19
10Dev
3y

Warning: long rant

I'm sick and tired of feeling like I'm the only person who cares about their privacy

I try, as much as I can, to avoid surveillance. I use firefox, protonmail, duckduckgo, e2e encrypted chat platforms, avoid social media like the plague, and do everything I can to block facebook and google trackers on websites I visit

And it's exhausting

Each search I make means I waste another 30 seconds because duckduckgo doesn't pull the answer directly from webpages like google does

I get weird looks when I give people a @protonmail email address, and I have to explain what it is to them every fucking time

People ask if I have social media, and I either give them nothing or my Github account

And for what? Nobody else cares, no matter how much I explain how toxic google and facebook are to society.

They just say 'I have nothing to hide' as they scroll Instagram, letting Zuckerberg build an intimately detailed profile on them.

They just say 'so what' as they google memes from their chrome browser, allowing google to share that information with god-knows-who

If everyone else has given up their privacy for convenience, why am I still fighting a losing battle?

It feels like I'm fighting a war against big tech by myself, and I'm tired and about to lay down my arms

Comments
  • 11
    I do not think you can protect your privacy, at all. They have been tracking phones position and listening to them for 15 to 20 years.
  • 2
  • 7
    Want to protect yourself?

    start:
    Stop using the Internet. Simples 🤷‍♂️
    Stop having "smart" technology.
    end

    What? You don't want to forgoe these things? Well, Jump onboard the lack of Privacy train.

    Seriously, you can't maintain your privacy at all times, your behaviour both online and offline can and is monitored, that shirt you just bought from a walk in store, now has a receipt, that receipt is now tied to your bank account - you bank now knows where you were and when, without a tracker, what you paid cash? There was a camera on that ATM and in the store.

    Tech has surpassed being able to hide from it, your own phone uses 3/4G - that alone gives your location away.

    Now that we made it this far:
    goto: start
  • 2
    @vigidis 🤣
    I laugh, but my bank has started a similar thing, for e-receipts.

    The world we live in, for better... or well worse.

    @theKarlisK ah, the Facebook like button - I mean, the data profiling gather mining tool that was thrown on everything, everywhere until they were found to be tracking you even when not logged in.

    @10Dev, if you care about privacy, go build a time machine - do 88mph and jump back to the year 2000 and make Y2K real!
  • 0
    I think the best way to protect your privacy is to disconnect the internet
  • 1
    Just don't give a fuck about those people?
  • 3
    > If everyone else has given up their privacy for convenience, why am I still fighting a losing battle?

    For the same reason why theres a large population of people that think the coronavirus is a hoax. They don't see the direct consequences of not caring about it.

    At some point, I hope, they will. I am the same as you, by the way - down to the email address thing. I use ungoogled chromium and ddg and tor sometimes even (namely to access email and whatnot).

    At this point, privacy isn't a movement. It's self-defense. Once you begin to view it that way, you feel a bit les stress - at least, I do.
  • 3
    I tried going down that road (Linux, tutanota, no social media) until I couldn't book a cab cause the app required Google services. I've seen given up and "embraced the botnet". We sacrifice our data for the sake of convenience. And I don't see a world where enough people protest to make a tangible cause for change.
  • 1
    you are fighting windmills, my dear. scary, ugly, but still windmills...
  • 0
    @vigidis yup, not to mention that many shops give you discounts by using their app at checkout.

    Some downright requires you to use their app to use the quick / cashierless checkout... *Cough* co-op/quickly.
  • 0
    This is how I view this matter; One day, we will die and be forgotten (except if you become the next einstein). So, in the end - no one will give a fuck or care enough to care about someone who doesn't exist. Of course, if some human is targetting me specifically and I am alive - then there is a fucking problem. Lastly, this is my own view of this, but if privacy is your thing, why stress about it and care that others don't (like me). Do what makes you feel you.
  • 1
    The best way to be invisible is to blend in with the crowd. All of the stuff the OP is doing is making him stand out from the crowd and inviting government scrutiny.
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