Georgia authorities went after him. They were absolutely bound and determined
to nail his hide to the wall, and they succeeded.
> I'm even more shocked with what we're seeing in the UK and some other
> European countries recently. It really first caught my attention with Mark
> Meechan (prosecuted for a silly dog/hitler salute) when the same country
> has a television show about a silly Hitler. It's only gone downhill from
> there.

I wouldn't be caught dead in the UK now.
> Canada is scary now.

Canada has been scary for a LONG time -- I know, I live there. Unfortunately,
it's almost everywhere now.

If you go to the Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) you'll see the following at the
bottom right-hand corner of the page:

Wir nehmen Abschied von einem sicher geglaubten Freund, dem
Fernmeldegheimnis (Artikel 10 Grundgesetz)
23 May 1949 -18 Dezember 2015

We say goodbye to a friend we believed to be safe, telecommunications
secrecy (Article 10 of the Basic Law)
May 23, 1949 - December 18, 2015

This is referring to Article 10 of the German Constitution, which from the
founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, until December, 2015
read as follows:

The privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications shall be
inviolable.

The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Article 10

It was repealed, just a little over 8 years ago, presumably to allow for
mass-surveillance. (Not a particularly good sign.)

**