I have nothing else to ask in this community..... how did I get here? 🤔
For the past year, I've been immersed in the topic of Privacy. I switched to Linux, flashed my phone to LineageOS, changed all my software to one that respects privacy, switched my family and most* friends to Signal, started hating megacorporations and pretty much every government in the world, asked a lot of questions on tiddeR and here. Everything makes sense to me now. I'm a privacy guru🥹. How to move on? What's the next step? 😁
P.S. if you're just at the beginning of your journey, I don't think you'll find a better resource than PrivacyGuides. Highly recommend it!
unironically and without bad intentions saying this: touch grass. what good does maximum privacy when you don't do anything with it? one major take away for me from caring about privacy was the realization, that i tended to be "terminally online" (given my job needs me to sit in front of a computer during most working hours) and started to live more in the "analogue world". enjoy reading books again. take your family more out, explore your city, the countryside - and turn your phone off. just pretend it's 1998 again. good luck & see you out there, space cowboy!
what good does maximum privacy when you don't do anything with it?
There is absolutely something to be said about increasing the noise level for interesting signal. If only the people who truly have something to hide (activists, whistleblowers, journalists, etc) use privacy tools, then they stand out like a beacon in the night. If we all take the same measures they are much much harder to pin point.
the internet and it's tools shouldn't be the centerpoint of our private lives. use it when you want/have to or just feel like it, but don't let it dictate your personal habits and relationships. if you want to fuck over big tech and the all-seeing eye of the glowies, just stop feeding them instead just trying to avoid them.
Yeah, I was already in my thirties when the internet was opened up to the general public, and to me there was a kind of sweet spot around 2000 where the internet was really useful to ordinary people, but people didn’t spend all their time online. I guess the introduction of smartphones is what made the difference.