Opinions on Privacy?

[kasarberang]

I'm very passionate about privacy. My whole family (excluding my wife) says I go "overboard." and that I "can't control everything". Just because I like to stay spyware free in my own home.

Admittedly I do go farther than most would be comfortable with. I don't use Google, Facebook, Twitter,Apple, Discord or Microsoft. My computer runs linux. My phone run a Custom ROM which is more geared towards privacy. I even bought a printer from like 2003 to avoid WiFi functionality aswell as the tracking features added in every printer past 2014.

I do way more aswell if you guys are at all interested but I don't want to make this post too long.

Anyway my family says that I go overboard and that I'm paranoid cause I like to keep my home mostly free of tracking.

I know when I go outside there's probably multiple things tracking my face,heartbeat or even behavior. But I like to know when I get home I don't have to worry about it. And it's not like I have anything to hide either, my life is fairly boring. I just don't like the idea of people having information on me, to use ever, now or in the future.

 

What do you think about privacy? I'd love to hear your opinions, concerns measures you use to protect yours (if you have any and are willing to share.) It's something I'm very passionate about and would love to have a little thread on here about it.

[Elfy]

I think you are going overboard to be honest.

Whilst I agree privacy should be respected I just don't thinkit is possible in this day and age. Do you use Youtube (owned by Google) or any other video service? Do you have a phone? That'll be gathering all sorts of information. You can do your best to avoid websites which you might think gather data but I guarantee there are sites you visit that will still do that. In fact, I think all websites do that to a greater or lesser extent. It's just a function of how the modern world works for better or worse.

The question becomes why are you so secretive. I'm certainly not accusing you of having anything to hide, I just get the sense you are going to a lot of inconvenience to avoid giving what is for the most part harmless data. What do you think the data would be used to do? In my experience it is only used to advertise and since I'm going to be advertised at anyway I'm not too bothered about it being tailored towards me.

Are you going to far? Maybe. It does seem like you are making your own life harder for a perceived threat that doesn't justify the cost. There are a couple of things that suggest paranoia might be involved... Firstly, your family suggest it and they would no better than anyone here. Secondly, you suggest that every time you leave the house you think there are things monitoring your face, heart rate and behaviour... The online stuff I can understand even if I don't agree with it but this part definitely smacks of unhealthy paranoia. If you live in a city with a lot of CCTV then I could understand the concern of facial tracking but the other two things seem outside the realm of reality.

[Stroller]

I think you're going a bit far, but not because I think the danger isn't great - I agree that it is.  It's probably the biggest risk to democratic government the world is going to have to face in the years to come.  And that's very closely connected to the danger to personal freedom.  Do we want the government and the people with most of the wealth to track everything we do and everywhere we go?  This gives them the ability to manipulate and control us, both individually and collectively.  And yet that's exactly what they're increasingly doing.  What's happening in China now could easily happen in the US, Western Europe, and everywhere else.  It's becoming much easier for government agencies to track what we do, use AI techniques to home in on activities they want to control, and so home in on individuals to influence their behaviour, by the use of all sorts of carrots and sticks.  And the same goes for big companies.  And there's very little effective legal control on any of this.

The reason I think you're going too far is that I doubt you'll be able to spot enough of the ways this data is being collected, and also that going informationally off-grid will increasingly be used as one of the signs for government agencies to home in on people as 'suspicious'.  You'll probably draw more attention to yourself rather than less, in the long run.

I'm low risk - I'm white, getting on in years and have no criminal record.  I don't do anything illegal much anyway, and don't want to.  I use some of the techniques you've listed though, but not all, and I'm certainly not under the illusion that my activities couldn't be tracked in detail if the UK government or my ISP wanted to do it.  I buy fuel and food with a credit card, but I could switch to cash if I wanted to, and get my cash somewhere that wouldn't give much details of where I go.  I don't often take my mobile phone out with me, and if I do it's often switched off. 

And finally, is it just me that's really worried about the implications of the 'cashless society'?  Where at the very least the government and a big bank will know about every loaf of bread we buy, and where we bought it?  It's going to be so much easier for fascist regimes in the future than it ever has been in the past.

[diaperwearntigger]

Honestly, does it really matter what we think?  If that's what you want to do for yourself than do it.  It's certainly not bothering me any, so why should I worry about what you do in your own home?

[ppdude]

Anything can be taken out of context and can be taken too far.

No social media (except for DD) as it is a total waste of time and energy (as far as I'm concerned). I know how to block snoopers in Windows and have some of that in place. Since I'm blind, I need the GPS and other features on the phone which completely destroys privacy. I have a private URL for personal use that is used for important personal stuff. That's the extent of it. For me, it's a compromise. Privacy, for the most part, does not exist.

[kasarberang]

10 hours ago, Elfy said:

I think you are going overboard to be honest.

Whilst I agree privacy should be respected I just don't thinkit is possible in this day and age. Do you use Youtube (owned by Google) or any other video service? Do you have a phone? That'll be gathering all sorts of information. You can do your best to avoid websites which you might think gather data but I guarantee there are sites you visit that will still do that. In fact, I think all websites do that to a greater or lesser extent. It's just a function of how the modern world works for better or worse.

The question becomes why are you so secretive. I'm certainly not accusing you of having anything to hide, I just get the sense you are going to a lot of inconvenience to avoid giving what is for the most part harmless data. What do you think the data would be used to do? In my experience it is only used to advertise and since I'm going to be advertised at anyway I'm not too bothered about it being tailored towards me.

Are you going to far? Maybe. It does seem like you are making your own life harder for a perceived threat that doesn't justify the cost. There are a couple of things that suggest paranoia might be involved... Firstly, your family suggest it and they would no better than anyone here. Secondly, you suggest that every time you leave the house you think there are things monitoring your face, heart rate and behaviour... The online stuff I can understand even if I don't agree with it but this part definitely smacks of unhealthy paranoia. If you live in a city with a lot of CCTV then I could understand the concern of facial tracking but the other two things seem outside the realm of reality.

I'm simply going to address what you say kinda out of order so sorry about that. Just how my brain works.

Technology about identifying a person via their unique heartbeat exists and it's terrifying. You can research more on your own, there's a lot of articles about it, whether it's mainstream atm or not isn't the problem the issue is it does in fact exist and will probably be used to track individuals.

Facial Recognition is everywhere, fortunately places like California are slowly putting together laws to prevent its use in law enforcement as it's still vastly inaccurate and favors white males as that's what it's been trained most on. People of color are often the ones hurt most by these systems.

I use YouTube, but I don't use the website. I use free Open Source alternatives like Invidious, FreeTube and Newpipe which grab only the video contents without actually loading the tracking.

I use extentions such as Umatrix to block non-needed scripts, which also gives me a benefit of websites loading faster as the slop doesn't actually reach my browser.

My wife's side of the family is much closer to me than my own and they do not think I'm going overboard or am paranoid. They think that my opinions are quite rational actually. My side of the family is far less tech savvy and are frankly too lazy to look into anything. They just can't imagine doing so much as going into the settings of the services they use and turning off a few unneeded privacy invasive features.

 

I know that websites collect information about me, it's simply impossible to avoid all information that's being collected. But I can avoid the heavy hitters like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, ect...

I have a smart-phone but it doesn't run Google's android it runs a Google-free android Custom ROM and has extensions that give apps fake information for things like contact, location, network data, ect... so that I can use other apps without giving away too much information.

 

As for Why I'm being so secretive. It's actually quite simple. I don't like the idea of the data that's being collected on me now used against me later.

Take china for example. They have 8 social credit systems, not run by the government, but by the companies.

Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu ect... all own their own social credit systems. These systems are completely optional. You don't need to sign up to them. But if you do you gain a lot of convenience. You can pay for things without credit card and use wonderfully simple and easy to use services. But you can't delete your account. Which is completely within their right, they are a private company after all. These systems are so convenient that most everything uses them. You don't use a social credit app? You must be hiding something, that means you can't get an apartment or even get a plane ticket out of the country. Are you hanging around people who dined and dashed? your score is going down by association. You can read more on this aswell. I'm probably not the best at explaining it. There's far more to go into.

 

It all may seem harmless right now, but personally I see things constantly getting worse. Years ago people would have never accepted all the spying/tracking that goes on today, but it didn't happen all at once, it happened little by little. Now we're complacent. We're totally okay with being used and abused by google, facebook, twitter, microsoft ect... because their services are "free" but they aren't truly free, you're just not paying with money. Personally I'm sick of being sold.

Another thing is these companies don't keep the information they have safe. Facebook has had somany data breaches recently it's ridiculous, google has also had it's fair share of breaches. Keep in mind these are companies who's entire business models revolve around collecting, selling and otherwise redistributing your information. No system is unhackable, not even that of Google or Facebook. Even if I did trust them with my information. I don't trust the hackers who will break their systems, steal information and sell it to less reputable sources.

 

Absolute Power Corrupts absolutely, allowing companies to be the gatekeepers to content allows for censorship and discrimination.

 

That's why I do what I do. I have nothing to hide. My information is just on a need to know basis, and companies don't need to know.
The steps I take are less so of a huge inconvenience and more so a 1-time set it and forget it type thing. Everything you do know that you're used to doing has become habit, same with everything I do, it'd actually be more inconvenient for me at this point to go without all my little privacy enhancing measures, as it's just habbit now.

 

I hope I gave you something to think about and shed a little light on why I do what I do. I absolutely love discussing this topic even with those who disagree with me. Thank you for replying!

2 hours ago, diaperwearntigger said:

Honestly, does it really matter what we think?  If that's what you want to do for yourself than do it.  It's certainly not bothering me any, so why should I worry about what you do in your own home?

I was more so asking about the general opinion on privacy in general and maybe what other did to protect theirs, if they did anything at all.

[diaperwearntigger]

Ahh, I see....sorry, misunderstood what you were asking/saying.

[kasarberang]

On 9/23/2019 at 11:22 AM, Stroller said:

I think you're going a bit far, but not because I think the danger isn't great - I agree that it is.  It's probably the biggest risk to democratic government the world is going to have to face in the years to come.  And that's very closely connected to the danger to personal freedom.  Do we want the government and the people with most of the wealth to track everything we do and everywhere we go?  This gives them the ability to manipulate and control us, both individually and collectively.  And yet that's exactly what they're increasingly doing.  What's happening in China now could easily happen in the US, Western Europe, and everywhere else.  It's becoming much easier for government agencies to track what we do, use AI techniques to home in on activities they want to control, and so home in on individuals to influence their behaviour, by the use of all sorts of carrots and sticks.  And the same goes for big companies.  And there's very little effective legal control on any of this.

The reason I think you're going too far is that I doubt you'll be able to spot enough of the ways this data is being collected, and also that going informationally off-grid will increasingly be used as one of the signs for government agencies to home in on people as 'suspicious'.  You'll probably draw more attention to yourself rather than less, in the long run.

I'm low risk - I'm white, getting on in years and have no criminal record.  I don't do anything illegal much anyway, and don't want to.  I use some of the techniques you've listed though, but not all, and I'm certainly not under the illusion that my activities couldn't be tracked in detail if the UK government or my ISP wanted to do it.  I buy fuel and food with a credit card, but I could switch to cash if I wanted to, and get my cash somewhere that wouldn't give much details of where I go.  I don't often take my mobile phone out with me, and if I do it's often switched off. 

And finally, is it just me that's really worried about the implications of the 'cashless society'?  Where at the very least the government and a big bank will know about every loaf of bread we buy, and where we bought it?  It's going to be so much easier for fascist regimes in the future than it ever has been in the past.

Not really much to add here as I agree with most of it. I completely understand your opinion and how you go about your days as far as privacy is concerned. Personally I'd rather block the tracking/spying as much as I can, though I understand your reasoning for going about it.

On 9/23/2019 at 9:39 PM, diaperwearntigger said:

Ahh, I see....sorry, misunderstood what you were asking/saying.

No problem at all, I do that all the time

[oliver d]

You are right about how you feel about them tracking us I see things the same way and also run a lot of anti tracking features

[horrorfan]

I share the opinion you're just making life harder for yourself than it has to be. You are one of the thousands, if not millions of people who have a digital footprint. Anytime you go online, there is always a backdoor, and if a serious hacker sets their sights on you they will use that backdoor, so you're essentially going to great lengths to narrow down an already narrow margin of error, which can never be a zero percent margin. I do agree that social media is a good way to give up too much privacy, but I do not agree that privacy should be prioritized to that extent.

[kasarberang]

9 hours ago, horrorfan said:

I share the opinion you're just making life harder for yourself than it has to be. You are one of the thousands, if not millions of people who have a digital footprint. Anytime you go online, there is always a backdoor, and if a serious hacker sets their sights on you they will use that backdoor, so you're essentially going to great lengths to narrow down an already narrow margin of error, which can never be a zero percent margin. I do agree that social media is a good way to give up too much privacy, but I do not agree that privacy should be prioritized to that extent.

Allow me to use your own logic against you.

Every time you go to sleep there are people who if they wanted to might come into your house at night and steal all your valuable items.

Why lock the door? Why even shut it? Why close/lock the windows? You can never be 100% safe. If somebody really wanted to target you they could.

Going out of your way to lock the door and windows is just making life harder on yourself.

See how silly that sounds? Once I change the topic from privacy to something like safety in the home such logic seems alien. "Obviously I'm going to lock my door." you might think to yourself "If I didn't close my door and lock it I would be more at risk of getting robbed, or worse. I know that I'm not 100% protected if someone tried to target me, but I am putting on additional layers to increase my overall peace of mind and well-being"

 

It's sad that our right to privacy has stopped being something we care about. People see it as black and white, as 1 and 0, either you have it all or you have none of it. But really it's the same as locking our doors and windows at night. It's not going to make us 100% safer, but it add an additional layer of protection.

 

[horrorfan]

Ever buy anything online? If so, you left your door unlocked.

Ever applied to a job online? Left it unlocked again.

Have a social media account? (...yyyyeeeeessssssssssss) Unlocked!

Are the websites you visit http or https? If http you left the door unlocked, maybe open.

 

This door analogy is fun! Which one should we use next?

[ppdude]

1 hour ago, horrorfan said:

Ever buy anything online? If so, you left your door unlocked.

Ever applied to a job online? Left it unlocked again.

Have a social media account? (...yyyyeeeeessssssssssss) Unlocked!

Are the websites you visit http or https? If http you left the door unlocked, maybe open.

 

This door analogy is fun! Which one should we use next?

Although this really doesn't pertain to me, I've given up on the idea of privacy. Everyone who wants to know about you or wants your records can obtain them. Any doctor or doctor's office can see you medical records including prescriptions. If you have a phone, you can be tracked if you use it by the "pings" off of cellular towers. If you're on a network, which includes the internet, you can be tracked regardless of using a VPN or encryption. VPN's simply use encryption for your data, but it still needs an IP (Internet Protocol) address to reach its destination. Your car, which has a computer, uses satellite to track you. It's built-in and cannot be disabled. Using credit/debit cards tracks your movements to alert on a fraud pattern. Your paychecks are reported to the government and tracked. Any electronic communication is recorded and stored at a facility in Utah by the government.

What I'm getting at here is that there is no more privacy. Everybody knows everything about you. They're watching you buy diapers, rubber panties, and other stuff online.

It's almost impossible to not be tracked or have privacy. And finally, no, I don't lock the door anymore cause all I have is junk and they can take it if they want. They'd probably feel sorry for me and leave stuff I don't want or need.

[WetDad]

Privacy is important to me. I travel a lot for work, and so I use a VPN on my phone & laptop whenever I'm out of my home network. I have cranked up the privacy settings on Chrome, I use several add-ons (Ghostery and others). DuckDuckGo is often my search platform. I have my own mail server as well, and I have an industrial class firewall at home. My mobile settings on my Android phone are highly tweaked for privacy. (rooted BTW)

No, it's not perfect. It does make it very hard for trackers to get an accurate idea of what I do.

[ppdude]

1 hour ago, WetDad said:

Privacy is important to me. I travel a lot for work, and so I use a VPN on my phone & laptop whenever I'm out of my home network. I have cranked up the privacy settings on Chrome, I use several add-ons (Ghostery and others). DuckDuckGo is often my search platform. I have my own mail server as well, and I have an industrial class firewall at home. My mobile settings on my Android phone are highly tweaked for privacy. (rooted BTW)

No, it's not perfect. It does make it very hard for trackers to get an accurate idea of what I do.

Chrome tracks you regardless of settings. You may want to rethink using Chrome. It's Google. Use the Firefox products; they're open source.

Did you create/setup your own VPN or do you use a third party? I like rolling my own, but I'm always curious to know what others are doing.

 

 

[WetDad]

I'm well ware of what Chrome gathers, and I use it to my advantage. I also use FF from time to time. 

I use IPVanish, as it has a high bandwidth (compared to hotel/airport wifis) and I can get to servers in most any country I need. It has always passed IP leak tests, but gives a tell for the time zone. If I need a more secure platform (for insec) I use Parrot.

[ppdude]

2 hours ago, WetDad said:

I'm well ware of what Chrome gathers, and I use it to my advantage. I also use FF from time to time. 

I use IPVanish, as it has a high bandwidth (compared to hotel/airport wifis) and I can get to servers in most any country I need. It has always passed IP leak tests, but gives a tell for the time zone. If I need a more secure platform (for insec) I use Parrot.

Sounds like you're well versed and have it under control. Good for you. I rarely meet people who have a good understanding much less a working knowledge of networking. Keep it up.

[kasarberang]

9 hours ago, horrorfan said:

Ever buy anything online? If so, you left your door unlocked.

Ever applied to a job online? Left it unlocked again.

Have a social media account? (...yyyyeeeeessssssssssss) Unlocked!

Are the websites you visit http or https? If http you left the door unlocked, maybe open.

 

This door analogy is fun! Which one should we use next?

You're use of my analogy is flawed and here's why.

If I purchase something online and give some of my information so they can complete the order. I'm not leaving my door unlocked. It's more like I'm willingly letting someone into my house.

I don't have social media, I'm strictly against it. All the big social media sites are horrid for privacy.

I use HTTPS Everywhere. but you're right using HTTP websites is a huge security risk

If you're applying for any job you're giving away some of your personal information, it's more like letting someone in than leaving your door unlocked.

 

There's a huge difference between willingly giving someone a piece of personal information willingly and allowing everyone to harvest it, as if they're entitled to it.

8 hours ago, ppdude said:

Although this really doesn't pertain to me, I've given up on the idea of privacy. Everyone who wants to know about you or wants your records can obtain them. Any doctor or doctor's office can see you medical records including prescriptions. If you have a phone, you can be tracked if you use it by the "pings" off of cellular towers. If you're on a network, which includes the internet, you can be tracked regardless of using a VPN or encryption. VPN's simply use encryption for your data, but it still needs an IP (Internet Protocol) address to reach its destination. Your car, which has a computer, uses satellite to track you. It's built-in and cannot be disabled. Using credit/debit cards tracks your movements to alert on a fraud pattern. Your paychecks are reported to the government and tracked. Any electronic communication is recorded and stored at a facility in Utah by the government.

What I'm getting at here is that there is no more privacy. Everybody knows everything about you. They're watching you buy diapers, rubber panties, and other stuff online.

It's almost impossible to not be tracked or have privacy. And finally, no, I don't lock the door anymore cause all I have is junk and they can take it if they want. They'd probably feel sorry for me and leave stuff I don't want or need.

Using A VPN is the same as not using one as far as online-tracking goes. In my opinion the purpose of a VPN provider is to replace your ISP, as when you are using a VPN you are saying "I trust this service more than I trust ISP" You're just deciding which you trust more.

Credit/Debit cards track purchases, you're correct. With the rise of Cryptocurrency and even Cash still being available there are alternatives.

Privacy isn't binary, you can have more privacy than some and less than others. We can't remove tracking from our life all together, but we can reduce it in various ways.

You're right, complete privacy is gone, it's impossible to be completely private in this day and age, but it is possible to have some privacy in certain areas.

If I have a Google Account I'm giving up a ton of privacy, but if I change the settings to be more privacy focused, I now have more privacy than someone who has a google account and didn't touch the settings.

If I don't have a Google Account I have more privacy than both the previous examples. That's not to say google doesn't still have data on me, but they have far less than they do on the previous examples I mentioned.

and it keeps going, if I have an adblocker I have more privacy than someone who doesn't, if I use extensions like Umatrix or Noscript, I can have control over what parts of a webpage is actually loaded, which gives me more privacy than the people who don't use such extensions. and so on and so on.

7 hours ago, WetDad said:

Privacy is important to me. I travel a lot for work, and so I use a VPN on my phone & laptop whenever I'm out of my home network. I have cranked up the privacy settings on Chrome, I use several add-ons (Ghostery and others). DuckDuckGo is often my search platform. I have my own mail server as well, and I have an industrial class firewall at home. My mobile settings on my Android phone are highly tweaked for privacy. (rooted BTW)

No, it's not perfect. It does make it very hard for trackers to get an accurate idea of what I do.

Kudos! I use a lot of the same practices as you do, but I also do a lot differently. It's good that you're aware of the problem and actively do things to help minimize the tracking in your life.

6 hours ago, ppdude said:

Did you create/setup your own VPN or do you use a third party? I like rolling my own, but I'm always curious to know what others are doing.

I know you didn't ask me, but I'm going to answer anyway. I use Mullvad VPN, I like their mission and all the various features they offer.

I especially like that I don't have to give them any information to have an account with them, not even email.

[horrorfan]

When you apply anywhere, for anything, you are entrusting your information to someone else, and it will be put on their database on their server (or computer). You'd also have to trust that the company you work for won't get scammed into giving out personal information, which, as you involve more people in the company, is a lot easier to do. That, plus technology changes overtime and so do the exploits to steal information from it. To truly safeguard your privacy, you would have to apply for everything via paper application, get rid of wi-fi in your home altogether (let's face it, every website commercially available has been indexed by Google (including this site; using the search engine of your choice, look up your username)), . DD is a social media outlet as well. One can choose to maintain anonymity while using it, but the same could be said of other outlets. Should we sacrifice convenience for privacy? We don't particularly need to.

[kasarberang]

38 minutes ago, horrorfan said:

When you apply anywhere, for anything, you are entrusting your information to someone else, and it will be put on their database on their server (or computer). You'd also have to trust that the company you work for won't get scammed into giving out personal information, which, as you involve more people in the company, is a lot easier to do. That, plus technology changes overtime and so do the exploits to steal information from it. To truly safeguard your privacy, you would have to apply for everything via paper application, get rid of wi-fi in your home altogether (let's face it, every website commercially available has been indexed by Google (including this site; using the search engine of your choice, look up your username)), . DD is a social media outlet as well. One can choose to maintain anonymity while using it, but the same could be said of other outlets. Should we sacrifice convenience for privacy? We don't particularly need to.

You're right.

There's no way to make sure your data is 100% secure, without essentially going off-grid, which is getting harder and harder to do as technology progresses. I have come across myself multiple times when searching for stories on here, as my stories obviously appeal to my interests so they pop up a lot in my heavily filtered search results. I choose to stay relatively private on here. If any particular piece of my information I have on here was somehow given out to someone else it wouldn't matter to me, cause the information is easily disposable and tied specifically to this instance. Look up Kasarberang anywhere else, you wont find anyone, or if you do it's not me. This is the only account I have under this name and email.

I don't think anyone should do any more than they are comfortable with doing. Mainly I don't want people to live in ignorance.

There are a lot of people that don't understand what Google/Facebook/ect.. collect. they don't know what they are giving up, but if they did they might think twice. I don't want to stop anyone from using Google if they think Google and Google's products offer something of value to them.

But there are alternatives. Some just as good if not better than the big services.

Lord knows I don't go to the extremes others have. I still use Amazon for example and have things shipped to my home address. I think the convenience overrides the cost in that particular situation.

Some people might go further and buy a P.O box paid with cash using a fake name, but stuff like that is too much for me.

I do more than most, but that just means I have different priorities than most. I can't imagine doing things differently to how I do them now, as that's just become my habit.

[horrorfan]

9 hours ago, kasarberang said:

You're right.

There's no way to make sure your data is 100% secure, without essentially going off-grid, which is getting harder and harder to do as technology progresses. I have come across myself multiple times when searching for stories on here, as my stories obviously appeal to my interests so they pop up a lot in my heavily filtered search results. I choose to stay relatively private on here. If any particular piece of my information I have on here was somehow given out to someone else it wouldn't matter to me, cause the information is easily disposable and tied specifically to this instance. Look up Kasarberang anywhere else, you wont find anyone, or if you do it's not me. This is the only account I have under this name and email.

I don't think anyone should do any more than they are comfortable with doing. Mainly I don't want people to live in ignorance.

There are a lot of people that don't understand what Google/Facebook/ect.. collect. they don't know what they are giving up, but if they did they might think twice. I don't want to stop anyone from using Google if they think Google and Google's products offer something of value to them.

But there are alternatives. Some just as good if not better than the big services.

Lord knows I don't go to the extremes others have. I still use Amazon for example and have things shipped to my home address. I think the convenience overrides the cost in that particular situation.

Some people might go further and buy a P.O box paid with cash using a fake name, but stuff like that is too much for me.

I do more than most, but that just means I have different priorities than most. I can't imagine doing things differently to how I do them now, as that's just become my habit.

I was referring to bigger search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Duckduckgo, or any other engine that can be set to a browser's default search engine (heck, on the Chrome browser you can even highlight text, then right-click to search Google for it). That wasn't the point I was trying to get across though, my point was that Google is tracking us here on DD as we speak, in a sense. Suppose someone were to write an algorithm that searched Google for matches of a specific speech pattern; can you say that you write completely differently elsewhere on the internet? That aside, I will agree with you that people typically give out way more information and more privacy than they should.

[kasarberang]

4 hours ago, horrorfan said:

I was referring to bigger search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Duckduckgo, or any other engine that can be set to a browser's default search engine (heck, on the Chrome browser you can even highlight text, then right-click to search Google for it). That wasn't the point I was trying to get across though, my point was that Google is tracking us here on DD as we speak, in a sense. Suppose someone were to write an algorithm that searched Google for matches of a specific speech pattern; can you say that you write completely differently elsewhere on the internet? That aside, I will agree with you that people typically give out way more information and more privacy than they should.

I do try to change up my typing style depending on where on the internet I am. I think at this point we're basically on the same page though, so there's not much more to add.

 

I enjoyed the conversation and if you have anything more you'd like to add I'd love to hear it and give my 2cents.

[Idzy]

Privacy is dead,

If you even have a Facebook  account, it's already game over.

[eatenbywo1ves]

Honestly even going all cabin in the woods unibomber style isn't going to stop meta data collection on you.

 

It's w/e IMO but I think reading '1984' should be required by law or part of the contract on device purchases.

[Diapered Jason]

None of this makes a difference, because 90% of the time you are compromised is due to a phishing scam. You are probably all willingly giving away your most private information and not realizing it.

 

Realize that meta data is not that private no matter what you do, but they are not that powerful. Your SSN, birthdate, and address can be used against you on the other hand, and guess what, somebody has already compromised that info for you already.

So if you want to be proactive, get your self some identify theft insurance.