unexpected

Yes... and if it needs to be said, I am also directly implying that anonymity is a large and crucial part of privacy.

I do a lot of risky and dangerous shit on the internet.

well.. this seems to be the bigger issue. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if it ain't worth it, then it ain't worth it. That seems to be what you are telling yourself.

If you're ready to cut bait, then you just need to drop every connection that existed during that period. And start anew putting a solid line between before and now. Be the ringpop you want to be and act like old ringpop never happened. I suspect that guilt might be playing a part in your angst as well. The only way to fix that is to be a better man.

I doubt it is drugs that op is worrying about. The police need to catch you with that in possession. That doesn't sound like what op is talking about. Sounds more like he is paranoid about getting caught for past actions.

If op is legitimately doing things that can get them serious legal time or worse, then the last thing they need to do is talk about it with someone who can identify them.

Which is also what you do when you vote. You control who has your identifying information and who has the information on how you voted. Which I guess is still different from Signal if we are still talking about that. Since you cannot control who has your identifying information.

Ah.. I guess I didn't understand how services like encrypted webmail worked. I've only ever used local pgp with thunderbird or whatever. I was assuming (incorrectly) that those services operated in the same manner. Thanks for explaining it to me.

I'm not finding any definitions of "privacy" that suggest the term refers to control of something. Regardless of whether that something is within or outside of your reach.

You appear to be saying that like it is a bad thing, rather than a good thing. Easily making multiple accounts is a crucial part of anonymity and privacy.

If it is tied to a phone number then any information connected to the phone account will be connected to the signal account identity. And any identifying information attached to the method used to pay for the phone account will be attached to the phone account and consequently the signal account.

Typically people pay using credit or debit cards, so the identifying information of those bank accounts become attached to your signal account.

Airvpn doesn't require any personal information. I mean... I guess it asked for a name or whatever, but it doesn't verify any of it. I certainly didn't give it anything legitimate, and I paid with mixed crypto so it certainly has as little personal information on me as would be possible with a vpn.

What gives ivpn, mullvad and nym the advantage for the personal info section?

That and the need of an android or iphone in order to create an account.... ;[

It is and isn't.

I'd compare the people who use technologies like this to the internet users of the 90's and those who use facebag, tweeker and insta to the AOL users back then.

Yes, we're the minority, but that is how people have always been. Most people don't want freedom. But those that do still have plenty of options. Don't forget that "they" didn't originally plan on us plebes having true encryption tech and privacy cryptos. It is possible that we are doing better than it looks.

But yea.. his comment sounds more like something we would have said 20 years ago, rather than the present. I agree with your point.