This is not perl, but it relates to this discussion.

The FBI would rather be able to spy on us, than let us have secure internet connections.

security article

So you can be pretty sure that the "government" is sniffing all network traffic, and probably harvesting all passwords it can. So the question is "can you trust the government?. I shudder to think about the possibility that people, like those from Enron, would get control over the internet. Ooops, isn't that Microsoft? :-)