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It’s not even available to the wealthy. You have basically zero privacy using Android, and almost zero privacy using iOS; and indirectly, using stuff like Waze

It’s not even available to the wealthy. You have basically zero privacy using Android, and almost zero privacy using iOS; and indirectly, using stuff like Waze for which there is no “wealthy” alternative puts you on the Google radar - and apparently the FB one as well, because Waze were lazy and used the FB SDK before the google acquisition (and don’t seem to cars enough to remove it). It’s only available to technical people with good understanding and the will to pay in convenience and time (which the wealthy do not have excess of either)

sneak 6y ago
Wealthy people can afford multiple single-app semiburner phones, technical consultants for vpns/firewalls/piholes/etc, and assistants that will do the app installation and ordering on their own phones. A lot of the privacy invasion stuff assumes you don't have multiple devices or multiple platform accounts. It's just a matter of cost to have 2-4 different devices and accounts and vpn routers if you want to keep from being tracked across platforms and use cases.
- beagle3 6y ago
  I have multiple phones- one for Waze, one for WhatsApp, another one for calls. The extra phones cost me $100 each at the time I bought them new - not flagship, but definitely workable. This does not require any real wealth - most western HN reader can afford an amortized $100/year for privacy (half that or less if you buy 2nd hand). I also have multiple emails. Where I pay dearly, and it’s a cost even billionaires can’t avoid, is convenience. carrying 5 phones around, or remote controlling one from the others, is far from convenient. Consultant can only take you so far. If you have an aid carrying the 5 phones so they are always available to you, then you have no privacy in a different way. I have worked with some extremely high wealth individuals, and none of them practices any better OPSec than your average person; some of them inquired but balked at the non-monetary cost (e.g. seeing me with multiple phones, often off until use so they are harder to correlate, etc). These are people who would easily buy 10 iPhone12 max per year if it gave them convenient privacy. But it doesn’t.

sneak 6y ago

Wealthy people can afford multiple single-app semiburner phones, technical consultants for vpns/firewalls/piholes/etc, and assistants that will do the app installation and ordering on their own phones. A lot of the privacy invasion stuff assumes you don't have multiple devices or multiple platform accounts. It's just a matter of cost to have 2-4 different devices and accounts and vpn routers if you want to keep from being tracked across platforms and use cases.

beagle3 6y ago
I have multiple phones- one for Waze, one for WhatsApp, another one for calls. The extra phones cost me $100 each at the time I bought them new - not flagship, but definitely workable. This does not require any real wealth - most western HN reader can afford an amortized $100/year for privacy (half that or less if you buy 2nd hand). I also have multiple emails. Where I pay dearly, and it’s a cost even billionaires can’t avoid, is convenience. carrying 5 phones around, or remote controlling one from the others, is far from convenient. Consultant can only take you so far. If you have an aid carrying the 5 phones so they are always available to you, then you have no privacy in a different way. I have worked with some extremely high wealth individuals, and none of them practices any better OPSec than your average person; some of them inquired but balked at the non-monetary cost (e.g. seeing me with multiple phones, often off until use so they are harder to correlate, etc). These are people who would easily buy 10 iPhone12 max per year if it gave them convenient privacy. But it doesn’t.