Hello, note to self listener. It is your host, Manouche. And the reason you're hearing

this is because I'm on vacation, which means that what you're about to hear is an encore

episode of Note to Self, a nice way of saying it's a repeat. But hey, we only re-release

our absolute favorites. So please enjoy this episode again, or maybe enjoy it for the

very first time if you're new to the show. And while you're here, please subscribe to

Note to Self, because we'll be back with something brand new really soon.

I'm a new summer Odie. And on this week's show, a conversation that changed how I feel

about snooping and surveillance. Because I don't know about you, but usually when I hear

the NSA is collecting my phone data, or that Buzzfeed archives all my answers to their

silly personality quizzes, what I really want to do is stick my fingers in my ear and go,

la la la la la la la. Because what's the point of knowing if there's nothing we can do?

Well, on this episode, a new perspective. Because getting the scary details can actually make

us feel better. It's like if you were told that you have a disease, you would still want to know,

right? Like, what does the research say? What's the prognosis? It's a way of having just a little

control. What's that cliche? Knowledge is power. And in the past couple of weeks, I got numerous

emails from you. Listeners asking for help in understanding privacy and data better. You're

going to hear some of those emails and voice memos that you sent in throughout the show. And

thanks for those, by the way, keep them coming. We love answering them.

So to tutor us in privacy and data, I turned to a really nice guy. Some of you might have heard of

him. Bruce Schneier. He's been writing about encryption since the 1990s. He's the author of

about a dozen books and man does he have a hardcore following as one of the best cryptographers

in the world. There are even Bruce Schneier fan t-shirts. You can go online and find them.

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