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Never in the history of humanity has such powerful privacy tech existed for anyone who wants to use it. Using common off the shelf, open source, heavily audite

by px43 3y ago

Never in the history of humanity has such powerful privacy tech existed for anyone who wants to use it. Using common off the shelf, open source, heavily audited tools, it's trivial today, even for a non-technical 10 year old, to create a new identity and collaborate with anyone anywhere in the world. They can do research, get paid, make payments, and contribute to private communities in such a way that no existing surveillance infrastructure can positively link that identity to their government identity. Every day privacy tech is improving and adding new capabilities.

hackeman300 3y ago
Care to elaborate?
- maxrecursion 3y ago
  That guy clearly has never been around 10 years olds, and vastly over estimates their intelligence. I'm fact, all evidence points to younger generations being less tech savvy because they don't have to troubleshoot like the older generations did. Everything works, and almost nothing requires any technical configurations.
fishcrackers 3y ago
[dead]
whelp_24 3y ago
Never before in history has it been necessary. It used to be possible to travel like a hundred miles and dissappear. Before credit was ubiquitous, money was hard to trace, and before that is was essentially untraceable. And cameras didn't used to be everywhere tracking faces for criminals and frequent shoppers. I don't know what privacy technologies you are talking about that are super effective, and i have been bit older than 10 for a while.
- 127361 3y ago
  Now here in the UK they are using people's passport photos for facial recognition, at least to stop shoplifting. It won't be long before this is expanded to other things due to feature creep.
crazygringo 3y ago
> Never in the history of humanity has such powerful privacy tech existed for anyone who wants to use it. True. > it's trivial today, even for a non-technical 10 year old Not even close. It's difficult even for a technical 30 year old. You're talking about acquiring cash that has passed through several people's hands without touching an ATM that recorded its serial numbers. Using it to acquire Bitcoin from a stranger. Making use of multiple VPN's, and making zero mistakes where any outgoing traffic from your computer can be used to identify you -- browser fingerprinting, software updates, analytics, MAC address. Which basically means a brand-new computer you've purchased in cash somewhere without cameras, that you use for nothing else -- or maybe you could get away with a VM, but are you really sure its networking isn't leaking anything about your actual hardware? Receiving Bitcoin, and then once again finding a stranger to convert that back into cash. That is a lot of effort.
- 127361 3y ago
  Also stylometric analysis of your writing can be used to identify you.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    This is one thing AI really can help with: rewriting what you wrote in order to make stylometric analysis worthless.
    - willismichael 3y ago
      Feed your writing into AI so that it can rewrite it so that AI can't identify you by your writing? Sounds like a startup idea to me. When we're ready for the evil phase, let's classify everybody by their inputs to the system and then sell the results to the highest bidder.
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    That’s why I run everything I write through a random open source LLM with random settings and a custom decoder /s I’m kidding, but the reality is such techniques will fool almost all stylometric analysis, Also most actual stylinetric analysts work for spooks or are spooks.
yoyohello13 3y ago
I think "trivial" is a stretch.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
zxt_tzx 3y ago
> They can do research, get paid, make payments, and contribute to private communities in such a way that no existing surveillance infrastructure can positively link that identity to their government identity. I can't help but wonder if we live in the same universe. If anything, in my part of the world, I am seeing powerful surveillance tech going from the digital sphere and into the physical sphere, often on the legal/moral basis that one has no expectation of privacy in public spaces. Would love for OP to elaborate and prove me wrong!

by px43 3y ago

hackeman300 3y ago

Care to elaborate?

maxrecursion 3y ago
That guy clearly has never been around 10 years olds, and vastly over estimates their intelligence. I'm fact, all evidence points to younger generations being less tech savvy because they don't have to troubleshoot like the older generations did. Everything works, and almost nothing requires any technical configurations.

fishcrackers 3y ago

[dead]

whelp_24 3y ago

Never before in history has it been necessary. It used to be possible to travel like a hundred miles and dissappear. Before credit was ubiquitous, money was hard to trace, and before that is was essentially untraceable. And cameras didn't used to be everywhere tracking faces for criminals and frequent shoppers. I don't know what privacy technologies you are talking about that are super effective, and i have been bit older than 10 for a while.

127361 3y ago
Now here in the UK they are using people's passport photos for facial recognition, at least to stop shoplifting. It won't be long before this is expanded to other things due to feature creep.

crazygringo 3y ago

> Never in the history of humanity has such powerful privacy tech existed for anyone who wants to use it. True. > it's trivial today, even for a non-technical 10 year old Not even close. It's difficult even for a technical 30 year old. You're talking about acquiring cash that has passed through several people's hands without touching an ATM that recorded its serial numbers. Using it to acquire Bitcoin from a stranger. Making use of multiple VPN's, and making zero mistakes where any outgoing traffic from your computer can be used to identify you -- browser fingerprinting, software updates, analytics, MAC address. Which basically means a brand-new computer you've purchased in cash somewhere without cameras, that you use for nothing else -- or maybe you could get away with a VM, but are you really sure its networking isn't leaking anything about your actual hardware? Receiving Bitcoin, and then once again finding a stranger to convert that back into cash. That is a lot of effort.

127361 3y ago
Also stylometric analysis of your writing can be used to identify you.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This is one thing AI really can help with: rewriting what you wrote in order to make stylometric analysis worthless.
  - willismichael 3y ago
    Feed your writing into AI so that it can rewrite it so that AI can't identify you by your writing? Sounds like a startup idea to me. When we're ready for the evil phase, let's classify everybody by their inputs to the system and then sell the results to the highest bidder.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  That’s why I run everything I write through a random open source LLM with random settings and a custom decoder /s I’m kidding, but the reality is such techniques will fool almost all stylometric analysis, Also most actual stylinetric analysts work for spooks or are spooks.

yoyohello13 3y ago

I think "trivial" is a stretch.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

zxt_tzx 3y ago

> They can do research, get paid, make payments, and contribute to private communities in such a way that no existing surveillance infrastructure can positively link that identity to their government identity. I can't help but wonder if we live in the same universe. If anything, in my part of the world, I am seeing powerful surveillance tech going from the digital sphere and into the physical sphere, often on the legal/moral basis that one has no expectation of privacy in public spaces. Would love for OP to elaborate and prove me wrong!