tldr
I struggle to find balance between wanting privacy in my day-to-day, and wanting to use the newest and greatest services and products.
Pretext
This post is meant to drum up some discussion that I feel is often lost on privacy focused communities. It’s about the nexus between privacy and modern technology. I hope I don’t sound like an idiot, I still consider myself a novice at technological privacy.
I’m a fairly privacy concerned individual, not for any particular reason other than that I feel it’s my right, my data, and I should have the say over who gets to see/use it. Especially when I’m paying for a service. I find that at times, I am more privacy oriented than others. I have a Google Pixel 4 that I’ve used Lineage OS on for a while. I’ve bought an old thinkpad and have a a linux distro running on that as well. I also have, an iPhone, a Macbook, and a desktop PC used primarily for work/gaming that is running Windows 10. EDIT: I also want to recognize my privilege to be able to choose between all these devices. Not everyone can switch around so freely.
Every few weeks I tend to flip coins on the matter. Some weeks I really just want the ease of everything working, quick google searches, iMessage, polished operating systems, etc. Other weeks I want to be a total privacy nut and clamp down on all of my traffic, pop my SIM into my Lineage Pixel, and do my work on my laptop for a while.
Conversation
I want to know if anyone else goes through these types of moodswings like I do? I also want to hear your stories on how you went all the way and never looked back, or tried to and ended up somewhere in the middle. All of this back and forth for me has made me a much more privacy minded person, and the non-privacy focused products I used are about as clamped down as possible - but that’s not saying much.
Thought I was the only that feels this way. I try to stay away from anything too mainstream/centralized but that’s where the majority of people are at. Decentralized platforms are ghost towns in comparison. It’s also a hassle to convert people into using privacy messaging apps so sometimes I just give into using sms and try not to disclosed anything too personal.
I share this sentiment as well. I can’t even begin to get certain family members to switch to something like Signal - which makes iMessage miles better as an alternative to SMS/MMS. I’m also finding that what keeps me coming back to buying new tech and the like is the amount of media exposure I get. For example, that new YouTube video outlining all the expected features of the new iPhone, etc. These things add up in the subconscious.
As for decentralized platforms == ghost towns, this is normally true, but I’ve noticed this instance of Lemmy has been absolutely popping off lately. It makes me very happy to have engagement like this from like-minded people.
I’m banned from your instance, I’m team lemmygrad. If only we had the best of both worlds. My plan of action is to bring more exposure to decentralized platforms to communities that need it the most. Communities like conservatives and conspiracy theorist/realist.
Hope it works out for you. Makes sense why you eventually caught a ban though. This instance is advertised as leftest.
The fact you are torn between privacy and latest tech products means you are already waaay ahead of most of people (who don’t even realize/care that there is a privacy conscious way to be online). It’s a great discussion to prompt and I look forward to seeing more responses.
The path of privacy focused stuff should be a path we choose for its own merits not a difficult rocky road we martyr ourselves on, don’t beat yourself up about caving in and going for the glittery new tech (sometimes).
As a fellow novice, I certainly empathize with the sentiments here. It’s somewhat of pain that I can no longer see what some friends are up to on social media (the fear of missing out is strong at times…) and the smaller communities of the federation often lack activity for non-tech topics. On the positive side however, I can keep up with the entirety of Lemmy pretty easily.
As far as a journey is concerned, my strategy has been to move incrementally. And fairly slowly. It also helps that I don’t have any specific needs and can comfortably sacrifice some functionality in certain areas. Having extra hardware is a good idea; I do that as well. I spent most of a year using Linux Mint on a spare laptop from a sibling before even considering improving my mobile phone privacy. Then first by test runs with F-Droid apps on my bootloader-locked phone, which took a few months, before finally purchasing a used Pixel 3a to load GrapheneOS. I still have to keep my locked phone around for my family group chat though, since that app cannot run on a de-Googled phone. So I’m not entirely out of Google’s grip. I still use Youtube (might try Invidious out soon), Discord, and play games through Steam on Windows 10. Make the compromises that seem appropriate for now, and circle back to them later. One of the most frustrating things about this is the amount of information and effort required to achieve even moderate privacy, so I view it as a marathon. I do what I can, in small steps.
And should I ever feel as though I just want to begin to use new, easy, convenient service or product X, I sober up by actually reading the TOS (Terms of Service) and Privacy Policy, or EULA (End User License Agreement). One of the most horrific ones I’ve read is for the AT&T USA (i.e., bootloader-locked) version of the Samsung Galaxy S5, which explicitly only leases the operating system to the user.
You are correct. Privacy communities like to be idealistic instead of realistic. You can go either Stallman (which almost none of these Orwell-spamming idealists ever do) or go for a Marxist-Leninist realism approach, doing what is necessary to find the balance.
I call this the paradox of freedom with anti-privacy tools.
To make it brief, the freedom you get from accessing to Discord or Telegram communities is immense. By cutting yourself off on the basis of phone number requirement, you end up also restricting your freedom of knowledge by increasing your freedom of privacy. This also makes it clear they are either incapable of compartmentalisation, or lack the hardware resources to do so.
I practice my OPSEC while feeding data anywhere and have advocated for threat modelling to people with my easy guide, and assist many people via DMs and chats. I have advocated for compartmentalisation a lot. Some fake reddit privacy communities have started copying my approach, but they are as good as a copycat is compared to someone with experience and real world understanding.
Feel free to talk to me, and honestly, crosspost this over to c/privacy and on r/privatelife if you have reddit account. This might be worth a discussion.
I do appreciate you chiming in on this. When using mainstream products like my phone or WIN10/MacOS, I do practice as much compartmentalization as I can. For all my online shopping, I have an email address setup to specifically handle that sort of thing (because of the high incidence of tracking and email subscriptions you get in their ToS for buying something). I also have a single and very private email that I don’t give out to anyone other than my bank and utilities. The list goes on but I do try my best.
I really like your point on how restricting yourself to a more private life can restrict your freedom when it comes to accessing information. This is all too true.
Compartmentalisation and threat modelling will lead the charge in the future. And I will be here to help out people and we need to have this culture, where less paranoia and Orwell spamming happens.
Appreciate that. Let me know if I can help in any way.
You are already helping. Crosspost and get this discussion over at c/privacy.
Will do. I also find it interesting that you advocate for a locked down version of Android X as opposed to alternative OS’s like /e/ or LineageOS. What’s your reasoning? Is it simply because of security?
I am not advocating it over LOS, but the security factor is indeed an issue, and the requirement for no root these days is really high. Also, the guide serves as a way for just about any Android user to get top grade benefits on par with custom ROMs, which breaks a massive gatekeeping and elitism barrier.
