Q: Do you encrypt all your own email, as a result
of this stuff?
A: No, that's really hard.
Or maybe, just maybe, the available tools for the purpose take a lot more than ten minutes to install and configure well enough for even an intelligent and technically skilled user to have any confidence that they've done it correctly.
People can't install good crypto tools in ten minutes. Not even people like Brewster. And if you're making one of those tools, and you want it to be anything more than a research toy, that's your problem, not theirs.
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/06/what-... (If you want to see the part I quoted, scroll right to the end.)
The only way to have 100% encrypted email is to avoid a massive number of services. This is something to be done only when it actually provides safety.
Basically you're arguing a point (100% crypto) that is completely different from the post you're replying to (crypto on critical conversations).
So only a hardcore developer who can setup mutt in 2 minutes, customizes Emacs in his sleep, write code in Assembler needs cryptography? Anyone who wants an easier UI to handle crypto doesn't deserve to use it, right? The rest of the people are just riding the bandwagon because they think it's cool and don't really have any secrets?
You go so far as to call all of them stupid.
Just who in the world do you think you are?
If you do need strong crypto, i.e. your life and/or autonomy depend on it, you will hopefully be willing to take ten minutes of your time to install a properly written piece of software.
Cryptocat is cargo-cult cryptography. People think cryptography is cool, so they use cryptocat. They don't actually need the strong encryption it would [yet has never actually been able to] provide, but they think their two-bit marijuana transaction or liquor-soaked 19th birthday celebration is worthy of strong encryption, but not of the actual effort required to use it. So they use cryptocat.
These people who use cryptocat are stupid. The popularity of cryptocat just increases the risk that someone who actually needs security will use it, and could very likely experience severe injury as a result. That's not okay; it's not relevant whether someone is "being nice" or "learning" or whatever, it needs to not happen. Cryptocat is bad through and through, from conception to implementation.
Maybe if the tagline was "Cryptocat provides encrypted communication that probably isn't secure", people wouldn't pull out their hair.