Until a few years ago you were perfectly content with keeping an agenda in your pocket and pictures in your living room's drawer. A minimum of privacy is of course needed and welcome; however, unless you're planning a major terror attack, or strategic war plans, or you have incredibly valuable industrial secrets (all cases in which you'll probably be using specialized SW to keep your information) you don't really need incredibly advanced security simply because nobody is going to spend vast amounts of time and resources to uncover your little secrets. The GP is talking about switching phone (spending money) to obtain a level of security that he won't need in a million years.
only because they weren't (thought to be) subject to casual perusal by unknown entities. this is a silly thing to even mention.
> unless you're planning a major terror attack
ah, the "if you don't have anything to hide" rhetoric. do you really buy that?
> a level of security that he won't need
unless there is some nontrivial cost or burden associated, it's a red herring to belabor whether it's "too strong" or "more than needed".
This morning I was having a conversation with my fiancee, who said "if the US government gets a warrant they can open your mail, they can tap your phone calls, they can come into your house and search -- why should your phone be some sort of zone they cannot search even with a warrant?"
I happen not to agree but this is not some wacko view.
As to why they disagree: HN's audience is not representative of the general citizenry. We're better informed about technical security matters (or we like to think we are, at least). I suspect that correlates with being less willing to trust security to the goodwill of third parties.
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to fear."
"If you do want something private then you must be doing something wrong, ARE YOU A TERRORIST!?!?!?!"
