Interesting that you mention the NSA, yet position others like Apple as being "privacy friendly".
The problem, the biggest problem with the NSA is that any US company can be coerced into whatever the NSA wants, without you or me ever finding out about it, even if the company in question wants to act in good faith and protect the privacy of its customers.
If Apple was or is coerced by the NSA to install backdoors into OS X or iOS, do you think you'll find out about it? And given the popularity of Apple's operating systems, I would be surprised if that didn't happen already.
Heck, it's not even open-source we're talking about. At least then you'd be able to inspect the source and compile and deploy your own binaries. And interestingly, I find Android to be better for the privacy/security conscious, even though it was born out of Google's desires for their ads to remain relevant in a mobile world - not because I trust Google, because I don't, but because it has less restrictions on what you can do with it, it's more transparent and it allows for forks (YMMV).
On the Real Names policy, I also hope it's a fad that is dying. What a stupid policy to begin with. I also had high hopes for G+, too bad it didn't happen.
The problem, the biggest problem with the NSA is that any US company can be coerced into whatever the NSA wants, without you or me ever finding out about it, even if the company in question wants to act in good faith and protect the privacy of its customers.
If Apple was or is coerced by the NSA to install backdoors into OS X or iOS, do you think you'll find out about it? And given the popularity of Apple's operating systems, I would be surprised if that didn't happen already.
Heck, it's not even open-source we're talking about. At least then you'd be able to inspect the source and compile and deploy your own binaries. And interestingly, I find Android to be better for the privacy/security conscious, even though it was born out of Google's desires for their ads to remain relevant in a mobile world - not because I trust Google, because I don't, but because it has less restrictions on what you can do with it, it's more transparent and it allows for forks (YMMV).
On the Real Names policy, I also hope it's a fad that is dying. What a stupid policy to begin with. I also had high hopes for G+, too bad it didn't happen.