So, what made you care about your computer privacy?

In my case, it's Google too.
The first event was their new privacy policy where they combined all info on each of their services. The next was when I noticed my search results are modified by my browsing habit, though their profiling was obviously wrong (I have too many interest to everything so I've never felt any of tracking system is useful. My Amazon's suggestion is chaos and so far I've never bought those suggested products). I was also irritated when they combined Android Play store with Google+ so that G+ account is necessary to review app.

Those were events which made me to learn about privacy, and also security. Good memory, in that time I did know nothing.

However, I don't regard me as privacy paranoid, I use Google search much as there's no alternative. DuckduckGo, IxQuick/StartPage can't be alternative for me. Disconnect Search managed to be alternative and sometimes I use it via addon, but still not perfect, especially on localization part. I also use bing to complement Google, though generally it's inferior. I don't seriously try to fight against government invasion as I know it's barren thing. I just put a point of compromise, negate most of tracking and split most of connectioning/correlation among services.

As to Snoden, to be honest I'm not shocked, or at most a little, as I'd already learned about such national intelligence far before I start to learn privacy. Many of them are already "known" tacitly in the field, but Snoden's achivement was he gave clear evidence for them, besides some really new info.

Off topic: but I didn't like some media's atitude that treat NSA as almost magician, the fact is they're still restricted by law & technology, and initial news about PRISM was obviously too much of sensetionalism. Even agencies themselves self-examinated about over-reliance on SIGINT & IMINT after the Iraq war.
And also I don't like some treated Snoden as almost hero, but sorry Snoden you're just a criminal, I appreciate your contribution to democracy & human rights as well as your bravery, but at the same time you endangered many people and maybe it will kill people, you have to bear that guilt, so please just stop speaking as if you're hero and stop justifying what you did, leave judgement to history.

 

after i deleted my facebo0k way back in 2010, i think it was about their policy that time that made me a bit scared and paranoid... since then i am on full lock down / rabbit hole mode...

 

What amazes me still to this day is how the entire world seemed to change their attitude to online privacy almost overnight. In the 90's the advice from both the traditional media and online discussion was do not put any personal information about yourself online then all of a sudden everyone was expected to plaster everything about themselves all over myspace and then facebook and a ton of other similar sites which all seemed to spring up at the same time and no one seemed to question whether that was really a wise thing to do or not.

 

True.

And for that reason I also advise never to speak with the police even if you are the most innocent. Nothing to gain in spite of how it appears, and much to lose.

 

I vividly remember a powerful piece by a Florida cop a few years back (can't recall the reference), who was very successful in getting information by "friendly" questioning, who recommended the exact same thing. He believed that he was getting the baddies, by the way, but found ways of getting them to self-incriminate.

The problem we have now is that we are facing incrimination by data mining false positives and selective quoting, out of context. Where the costs are born by the innocent with no compensation.

The eventuality suggested by Tim Berners-Lee regarding loss of trust in the internet has already come about in my opinion. I've already advised my kids on withdrawing from anything but the most anodyne on social media and the internet generally. What you type may be used in evidence.....

 

I advise kids to use pseudonyms. Kids like fantasy. For older kids, Cory Doctorow's books are a good introduction to online safety.

 

I know mine are going to grow up using whatever privacy based things I can teach them. No elves on shelves in this household.

But really though, if it's as bad as it is today, I can't imagine another five or ten years from now. Start them young on Linux and other open source software and the like.

 

I started becoming more privacy conscious as I got exposed to data on what companies are collecting on each and every person. It scared me to the bone what they knew from seemingly innocent purchases. Deleted my facebook account years ago and have long abandoned windows for linux.
Snowden was the tipping point for me. Since then I have progressively ramped up my internal security. Next step will be the Blackphone and a custom tin-foiled hat.

 

The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights of the United States of America, and the fundamental concept of a "Representative democracy of the People, by the People, and for the People that shall not perish from the face of the earth."(The latter words coming from President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address. In it, Lincoln examined the founding principles of the United States to ensure the survival of America's Democratic Republic.)

Among other things, it was violations of the values protected by our 4th amendment, which is the basic source of our right to privacy, that were a major force in fomenting the American Revolution which resulted in the above documents that state our rights as Americans.

That's what makes me care about online privacy.

I couldn't care less if General Mills knows I buy Cheerios, but my personal relationships and personal, religious, and political views and beliefs and those of others are no one else's business, particularly the Government's business.

A lack of privacy from our corporate-state's eyes and ears chills or freezes freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom to express our ideas and ideals, and dissent. The United States of America had it's formation from this concept and is the foundation upon which it was built. That is why the corporate state that largely represents big monied interests rather than the people is so fearful of privacy. It threatens those who control it.

[OT: And if anyone challenges my view of the current condition of our government, read the House version of the Budget Bill that passed the House last week. Among other things, it allows the big banks to gamble with taxpayer money, further erodes what remains of our 4th Amendment Rights, guts the EPA, takes thousands of acres of sacred Apache Native American land and turns it into a huge, foreign, privately-owned copper mine in which Iran has a financial interest, and further enables millionaires and billionaires to control government policy and regulation or lack thereof through the ability to make huger political contributions, while doing little to further assist the impoverished and hungry, repair our crumbling infra structure, promote education that teaches critical thinking, re-enable the middle class, or create jobs in the USA, among other things.

There are 29 of the largest "US" corporations who last year paid their CEO's more than they paid in taxes. Seven of the country’s 30 largest corporations reported $74 billion in profits last year, and received a combined total of $1.9 billion in refunds from the IRS, giving them an effective tax rate of negative 2.5%. That didn't result by accident.]

 

Since then America has been overthrown in a hidden coup de tare, stolen from the people by the corporations just as Thomas Jefferson predicted.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. "
--Thomas Jefferson

We now have a system of government known as a corporatocracy. A parody of a democracy represented by one political party which masquerades as two, represents the 1% and is heavily funded by global corporations. This is the reason why the US Government is rapidly becoming the enemy of the people. They are not of the people.