It was also risky because it involved using the Cow's computer. Gramsci abandoned his Skype call hastily and took refuge under the keyboard as the Cow heaved herself into her chair.
"Skype!" she muttered as she closed the application down. Skype for Mac didn't yet support video, which she considered discrimatory and a symptom of being allied with The Evil Empire. Still, it was good for transferring files bigger than the 5MB the mail server allowed you to email. Skype had its uses.
"It's scary," began Gramsci timidly, "Bronstein was saying that law enforcement agencies in the UK are lobbying for legislation to allow the monitoring of voip calls for 'security reasons'. Can you imagine!"
The Cow was outraged. Yet another Structure trying to assert its authority on the Internet! "They just don't geddit!" she fumed. "The Internet is fundamentally anarchist, and yet states, agencies and businesses keep trying to regulate, legislate, control..." She rolled her eyes dramatically.
"Still," added Gramsci pragmatically, "I'm sure they'll abandon the idea pretty quickly. Some scary percentage of Skype calls are probably to check on Great-Aunt Emily's incontinence op, or to discuss the layout for the latest incarnation of the blogging paper, or to tell your Dearly Beloved how much you really, really, really miss them... Toss in the vagaries of bandwidth-choked transmission speeds and the amount of commitment required to monitor escalates exponentially."
The Cow agreed. It was much the same as the paranoia people initially experienced on discovering that the Postmaster had access to everyone's mailboxes on the mail server... which rapidly faded when they pictured a real person sitting wading through Gig after Gig of chainmailed petition, penis enlargement spam or missive from Bremner about the latest modification to some arcane SAP form.
Not to mention all the Chuck Norris jokes.
Which reminded Gramsci of the one he'd heard earlier from Bronstein. "Batman and Superman..." he began... before noticing the look in the Cow's eye and taking cover under the keyboard once more. A Cow's roundhouse kick is more terrifying than a Chuck Norris joke. Even.