So about 5 years ago i could barley even get a new computer connected to wifi and my computer crashed causing me to lose the majority of my photography work. A friend in IT suggested i get a nas. This spark a slight interest in tech, but didnt start snowballing tell about 2 years ago. In the last two years I have spend a serous amount of time learning a little bit of everything from html to bash and python, networking, knocked out the majority of challenges on tryhackme, and working on privacy as a default in every day activities. However i feel a little desperate about the whole privacy thing. I know techlore covered it in a video, but i still feel very overwhelmed and helpless about the whole thing! the fact that just having a grocery store club card being enough for a company to know almost everything about you and use algos to predict future actions, or even people around you without privacy concerns being the main foothold for companies to collect data on me is stressful. General warrant geo fencing being a perfectly legal practice and storage of just about everything done online. No one i know seems to even care a little bit, but the reality is all these things are a flagrant violation of our rights. We are 100% in a surveillance state and that makes us only a single move away from a police state. How do we resist when the overwhelming majority has been conditioned to not care at all. How do you as a person, and us as a community deal with these issues.
First of all take a deep breath. Privacy is not a race, it’s a journey. You take it one step at a time and slowly by surely try to reduce your digital footprint and change your lifestyle.
You cannot become super private overnight. It just doesn’t work that way. If you want a starting point checkout the Go Incognito guide to security, privacy and anonymity by Techlore.
And remember you are not alone. We all have been in your shoes some way or another in the past. If you try to rush it only thing you gonna achieve is burn out and give up.
First of, welcome to the Techlore forums, and congrats on showing an interest in tech. It’s a very broad subject, and it looks like you’re learning a lot. Remember to take a breather, and think about things one step at a time. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, and burned out.
As for the whole legal situation, things are… slowly improving. Though, sometimes it can feel like one step forward, two steps back. I’d encourage you to get involved more politically. I don’t know where you are, but look into the EFF, World Privacy Forum, Privacy International, Open Rights Group. There are more, but those are off the top of my head.
i appreciate the time you took to respond. i watched the go incognito guide maybe a year and a half ago. Security wise im very on point. up on all the latest CVEs, and have been able to convert a lot of people around me to being more security focused. especially after showing some of the more stubborn people how quickly i can link there accounts via osint and making them realize why reusing passwords is dangerous. As far as privacy goes I feel like im falling down a rabbit hole. i used to think that if i use different emails and a vpn im fine. Then i learned about persistent cookies, and using javascript to de anonymize people so i use different browsers for different things. Then stuff like how pompompurin got caught(epic opsec fail) one of the pieces of evidence being using the same vpn to log onto his emails and breach. So now my opsec consists of many layers, vpns, and scripts to automate some of it. but how on earth do you get others around you to be willing to sacrifice so much convenience for something that isnt even tangible. Even my wife knows all these things but is reluctant to leave the google ecosystem. She sees my custom rom phone, proxmox with a couple different OSs and everything else i do, and is still annoyed cuz pihole wont let her click an add on amazon. hahaha. obviously iv gone off the deep end with it a bit, but its part of a bigger hobby for me. but it feels pointless when no one around me is even slightly concerned.
Im in the US. thank you for the link i will check that out. No burnout in my future. many things for privacy i have automated. I just feel the subject is hopeless on a general public level and its disheartening.
Are you a high risk individual?
To add onto that, The New Oil is a great guide for beginners as well, having both a website and video guides. If you are looking to replace specific services that aren’t covered by either of those guides, Privacy Guides is a one stop shop for most recommendations and also has some resources on threat modeling and how to think about privacy.
maybe i could have been more specific. I use different vpns, browser, and scripts for different activities purely to compartmentalize everything. As far as your question i wouldnt expect someone would truthfully answer that on the clearnet if it was the case, but no. Its just a hobby to see how simple i can make it to be unable to have useful data collected and sold.
Clearly it’s quite unneeded to use different vpns browsers etc just to limit data collection. You mentions hackers as your inspiration for getting to practice extreme opsec, but if you aren’t one it’s quite unnecessary to to all that. Try it out as a hobby though for fun and games.
Weird hobby but whatever lol🤷
That’s kinda why I mentioned those groups. Many people do not know, fully understand, or even care about their data. In some ways I can kind of understand. People have so many day-to-day worries, digital privacy (something not immediately identifiable, as a problem) doesn’t seem like a huge deal. The Green/Eco moment has gone through this, and arguably still is. Thankfully there are people who understand the situation, and try to fight not just for themselves, but everyone. Help educate who you can, and help groups like those I mentioned. These groups help everyone, not just you or me. They help by fighting back against draconian laws, and give you your representative details. Just because some folks don’t care, that doesn’t mean things are hopeless. It just means we (as a privacy community) have work to do.
Stoicism gets credit for the practice of not trying to control what is outside of our control.
If your doing all that you can within your control then those factors outside your control should have a reasonable impact on you.
My family can accidentally doxx me, what is in my control is influencing them and protecting myself from them. You probably have drawn the line in the sand as advanced as you seem to be. My family is in the private zone, within the security zone, good luck getting them in the anonymity zone and if you did, can you have isolation from them.
Digital minimalism and physical minimalism reduces your threats. After a couple decades, my efforts is less minimal and more essential considering every asset a liability. Can you not just survive but thrive in anonymity? Be prepared for if or when times get tough? Have a great social life with security and privacy? Ask yourself why not and then overcome these obstacles.
I have some vehicles and equipment I am moving to an LLC. If the assets are shared on some social media it can be traced to the LLC, not I. My work mailing address is a PO Box. My medical mailing address is different then my home address and my work po box.
Several pieces of property I own are moving to a land trust. None of this land is associated with my Drivers License. My employer does not have my current address. I am looking at some vacation property, yeah not in my name.
We have Amazon and Walmart deliveries at a few of these properties under alias accounts. One friendly mail lady called me by the alias on the Amazon order.