...

... but so far they've only succeeded in making it worse.

Computers are absolutely capable of this, but as with security in general the problem lies with the people that are controlling what they do...

i agree, but we may mean different things. most people have no control over what their computer does. see popunders for example, which the commercial version of netscape doesn't have a way to disable, while the free "mozilla" version does. (and of course msie has no way to turn it off.) see the dmca and riaa govern what can and cannot be done with content. try and uninstall macromedia on a windows machine. amuse yourself by studying the doomsday weapon presently called "palladium". so while i think you mean "one of the reasons computers are subtracting from rather than adding to the average user's privacy is because the average user doesn't want to perform the difficult acts of mental focus and usage discipline that would be required by such a privacy benefit". and i agree. however, the bigger reason is that privacy is not a benefit in the eyes of the people who are truly in control of the world's computers. so, if it's going to happen, it's going to have to be a grass roots thing.