I don't think your wrong but there is also the tor network anyone can use.. there is questions how secure it really is though many rights activists use it successfully for anonymity.
hmm yeah I have played games with people from asia.. cant remember the country but they have told me you cant even use a alias online.
idk I'm not paranoid or even put thought into who can see it when I write a message because I don't do illegal shit.
it runs pretty deep if you want to really get into it.. its not like every message gets viewed but there is data collection centers that label people into groups.
all in all I think valve has every right to hate on illegal torrent sights that take money from them.. just don't really see the point in censoring private messages.
(a little unorganized thoughts but I'm good at that)
TOR is an entirely different service. you can have TOR running but that still doesnt protect you from having your messages or emails read & it definitely wont help you with steam because thats just not the way it works.
Do you honestly think that because you have TOR running in the background that your private messages cant be read? TOR is a proxy service - you can route your internet through TOR so you can browse the net anonymously but any chat or messaging service that you use, or any service or website that requires login details to get access to - they will be able to track you.
They might not be able to tell its 'you' you because your IP is being re-routed from somewhere else in the world but any message or chat you have online will be logged because its still going through the providers network.
I dont think TOR has gone as far to make an anonymous or encrypted chat or messaging service just yet so your point is invalid.
except there is no way to actually have people monitoring messages across the web like that. fbi cia all them have ways to monitor and have a program flag someone. not sure exactly how it all works but I know in the uk every single thing is instantly copied and scanned when it get to some way point everything on the net has to go through there.
there are monitoring systems in place that flag a lot of shit, -- how the hell do you think that UK internet ISPs can block torrent sites each and every time you try to access them? There is monitoring in place, it just depends how godlike they have the system turned up and they have torrent sites turned up pretty hardcore. the U.S & China have their own systems in place to monitor and watch what their people are doing on the internets - China is the worst when it comes to internets. and they have blocked access from chat/messaging services because they dont want people outside of china being able to chat or contact the people inside.
China is very much like the 'walled garden' expression when it comes to internet, people at the top get to control what goes in and out.