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We haven't lost. But we are losing. I have reasonable privacy online. None of my devices connect to google, except if I explicitly do so, which I do from time

We haven't lost. But we are losing. I have reasonable privacy online. None of my devices connect to google, except if I explicitly do so, which I do from time to time for a reason or other. None of my devices are even capable of connecting to Facebook owned domains, I have them DNS blocked. JS off by default for all sites, no social media (except this site and one more that I run myself). I don't own a TV or any smart appliance whatsoever. No google assistant, siri, Alexa. None of that. I buy things on Amazon. They know where I live and what I buy from them. They cannot show me ads because I let nobody show me ads. All in all some people probably get some info about me, but the info collected on me is probably along the lines of what they were capable of getting in 2005. And good luck stitching it all together. You can do a lot short of disconnecting. But you have to disconnect from the strip mall "internet". You can't wait on laws, because you're right, they have no incentive. You're the only one that does, so you have to do something about it, in your own life, for yourself.

sodality2 6y ago
You say reasonable, but that's more than 95% of what "privacy advocates" do and I'd say that's a serious level of privacy. I do most of the things you do as well, so I'm not calling you a radical, but that's not really reasonable; that's way more than most people, even "privacy conscious" ones.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  Yeah, I know, but once you have it set up it isn't any more work. And it is a serious level of privacy (and it isn't the entire extent of my setup either) but if some alphabet soup agency wanted to find me they probably could. It's really just to protect me from data collectors and ad agencies and stuff online. When a lot of people say "it is just too hard" what they mean to say is "I want to use services that track me." For most people, only turning on JS for web apps and not using malware as a service is all it really takes.
simion314 6y ago
>None of my devices are even capable of connecting to Facebook owned domains, I have them DNS blocked. Can't malicious application work around your DNS block? Is there a way to be 100% sure say all Facebook/Google is blocked? I am not a networking guy so maybe the future is to whitelist IPs/domains for each device and application.
- chopin 6y ago
  You could hardcode IP-addresses. Or use DoH for DNS resolution.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  I'm not sure about this actually. I would assume that an application could connect to a DNS server directly and request an IP for a specific domain and then navigate directly. I don't believe I have any applications on any devices that do that, but it is possible.

sodality2 6y ago

You say reasonable, but that's more than 95% of what "privacy advocates" do and I'd say that's a serious level of privacy. I do most of the things you do as well, so I'm not calling you a radical, but that's not really reasonable; that's way more than most people, even "privacy conscious" ones.

betwixthewires 6y ago
Yeah, I know, but once you have it set up it isn't any more work. And it is a serious level of privacy (and it isn't the entire extent of my setup either) but if some alphabet soup agency wanted to find me they probably could. It's really just to protect me from data collectors and ad agencies and stuff online. When a lot of people say "it is just too hard" what they mean to say is "I want to use services that track me." For most people, only turning on JS for web apps and not using malware as a service is all it really takes.

simion314 6y ago

>None of my devices are even capable of connecting to Facebook owned domains, I have them DNS blocked. Can't malicious application work around your DNS block? Is there a way to be 100% sure say all Facebook/Google is blocked? I am not a networking guy so maybe the future is to whitelist IPs/domains for each device and application.

chopin 6y ago
You could hardcode IP-addresses. Or use DoH for DNS resolution.
betwixthewires 6y ago
I'm not sure about this actually. I would assume that an application could connect to a DNS server directly and request an IP for a specific domain and then navigate directly. I don't believe I have any applications on any devices that do that, but it is possible.