Quote - I don't think it's entirely paranoid to say the new generations are being conditioned, by reward, to accept a lack of privacy. The general lack of up to date education, on privacy issues, that I perceive exists, probably enforces that.

for sure.

while on the one side i know dozens of older people who will refuse to do a credit card purchase online or set up online billing (despite it being much more secure than handing your CC to someone at a convenience store or restaurant), there are many people nowadays who just assume that everything they upload to the cloud/online servers/etc is inherently safe.  youd think people would learn from all the facebook debacles, ongoing reddit/photobucket fusking, companies databases getting hacked or info being leaked, etc.

even if we ignore the external danger from cyber-criminals, no matter what hardware/software/encryption is protecting your files there will always be a human element working with them somewhere.  as more and more sensitive data is accessible online, criminals will be even more attracted to positions which can potentially provide them access to this data.

im not sure what sortof checks employees at online social sites/cloud/hosting facilities go through to get hired, or what oversight they receive - if any. but look at all the recent attention that airline TSA employee baggage theft rings are getting. if you cant trust a government airline security employee that has gone through an extensive screening process and is under 24/7 video surveillance with your personal belongings, what makes you think you can trust some unscreened, underpaid, bored techie sitting in a server room at 3am with your personal data?

sure our entire web trails/email correspondence/transactions are already in the same position, but id still hesitate to upload my entire life to cloud storage and simply assume that its going to remain completely safe and private.