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I think it's mostly pointless to put more than a basic minimum amount of effort into protecting your own privacy (e.g. sensible social media settings). There ar

I think it's mostly pointless to put more than a basic minimum amount of effort into protecting your own privacy (e.g. sensible social media settings). There are too many surreptitious means of getting your info. Instead we need to focus our efforts on political action. Privacy is not something that can be controlled at the individual level when you're up against billion dollar budgets.

wolverine876 4y ago
I wouldn't call it pointless. You can use Signal and essentially have your communications disappear. Technological tools being available make the legal solutions practical. But I agree that the legal solution is certainly necessary and most essential.
kornhole 4y ago
I agree that political action is needed, but I have almost no hope that any substantive legal changes will pass in near future. Big money and power prevent proposals from getting anywhere. It is up to us to protect ourselves and loved ones. It is a fun sport to evade the surveillance state.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  > I have almost no hope that any substantive legal changes will pass in near future This is the most popular move against action, to convince people it is hopeless. In fact, when the people want something strongly enough, it certainly happens. There is a long, well-established history of it.
  - kornhole 4y ago
    I encourage everybody to continue trying, but I am also realistic. I often write my senators and congress people here in California about these issues and proposed bills. They send me back canned letters telling me to pound sand, save the children, blah blah. They are heavily funded by the surveillance capitalists, and the intelligence agencies rely on that data.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > realistic A term people use to justify pessimism, as if that represents reality better than other options such as optimism.
mrtesthah 4y ago
Certainly regulations are essential, but individual actions to protect privacy, when taken en masse, can reduce the profitability of data harvesting. Moreover, by influencing social mores, it can build solidarity and inertia against potential future mass-surveillance laws.
derevaunseraun 4y ago
> Privacy is not something that can be controlled at the individual level when you're up against billion dollar budgets. But the billion dollar budgets are spread across an incredibly broad scale and have to handle a ridiculous amount of data. Certain patterns scale very well for the companies, e.g. using google chrome while logged into the google account If we just avoid the big players and use a bunch of different, unaffiliated services, it makes mass surveillance more expensive and less likely to yield a strong ROI Defeatism just gives these companies a better ROI with respect to surveillance, and it also makes us more susceptible to pushes to erode privacy, like the current one to replace passwords with biometric data
nunorbatista 4y ago
OP Here. The legal part is important, but you don't have to make it easy. GDPR was a good step forward if not in the way people think about the subject. It would be great to see other countries follow this.
sweetbitter 4y ago
>Privacy is not something that can be controlled at the individual level when you're up against billion dollar budgets. Use FOSS, now the price of direct compromise rises above $0. Turn on NoScript? Whoops, there goes like 90% of web tracking, goodbye surveillance capitalists. Use Tor or other multihop for casual browsing? Most adversaries will now be incapable of tracing an arbitrary circuit of an arbitrary user. Cost of tracking activity is now way up there. It's true that against an adversary with enough money to surveil massive swathes of ISPs worldwide, strong anonymity is not viable for casual use- that kind of thing requires networks of fixed-rate dummy traffic tunnels, public/open LAN networks, proper operational security with devices, avoiding as much social interaction as possible, the whole shebang. Political action is needed, but I fail to see how we can actually get past dark money like super PACs and such. Failing that, if enough people use their general purpose machines in a subversive manner, they themselves will become more difficult to suppress.

wolverine876 4y ago

I wouldn't call it pointless. You can use Signal and essentially have your communications disappear. Technological tools being available make the legal solutions practical. But I agree that the legal solution is certainly necessary and most essential.

kornhole 4y ago

I agree that political action is needed, but I have almost no hope that any substantive legal changes will pass in near future. Big money and power prevent proposals from getting anywhere. It is up to us to protect ourselves and loved ones. It is a fun sport to evade the surveillance state.

wolverine876 4y ago
> I have almost no hope that any substantive legal changes will pass in near future This is the most popular move against action, to convince people it is hopeless. In fact, when the people want something strongly enough, it certainly happens. There is a long, well-established history of it.
- kornhole 4y ago
  I encourage everybody to continue trying, but I am also realistic. I often write my senators and congress people here in California about these issues and proposed bills. They send me back canned letters telling me to pound sand, save the children, blah blah. They are heavily funded by the surveillance capitalists, and the intelligence agencies rely on that data.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > realistic A term people use to justify pessimism, as if that represents reality better than other options such as optimism.

mrtesthah 4y ago

Certainly regulations are essential, but individual actions to protect privacy, when taken en masse, can reduce the profitability of data harvesting. Moreover, by influencing social mores, it can build solidarity and inertia against potential future mass-surveillance laws.

derevaunseraun 4y ago

> Privacy is not something that can be controlled at the individual level when you're up against billion dollar budgets. But the billion dollar budgets are spread across an incredibly broad scale and have to handle a ridiculous amount of data. Certain patterns scale very well for the companies, e.g. using google chrome while logged into the google account If we just avoid the big players and use a bunch of different, unaffiliated services, it makes mass surveillance more expensive and less likely to yield a strong ROI Defeatism just gives these companies a better ROI with respect to surveillance, and it also makes us more susceptible to pushes to erode privacy, like the current one to replace passwords with biometric data

nunorbatista 4y ago

OP Here. The legal part is important, but you don't have to make it easy. GDPR was a good step forward if not in the way people think about the subject. It would be great to see other countries follow this.

sweetbitter 4y ago

>Privacy is not something that can be controlled at the individual level when you're up against billion dollar budgets. Use FOSS, now the price of direct compromise rises above $0. Turn on NoScript? Whoops, there goes like 90% of web tracking, goodbye surveillance capitalists. Use Tor or other multihop for casual browsing? Most adversaries will now be incapable of tracing an arbitrary circuit of an arbitrary user. Cost of tracking activity is now way up there. It's true that against an adversary with enough money to surveil massive swathes of ISPs worldwide, strong anonymity is not viable for casual use- that kind of thing requires networks of fixed-rate dummy traffic tunnels, public/open LAN networks, proper operational security with devices, avoiding as much social interaction as possible, the whole shebang. Political action is needed, but I fail to see how we can actually get past dark money like super PACs and such. Failing that, if enough people use their general purpose machines in a subversive manner, they themselves will become more difficult to suppress.