The Snowden case is intensely complex and difficult to understand. I don’t know how to contextualize the work he did or the means he used to do it. Regardless, the story of how independent signal escapes constraints here is fascinating. http://www.vogue.com/11122973/sarah-harrison-edward-snowden-wikileaks-nsa/

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/edward_snowden_citizenfour_the_former_contractor_sparked_a_movement_that.html" In 1995 I downloaded my first copy of PGP.EXE and promptly started encrypting everything. Regrettably, I didn’t have anything worth saving (fan poetry about Gillian Anderson aside) much less encrypting. Now that Snowden has pointed out what’s actually happening hopefully: There will be other cypherpunks (from my 1995 guide to web lingo courtesy of “Mondo 2000”) The UX for encryption features won’t be so goddam awful