No.
Back when all nodes were trusted, when running an open mail relay was considered polite, there was not only no reason to believe that the internet was a potential threat to privacy, there was an implicit trust that information would be served anonymously and logs were to be kept only for diagnostics.
Then came the Web and us denizens of usenet (and Archie and Veronica and Gopher and ClariNet, et al) were plunged into the endless September. The government took even longer to catch up. Those of us who grew up when cracking (we called it hacking, though we must be more nuanced these days) doj.gov (and countless *.mil domains) was considered good fun also grew up in an era when the social norm of the internet meant no one would ever use information for evil purposes...which specifically included marketing.
In the post-Web era, we've seen our trustworthy playground paved over with a strip mall selling trinkets and surveillance. In the beginning, "we and our information" were NOT the product being sold. Nothing was being sold. The death of all that voluntary cooperation still gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I think I'll insert a copy of TAILS and boot into TOR. At least when I hang out with the criminals, I can accept their lack of manners. I asked for it. The rest of the internet? None of us who've been around long enough asked for it to change from what it once was and we'll never stop being bitter about that.
I should have been more specific about where the informative has always been. Public and private records on paper in file cabinets is what I meant. The Web just presented a way to make a PI's job easier.
The Shangrila of a no evil, free net, was short lived and doomed from the start, and as you pointed out manners have declined as well. I might add, they've declined at about the same pace in the real world.
My whole point was, privacy has been dead for some time. The Web sped up the process, and just like processing speeds, the rate of increase is geometric. Cameras cover huge swaths of territory all over the world. Texas troopers will soon be using technology on the tollways of NTTA that can process license plates, without human help, at normal driving speed in real time. Thereby allowing them to locate habitual toll violators and stop them. It isn't a stretch to see that tech being used to literally track someone in their car.
Being anonymous on the net is still doable, in public, maybe not for much longer. What's the bigger fish here is all I'm saying.
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