Do I need secure online communications?

Internet inspection tools are installed at most all Internet Service Providers (ISP's). ISP's are the local companies that you pay on a monthly basis to provide internet access to your home, often its the local phone company. The ability of the internet inspection tools is amazing. All email, email attachments, web pages, chats (including skype), phone calls using the internet, Instant Messages (IM), email sent/received on cell phones, SMS text messages, etc are being copied, scanned and analyzed in real-time by the inspection tools. If a perceived threat is found from the analysis of the online content, a personal threat level is assigned to you based on the local state's policies.

The state's response to your personal threat level can vary. They may ask you to depart from their country based on personal threat level alone, or they may also look to see the level of influence you are having on the local culture and "way of life". If the "perceived influence level" or the "position of influence" (ex: a news reporter, journalist, internet blogs, web sites), or the "organization you might represent" is low, even though your personal threat level is high, they made decide to let you be, but keep a close eye on you. There are many other factors, which are really based on the specific fears of the state.

Human intelligence works by the "amount of information" collected on a individual. In the days before the mature internet inspection tools (aprox pre 2002), the amount of personal information that could be collected on an individual was very very low when compared to what today's internet inspections tools can provide. Imagine every web page you've viewed and email you've received or sent in the past 90 days being a page in a book with your name as the title of the book. The internet inspection tools are able to automatically analyze that information in real-time and assign a personal threat level based on the policy and fears of the state.

Using online encryption services (like DPI's IPSEC VPN service) keeps your personal threat level low which minimizes the chances that you become a "human target of inspection", as the internet inspection tools can not see into your online communications.