Not every one is able to comprehend that mindset, so I’ll narrow it down further for the sake of proper argument…
Are you willing to receive an unlubricated, 6-inch circumference cylinder into any of your orifices at any given time day or night? If so, then… wow. Weird, but respect where respect is due.
Otherwise… show me your phone, in person, right now so that I can look through it and share it at my whim. MY WHIM, which means that YOU DO NOT HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO DELETE ANYTHING. Once you hand me your phone, the transaction is over and I, ME, I have the power to do with what I find on it what I so choose.
while i very much agree that there isn’t really an option other than self hosting that actually protects u much with regards to this stuff… also think that having a section to discuss various services as they exist now, what they started as, and what they seem to be heading towards… isn’t the worst idea…
Are we not operating with the premise that nothing on any cell phone is safe and private and has already been compromised in several different ways by several different entities? If you aren’t, and you have anything at all sensitive, then you should be.
Many (I’d venture to say most) people don’t care about digital privacy, or personal privacy for that matter. The folks that are here have most likely seen Wendel and the gang speak on these topics every week so they have heard the message already. As for tutorials on different peoples personal opsec I wouldn’t think an open web forum tied to a popular youtube channel would be the place to find reliable info on proper tactics.
There is plenty of great info here on self hosting and running your own stuff, but that isn’t nearly enough for poeple with actual sensitive scenarios that could be life threatening. I personally wouldn’t wan to give or receive info or advice that is that important from an open forum.
Though I may be a bit jaded and have no real desire to spread awareness and save humanity anymore. I do however make sure me and mine are all good, which is at the very least something.
Not saying folks should stop spreading awareness if it makes them feel good though.
I, generally, can’t argue, but the shit is only going to get worse from here on out unless more people are aware and fight back as much as they can. Jaded (believe me, I am, too) or not, it doesn’t change the fight.
Some wild assumptions here or maybe I wasn’t clear or your reading comprehension is just poor.
The easy retort is do you use a cell phone? Then you already are doing that except you are giving it to companies that use it for leverage or profit, sometimes both. Sure you can run aosp and not have any of the google stuff installed but there are other surfaces you are exposing.
Though I don’t care enough about your feelings to get into a flame war. Just for the sake of simplicity and in attempt to de-escalate. I used to care about this stuff a lot and put considered time, effort and money into things like fighting the dmca and patriot act, funding EFF, writing letters, making phones, etc..
Overtime the apathy of the masses and the powers that be have, in short won the fights they needed too. ID verification online is really just a smoke screen and mental hack then an actual improvement on their monitoring capabilities.
FWIW AI agents are damn good at cycling through the discovery of companies holding your data and automating the opt-out process. I suspect companies like incogni and deleteme are just wrapppers around a setup like that.
I own a cell phone. It runs GrapheneOS and has an always-on VPN.
Unfortunately everyone still wants to communiate over SMS, but Signal and Element are there for the few who actually care enough to install an app for end-to-end encrypted messaging.
I get my apps from F-Droid or the Aurora store with an anonymous account if possible.
I do use the sandboxed google play store from time to time.
Whaddyagonnado ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna do, limit how much of my data I put out there as much as makes sense for the time/inconvenience it costs. Sure, I’m pissing against the wind…but whatever data I can deny from going to 3rd parties (within reason while still just living my life not holed up in a basement doing everything over ToR using Tails or whatever), I’m gonna deny it.
Yes, I do the same. Maybe some companies do have access to my data, but there’s still a level of choice even in pissing against the wind here. And the more we do this, and advocate for others to do it, and work on making it easier, and communicate why, the more the inertia will grow against ( as @eousphoros does correctly mention! ) the apathy of the masses, and one day! one day, that grand shift will be won.
Yes, the process sucks. Yes, it seems like it’s sisyphean. But we can get there.
As someone who has tried to continue pushing the rock up the hill for the last 30 years only to see it lower on the hill then when I started I don’t believe you. I hope we do, but I don’t believe it.
Hey, thanks for your efforts, I sincerely appreciate it! Without them that rock would be slightly further down the hill, and every mm we can prevent it from rolling down counts.
I feel it’s important to keep the free alternatives open (like xmpp for friend chat) so that IF something happens that make people more interested in privacy, there is somewhere to go.
very much feel this way as well…
i sincerely believe in the importance of this particular struggle… first and foremost bc i think that the best way to ensure a better version of the world is to make the effort to create it… and failing that, i am also a firm believer in Camus’ statement that “One must imagine Sisyphus happy”.
Also, this probably isn’t even on most peoples radars since this hobby is super niche but is just another dimension of the same problem but has even more large corporate interests crushing individual freedom.
If you think you and your family are safe because you’re doing everything you can to communicate securely, think again.
The day will come when we must stand up for our freedom.
Those who haven’t completely lost their minds must stand together in the center of society and stand against the extremists who can only destroy but not build anything.
I’m under no illusions, as I have neither the knowledge nor the daily discipline to avoid making mistakes or overlooking something.
All I can do is make the surveillance as expensive as possible, and not even pay them money for my own surveillance.
So everything I do is thematically distributed across multiple systems, which either have no internet access or only have access via a proxy and PFblocker/pihole with unbound.
However, on one system is intentionally open to provide information and misinformation.
The thing is, over the last 15 years, we’ve seen that it’s completely unclear what information about oneself is dangerous.
Not celebrating an idiocy loudly enough can already be a problem, and I’ve realized that I do not have the character traits to have the necessary flexibility to survive extremism in any direction.
It is disturbing to watch the news in my country, people still fall for the same lies as a hundred years ago.
And the only thing you can do is stay mentally healthy and not fall prey to any ideology.
Left and right narratives are for the useful idiots who are later discarded when they have served their purpose and become annoying.
