Ah, the Pirate Bay. It would be difficult to find another site that is so loved by some and yet so loathed by others.
Back in July 2008, I posted an article about IPETEE, the Pirate Bay's proposal to encrypt the internet. Since then, the site has been experiencing a number of problems. Some are worried that action against the site will cause it to disappear from the internet altogether. At any rate, the site has come into the spotlight due to its popularity, making it nothing less than a giant target for lawsuits and criminal proceedings.
At any rate, not much has come of IPETEE, considering it's lofty ideals and goals. It's a bit sad to see a plan that could have so much potential benefit not get anywhere after a huge announcement, but this seems unfortunately typical for vaporware.
All of that said, I hope that there has been continuing work on IPETEE or something similar. The concept was interesting because it would not require that client applications have special support in most circumstances; instead, traffic would be encrypted after it is passed from the program and decrypted before it is passed to the program. This makes it much more practical and useful than encryption for individual programs.
While IPETEE may be far from reality, there are steps you can take to make your experience more safe, secure, and private. Firstly, for email communications, look into GnuPG. Second, look for https:// in the address bar when you are purchasing items off the internet or doing banking. Third, make sure that you have a good working firewall - such as the freeware one from ZoneAlarm - before you surf the internet. All the encryption in the world won't protect you from snoopers if you're computer isn't secure. Lastly, make sure that you have wireless encrypted access set up on your router if you use wireless in your home.