Many times throughout my life, what would seem like a reasonably easy question to answer has changed dramatically.

30 years ago you could look at data collection and go there's no way that they could store a meaningful amount of data about everyone.

20 years ago you could look at data collection and go there's no way they could have the contents of every phone call It's just targeted it's not a big deal

We are the point now, where everything you ever wrote or said could be thrown into a model with such unimaginable levels of lossy compression that they could simply ask it if you are the kind of person who is into whatever the future administration deems as unacceptable and deny you access to things. All you need is a fascist regime or a dictatorship installed and all of a sudden anything you ever did can be used as grounds to lock you up.

On a governmental budget it wouldn't even be that expensive and we're just at the beginning of this.

We have seen that governments can change quickly, We know the data collection is affordable and can be permanent.

Certainly some people privacy-minded to the point of compulsion. But I can't say that anyone is wrong to seek extreme levels of privacy based on trends and capabilities.

They leave your cell phone at home and make sure somebody opens your apps and uses them people aren't anywhere near as crazy as they used to sound

Yes.

Like any interest, people get so far removed from the original point, it becomes about something new.

Like cast iron. People go from not really knowing about it to learning how to cook with it, to learning how to do basic maintenance. About 20% of people go completely off the rails, and they start buffing and polishing them like they are fabergé eggs, and joining cast iron groups.

Privacy is the same. Learn the basics, follow the basics, relax and get over yourself.

I must be one of those. This shit is not okay, yall. Whole psychological profiles, humiliation tactics, and dystopian forms of control are right around the corner. Why would they keep Epstein alive when Palantir automated the job of the blackmail broker?

You really do have to obsess if you take this seriously. It really isn't feasible for most people to devote kind of time and effort that I do on this stuff. I usually describe it as a kind of hobby, and I try to limit my advice to address specific concerns or threat models.

Yep, I made the mistake of telling my family I care about my privacy. The amount of times I've been told the nothing to hide argument is stupid.

A few weeks ago, I would have said 100%. I am needlessly careful.

I know I'm protecting against privacy threats that are technically possible, but unlikely. Preventing the tracking is just an interesting hobby, to me.

But earlier this month, we learned that Meta went "all-in" on what I consider some fucked up shit - running a mini localhost server to track the vanishingly few people who bother to block their tracking.

So now I guess I'm only about 30% sure I'm being needlessly careful.

Like most things on the internet it's a game of one-upsmanship. User X uses Firefox with Incognito. User Y say's that isn't good enough for his own inconsistent definition of "good enough."
So User-Y suggests Firefox with 14 different add-ons and only browse through an immutable VM. But then user-z comes along and says that if you are using windows at all, you don't really care about privacy, so you should be using Icefox on some obscure fork of ubuntu through an immutable VM, with a pi-hole.
Then user-w says well if you aren't using a VPN none of this matters, so Obviously you need to rent an Alibaba cloud server hosted in China, that you only connect to through a privacy respecting VPN, and then you only browse through TOR.

And so on. By the time a user is asking about how to stop google ads, the only "serious" answer by the community involves using Packet over Ham-radio -> and spending thousands of dollars a month on 4 different cloud providers, rented through several shell companies set up in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and China, while only typing in Esperanto using an ASCII-only font.

While certainly some people take it to a point that could be considered too far, I think that the reality is that you have to go very far if you want actual privacy today. I think most people either don't know all the ways that their daily lives are being tracked and their activities are sold or they simply don't care. To vast majority, doing anything that isn't trivial is probably too far, and the more you talk about it with them, the more they will think it's crazy. Most people of the older generation probably don't "get it" or think it can be real, and very young people have probably never known privacy in their lives to much degree, so it can be a tough sell. I think Late Gen-X and Millienials are the main group that got to experience privacy when they were young and then saw it slowly eroded away in increasingly gross ways until it was gone.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I live a life where OPSEC is relevant. Its something that I have had to consider always, and has been for 2 decades. Even so, I wasn't as concerned this whole time as I am these days. The fact is that technology is making it such that its no longer "im not a person of interest they wont spend resources on me" because data crunching is happening to such an extreme, on such a grand scale, that person of interest doesn't even matter. Do you exist, yes. Do you have a digital foot print, yes you do. Even if you dont do a lot online. Your metrics are being captured and being inferenced, and systems are using predictive analysis to determine what you "may" do in a given situation. Depending on who controls those systems they may decide not to give you a chance to make that choice.

Ill I can say is that there are a large number of groups that want your data, for a lot of different reasons, and none of them are for your benefit. So, are you going to let them have it, or are you going to take steps to reign in the amount of info you leave about?

Yes, privacy is very important, but I've seen also a lot of tin foil hats arround here which don't know really what is worth to protect and what only make browsing slower and more difficult. PEBCAK

Yeah. I think people can become obsessive over it. I also think there is a large group of users who gamify privacy and act as if its an mmo quest where they just need to collect the best tools to win instead of being responsible and understanding threat modelling.

A year ago: yes.

Today: nope.

Yeh my family treat me like I am a nut job. I only swapped away from google and ask them to think about the orgs they spend their money on for example Amazon.

It’s amazing how many people got on board with Covid conspiracies but questioning where you data goes, who’s using it, what for, no that’s a bit far lol.

There are probably some people that go too far, but that is true in any community. There are also people with a very legitimate threat model, for example if they are from insert your favourite dictatorship here and they have insert opinion against said regime

As long as everyone is having fun, I see no problem.

If you're not having fun switching mail providers, researching Gecko forks, or being a part-time sysadmin for your Fairphone, you should probably stop doing those things.

Yes, paranoia is not healthy. When people can't formulate a realistic threat model then usually to be "safe" they assume everyone is out there to get them ... while failing the most basic steps, e.g. not relying on surveillance capitalist fueled tools voluntarily.

It's just a conscious approach to tech.

We have people telling us the earth is flat. Them saying so doesn't make our good old planet any flatter ;)

I mean one can find excess absolutely anywhere, that doesn't demonstrate much imho.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2501:_Average_Familiarity

Relevant XKCD;

I feel that it is closer to the fact that the communities forgot most beginners are completely new to this in general. They might not even know what exactly a 'browser' is, much less cookies and stuff.

Hence when we try to spoonfeed them information, it comes off as overwhelming and forced.

Agree that there are some extremist, but they mostly act in good faith tbh.

Another thing I noticed is there are more preachers of 'how' than 'why'. Having a beginner go down the route of privacy without giving them a purpose to do so is quite off-putting.

I dunno, considering that Facebook data has been used to go after people, we've got fascists using every method possible to target their current hated group, and police everywhere ignoring or bypassing due process by just buying data, I don't think it all paranoid to think that privacy concerns are already huge, and could get worse

Yes, some people absolutely take things way too far, and often unproductively.

Like the person who was trying to disable websockets. Or the people who will shun signal, but jump directly on the flavour of the month signal clone, which might be completely backdoored.

If you dont know what you are doing, randomly turning things on and off at best does nothing, at worst makes you even more signaturable/trackable.

Its good to educate yourself on various protections, but unfortunately, it requires a lot of careful research and understanding.

Depends how one looks at it. From purely practical POV, probably 90% of us don't need to bolt their doors so much. But as a principle, as a society we've lost the "war" on privacy so much, that it really takes a long way to pull the dial back to where it should be

I think that "mental illness" kind of comments would come from people whose attitude for safety in many aspects of life is "that's never going to happen (to me)". Those people exist, so sooner or later you'll see comments like that.

On the other hand everybody is trying to find a balance in convenience and safety and the situations and environments and life on general for one person can be quite different from that of some others'. So what's adequate for one won't be for another.

It's like PPE or personal finance or many other things. There's no one size that fits all and finding the right fit isn't easy. For a lot of us it's work in progress. Sometimes you know what's definitely needed and tweak the details. Sometimes you know something is not going well and needs to change.

Maybe it's enough to say that it's complicated and have some compassion and support for people that think it isn't. Or people that think it's all too much to handle.

I definetly take things too far in terms of my effort vs my current threat model. But there are many aspects of trying to increase privacy.

For one, I'm very interested in the philosophy, ethics and politics of privacy and adjacent fields such as security. Part of what I do is just learning.

Also I try to be a good role model to my AFK peers and family. Of course I don't try to get everyone to adopt my hobby. But as in every field it's hard to teach even the basic stuff to others without deeper understanding of the field.

Yes and I see two reasonable reasons for that.

One is that, like in most communities, those that feel more compelled to post and comment are those that are more passionate about the topic and/or have more extreme views.

The other reason is that given the sensitive nature of the topic, without knowing the threat level of the reader I can see how one would be reluctant to go for the "good enough".

Definitely yeah! If you’re just a regular person living in a fairly democratic country and you’re thinking about physically clogging your usb ports to avoid someone breaking in your room and tampering your device while you’re exploring Barcelona, or if you consider removing camera and microphone from your pixel phone that you use every day, you’re probably taking it too far.

OTOH I’m still having trouble getting people away from Meta apps and I think it’s absolutely crazy how little thought people put into the amount of data that Meta collects.

TBH even in many dictatorships you’re mostly fine just using a VPN and fake accounts if you have government critical opinions. But that’s just my personal experience. Goes without saying if you have a decent follower count or are some kind of journalist you should be very paranoid.

Anyway, the point is, it’s probably good to feel slightly paranoid because most people aren’t paranoid enough, but most of us are also not Edward Snowden or Saudi journalists, so there should be a balance between practicality and privacy.