Is privacy dead in an online world?

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by Krusty, Oct 6, 2017.

  1. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41483723
     
  2. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Sure, that's true. But perhaps worse, or at least more likely, interests that possess such information can manipulate us. We all know about targeted advertising. But consider Facebook's experiments on its users, where it tweaked their newsfeeds, and looked at how that affected their activity. Or consider Cambridge Analytics, which seeks to manipulate people's meatspace activity through targeted spam and ads, Twitter campaigns, and even meatspace contacts.
     
  3. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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    Database of ruin, ohh no not me that time I won 18 grand on the horses... They were not naked prostitutes in those pictures and that was not me in the pictures and that was not cocaine on that mirror!!
     
  4. plat1098

    plat1098 Guest

    Yes, it's dead, it just hasn't trickled decisively into our collective consciousness yet.

    Man, that's depressing. I need a chocolate chip cookie.
     
  5. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Yes, similar to security, 100% online privacy is currently not possible.
     
  6. Carver

    Carver Registered Member

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    Yes online privacy is MIA
     
  7. Reality

    Reality Registered Member

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    Well the net is drawing in. I doubt privacy is possible with 100% surety. As has been noted, the more the line is blurred between data (collated) online and offline the harder it will be to maintain what privacy we can achieve.
     
  8. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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    There is still a way.
     
  9. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    Yes it is dead. For a long time.
     
  10. Buddel

    Buddel Registered Member

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    Online privacy? What online privacy?
     
  11. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    USA still the best. But barely.
    If the 3letters want any info no one can stop them. And if you make a stink be ready for the shtf in your & your loved ones lives.

    I have nothing to hide just saying.
     
  12. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Hey, it's not so bad. Read my latest series on IVPN's site: https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/online-privacy-through-opsec-and-compartmentalization-part-1 plus linked parts 2-4.

    Basically, if your OPSEC is adequate and you compartmentalize enough, you can operate safely without needing much privacy. That is, for example, everything that I do as Mirimir aka Vladimir Arseniev is linked. Indeed, I rather go out of my way to link it. By using Keybase proofs on sites. By using the same stairs-into-the-sky image everywhere. I even have a profile post on Steemit: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@mirimir/hi-i-m-mirimir

    However, Mirimir, my other online personas (except for a few that are pretty transparently associated with Mirimir) and my meatspace life are totally not associated. The other online personas use different combinations of VPNs and Tor. I never talk about one persona, or any of its friends, interests and so on, as other personas. In meatspace, I'm just a guy who games and plays with computers. I'm not a privacy freak in meatspace.

    So anyway, even though all of my personas suffer more or less from the same loss of privacy, that doesn't matter much, as long as I keep them compartmentalized. That's really the only privacy that I need.
     
  13. Reality

    Reality Registered Member

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    If your online activity is dependent on chaining vpns w Tor to keep it separate and insulated then that alone is going to rule this out for the vast majority of people because of the knowledge needed to do that. Then you're up for constantly testing the ever changing landscape of these tools themselves.

    Then consider other things like personal details get passed between companies and departments which we can't do anything about. More breaches are happening all the time in those same places. If my phone#, SS#, address, license, etc have become compromised and sold to the highest bidder then there goes your privacy there, not to mention ID theft potential.

    What about hardware backdoors such as some intel cpus. Sooner or later the dots are going to connect in every direction. Remember Clapper said he "wants it all". That won't have changed. Even if the small minority can adequately separate their activities right now, I wouldn't assume that will always be the case.

    In the meantime you do what you can do, lessen the odds of compromise.
     
  14. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Well, right, we do what we can. I do what I can for myself. And I do what I can to coach others about what's doable.

    For sure, TLAs are extremely knowledgeable and resourceful. And they carefully avoid disclosing their capabilities. So yes, it's very hard to know whether you're doing enough. Or indeed, whether there's anything that you could do that would be enough.

    Given that, I do what works for me. Using pfSense VMs to nest VPNs, and Whonix to access Tor through nested VPNs, is pretty easy. Or at least, once you set the system up, it just works. The guides that I've written about that don't require much skill. You can just follow the instructions. But the problem is that people seem to get intimidated by complexity, and aren't willing to just follow the instructions. So anyway, I don't think that knowledge is the limitation. It's more like willingness to just follow the instructions ;)

    And about Intel CPUs. Although consumer CPUs may have those "backdoors", they generally aren't operative in consumer PCs. Also, I recommend using the oldest hardware that'll do the job. One of my VM hosts is ~10 years old, with an Intel Core 2 Quad. My newest one has a ~2012 i5. Old PCs are inexpensive, and you can pay cash at swap meets or whatever.
     
  15. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Well IMO people can do only so much about keeping some of their data private. A lot of personal data is stored in digital form and out of user's control (medical data, government official data about citizens...). All this data can potentially be accessed and abused and there is not much a person can do about it. Of course it (potentially) can't be easily connected to your online and other activity, but your privacy is definitely not 100% guaranteed.
     
  16. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I suppose that I've basically accepted that I have little privacy in meatspace. I do live in a small hamlet, pay cash when I can, and generally avoid attracting attention. But one aspect of not attracting attention is avoiding the appearance of being overly concerned about privacy. In other words, I aim to look like someone who has nothing to hide. That's one thing that I learned from many years as an acid freak ;)

    But of course, my ISP knows that I use a VPN. But I only use one direct-connect VPN, and never connect directly to Tor. I aim to look like someone who uses a VPN for torrenting and streaming stuff. And I frequently do that.

    So anyway, I protect stuff that really matters to me, as best I can. And I don't worry about the rest.
     
  17. Reality

    Reality Registered Member

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    There's a huge amount to be said for for isolating online activity and thankfully its cumulative affect ups the odds.

    I guess privacy matters to people in different ways and they'll go to different lengths to protect it and for different reasons. Some things I wouldn't do online because I'd want 100% surety it is safe to do so and frankly nothing that gives me that sort of confidence - not because it may not be possible, but because I may not be able to make it possible. Fortunately adopting the "if in doubt leave it out" gives me breathing space and is something I can live with.

    I don't think its as simple as just following instructions. Some people do better with a certain level of prior knowledge, for example.
     
  18. aztony

    aztony Registered Member

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    That there was such a thing as "Online Privacy," it was an illusion 20+ years ago, and a delusion today.
     
  19. RockLobster

    RockLobster Registered Member

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    To gain any sense of online privacy today you would have to go to the same lengths as a dissident in cold war soviet Union or a member of the resistance in Nazi occupied France would go to, to hide their identity. Use anything less than extreme opsec and you can forget it.
     
  20. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    I think there are layered/progressive approaches to this which do not require extreme precautions, depending. For example, I think as you've alluded, step 1 is restricting what you put online in the first place, especially on social media, though it's shocking that others are allowed to "finger" you, and it's obvious that various governments are acting illegally because having to watch what you say and refraining from saying many things is de facto a huge chilling effect. Certainly, from a business point of view, I routinely distribute privileged/confidential information on dvd because I do not want the hassle of attempting to secure online communications, particularly since a) most correspondents are hopeless in supporting anything secure at all and b) because such attempts are regarded as suspicious by our Beloved Leaders.

    Correspondingly, limiting what you do express online in meatspace to the completely anodyne, though that's getting harder as time goes by.

    Finally, there's nothing amiss with spreading a little chaff in the information that you do make available, because to get past that, you'd need human involvement and at this point, we're only trying to confuse automated searches.

    All these things are eminently doable without extreme opsec.
     
  21. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I agree that it was an illusion, back when the Internet first became popular. Users didn't (and don't) understand how it all worked, and magical thinking about anonymity and privacy developed.

    Today, there is no online anonymity and privacy, unless you create it for yourself. Many infamous entrepreneurs have learned that to their chagrin. See https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/online-privacy-through-opsec-and-compartmentalization-part-2 for some examples.

    Even so, you can have as much anonymity and privacy online as you're willing to create. I've written a lot about that. But mostly about technical stuff. My latest series on IVPN focuses on OPSEC and compartmentalization.
     
  22. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I agree. I wasn't around in the Nazi era, but I have some familiarity with being a dissident in the former Soviet Union. In meatspace, having any anonymity and privacy is far harder now. There are fewer informants, it's true. But most of them were easy to identify, being WWII widows who were everywhere, looking for suspicious activity ;) But now, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, often hidden. And credit/debit cards have largely replaced cash in many areas, making it trivial to track spending.

    Indeed, it's with online activity that we have any hope for anonymity and privacy. Because we can, with careful use of VPNs and Tor, isolate it from meatspace. It's still true that any given persona has limited anonymity and privacy online. But, as long as your personas aren't linked back to your meatspace identity, that doesn't matter so much.
     
  23. aztony

    aztony Registered Member

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  24. Stefan Froberg

    Stefan Froberg Registered Member

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    Yeah...there is no absolute guarentee of 100% privacy and never was, even in the old days.

    But if someone comes to me and says that privacy is not human right or that I am a weird freak
    wanting to have some privacy in this modern, social media whoring age, then he/she can stuff his/her head into where sun does not shine.

    Even in the case that privacy was just 99% possible I would still continue to pursue it, instead of accepting the so called status quo of giving all your personal info to companies for free and throught them, to governments.

    In the mean time, I will just continue to build my own router, phone, OS and other software and maybe someday I can reach that magical 100% in the virtual world :)
     
  25. ProTruckDriver

    ProTruckDriver Registered Member

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    Privacy? No such thing in this now-a-day world. If they want your private information, they'll get it one way or another, period.
     
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