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Another aspect of this I don't see mentioned nearly as much is that attempting to be more private may actually make you stand out more in terms of government su

by jrs95 8y ago

Another aspect of this I don't see mentioned nearly as much is that attempting to be more private may actually make you stand out more in terms of government surveillance. They wouldn't be getting as much data on you from companies, but odds are they're still getting plenty, and in the case of taking extreme measures to limit that it only takes one mistake to undo a lot work. So hypothetically if you did have something to hide, or if you really wanted to maximize privacy for a subset of your life, you would allow most of what you do to be tracked in order to appear "normal"

llukas 8y ago
Not wanting to be tracked is normal.
EvilTerran 8y ago
I'm reminded of the (possibly apocryphal) stories of criminals who underwent various procedures to remove their fingerprints - methodical scarring, acid burns, skin grafts from elsewhere on the body, etc: even the procedures that worked didn't actually help them evade identification, because the marks left by their now-printless fingertips were even more distinctive than before.
how_to_bake 8y ago
This is actually one of the arguments that Telegram uses. https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secret https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secre... >This allows Telegram to be widely adopted in broad circles, not just by activists and dissidents, so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries. We are convinced that the separation of conversations into Cloud and Secret chats represents the most secure solution currently possible for a massively popular messaging application. https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by-Default-08-14 https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by... >people using these apps can be targeted by governments as those who have something to hide. Due to the limited distribution of such apps, the government can identify and track individuals whose phones connect to the corresponding IP addresses. This is something that is already happening in case of tools like Tor, and, to a lesser extent, of some messaging apps. Yasha Levine is publishing a brilliant investigation about it.

by jrs95 8y ago

llukas 8y ago

Not wanting to be tracked is normal.

EvilTerran 8y ago

I'm reminded of the (possibly apocryphal) stories of criminals who underwent various procedures to remove their fingerprints - methodical scarring, acid burns, skin grafts from elsewhere on the body, etc: even the procedures that worked didn't actually help them evade identification, because the marks left by their now-printless fingertips were even more distinctive than before.

how_to_bake 8y ago

This is actually one of the arguments that Telegram uses. https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secret https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secre... >This allows Telegram to be widely adopted in broad circles, not just by activists and dissidents, so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries. We are convinced that the separation of conversations into Cloud and Secret chats represents the most secure solution currently possible for a massively popular messaging application. https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by-Default-08-14 https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by... >people using these apps can be targeted by governments as those who have something to hide. Due to the limited distribution of such apps, the government can identify and track individuals whose phones connect to the corresponding IP addresses. This is something that is already happening in case of tools like Tor, and, to a lesser extent, of some messaging apps. Yasha Levine is publishing a brilliant investigation about it.