10 incorrect password attempts, and the encryption chip self-destructs, making the contents of the flash drive totally unreadable.

Man this thing is hard-core!

And for you on-the-sly hobbyists:

A secure copy of Firefox included with your IronKey encrypts your browsing session through a VPN tunnel to IronKey's Secure Sessions Service. It works by tunneling your entire web browsing communications through the Tor-based Secure Sessions proxy on your IronKey. The Secure Sessions tunnel connects over an encrypted connection to their network routing servers, which in turn route your traffic between a number of servers, and then eventually out to your destination website. This approach protects your identity and your confidentiality, encrypting and anonymizing your Web surfing on almost any network or VPN (virtual private network).

-tessen

Heavily encrypt your entire laptop and have a copy of TOR straight on your hard drive?

Oh wait..did I give away my secret?

What would TOR do for you?  Assuming you mean The Onion Routing network...  Ideally you'd use truecrypt with the plausible deniability feature.

TOR wouldn't really do anything unless you meant while you were actually checking your mail and you were afraid someone at the ISP was wise.

Or, you could use a unix variant with hardware hard drive encryption (my personal choice) and then you'd be free of needing truecrypt and also could avoid having to worry about backdoors in windows or general windows insecurity.

Windows doesn't work. it's architecture is inherently insecure compared with Unix, Linux or other real operating systems.

... and easily allow for high levels of encryption.

I am waiting for providers to start adopting GnuPG for client email.

They have good forensics too, and not the wieners you see on TV with tattoos and cat glasses.

True, Ironkey is a pretty secure thumb drive. But they all eventually show their warts, and 256 AES is not THAT hot.

I can get into your Linux panties with no problem.

Yadda, yadda, yadda...

NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING replaces good physical and operational security.

Sure, use a good encrypted thumb drive for your backup data, and keep it in a safe place that would not be looked for in a warrant. Use a second thumb drive to boot your laptop with (with a wiped hard drive). If something bad happens (keep a hammer handy) then crunch the thumb drive.

Regardless, it's all vulnerable. What we have to decide is how paranoid/vulnerable are we, and how far will the doughnut patrol go to get a misdemeanor offense.

by voting for a dedicated "Privacy & Security" board:

http://www.theeroticreview.com/discussion_boards/viewmsg.asp?MessageID=6016&boardID=4&page=1

All great points about security and encryption. Definitely worth having a board on it. If Google can be invaded, then none of are safe from the donut posse.
Saying that, I do hope providers such as Eve will contribute. Nothing sexier than a hot woman who knows her tech. I once dated a civie woman who was at JPL and was earlier involved with the programming of some advanced defense systems. She truly had a devious mind. That intellectual energy has to find some outlet.

"Use a second thumb drive to boot your laptop with (with a wiped hard drive)." I've heard that before, regarding using a thumb drive to boot your laptop. How does that work, or where do I find out how to do that. I know the old 486's you could boot from a floppy, but I'm not certain how to configure my laptop to do this from a thumb drive. And, what do you mean by a wiped drive?

True, nothing is ever 100% unbreakable (except maybe the code on the CIA sculpture?) But just like car "theft avoidance" it's all about making someone else's seem like a better target

Of course the "hammer encryption" is fairly secure, as long as you're thorough!

-tessen

And there are some other seriously technically savvy ladies out there too.

And ditto on the sexiness of a hot woman who knows her tech. But I have a brainy chick fetish anyway.