Mudge says that early experimenting with computers led to informal warnings from certain "three-letter agencies."

What can those three-letter agencies get up to?

Maybe I could get someone to notice by waving this flag in front of all the three-letter agencies.

All those fancy three-letter agencies ever said was, "Gimme."

If Roy stood behind me, then the three-letter agencies couldn't touch me.

About twenty people showed up, from all the three-letter agencies.

Since we had neither funding nor authority, the three-letter agencies saw no reason to listen to us.

And various three-letter agencies stopped calling me, asking for advice, opinions, and rumors.

People from various three-letter agencies still call.

But manufacturers and, presumably, the three-letter agencies are able to remove a simple password protection and get at all of the data on the drive behind it.