what got you into privacy in the first place?

What Snowden brought to the light in 2013

When I had reddit (deleted a few years ago), I posted a screenshot of my android launcher, and someone pointed out that I was using google apps, and said "protect your privacy", he gave me some resources and that's where it all clicked for me. What a nice guy.

ok
- Why reply if you have nothing to add?

I just wanted to watch some porn in peace without my parents knowing about it.

Lmfao same here. The parental block on the router probably launched my career in tech.
- Note to self: block porn so my future kids get employable skills.

I'm gay and didn't want people to know when I was younger. I think everybody who says they have nothing to hide has either not thought very deeply about what they may want to keep to themselves or does not understand the principle that people should only ever know about you what you want to share with them.

Also, if being an open book is the norm, everybody with good reasons to not be completely open (like I used to be) will eventually stand out from the crowd. Keeping everybody else's private stuff private also means you can keep your own stuff private.

There's a great quote from Snowden about the right to privacy you can look up here. Excerpt from the page:

"people saying they don't care about rights to privacy because they 'have nothing to hide' are no different than people saying 'I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say' "

Yepppp, as a teenager I was terrified to look at trans resources partly because what if I was caught.

If you don’t have anything to hide you may not have anything to fear (except for being mistakenly identified), but nobody said you get a say in whether or not you have anything you need to hide.
- Great point! That's another great angle on privacy as principle.
Yeah, people who think they have nothing to hide enjoy maximum privilege: No one ever wanted to use knowledge about them against them. At least not for long enough that they realized telling everybody everything isn't smart.
I am out to my family but I noticed that the nest display at my parents home would suggest LGBTQ+ related searches when I would talk to them. That would have terrified me when I was in the closet. I could only imagine what it’s like in a household that isn’t accepting
- For a while Google+ recommended content that your friends liked or interacted with. I once got a Google Play app recommendation that highlighted the review a friend of mine posted on it. I was TERRIFIED that it did that by default and spend the rest of the day going through ALL settings on ALL online services that allowed connecting with friends in any way. Also, you could go to my youtube profile and could publicly see what videos I liked. A friend asked me about it and I was mortified!

Sexting my wife, then reading an article in the 2000s about how the NSA keeps all cell traffic. Privacy is a human right.

Seeing how easily extremism can come into political power, and minimize the chance of my data being used against me for some reason.

Well. Isn't anyone's business what I am doing. I want to decide on my own what I want to share. Unfortunately some corporations exploit that little willingness, where others are respectful.

Even if I don't have to hide anything, it's still no reason given to tell the world. I mean - I don't live in a glashouse, even when I got nothing to hide.

okay that's fine too

Edward Snowden

i somehow stumbled across duckduckgo and ended up reading its write up on why we need to use google search alternatives. The big one that clicked with me was how google can (and likely does) manipulate search results based on race and other factors. it immediately clicked why so many people are so self confirmed in their own biases and how to protect free and rational discourse we need to protect privacy.

When I was quite young I was trying to figure out how to play games on a school computer and must have set off some red flags because the IT guy came in and asked what I was doing.

could i have more
- Sure there's not much more to it. I think it was a Mac and I was trying to get around the administrative privileges.
  
  On a similar note a different school used Windows but had a pretty good blocklist of sites that had anything to do with gaming or social media. I really wanted to browse some game review but didn't have another way because of how prohibitively expensive mobile data was at the time and ended up using Tor.
  
  I never heard anything about it but it's funny to think I used it to read Metacritic reviews.

Prying parents, I won't say they were overkill but they would look through my phone weekly and if I left it unlocked they would browse through my private messages and stuff. Now I have a separate password for everything have all of my important files in Knox on my phone a 1tb encrypted partition on Nixos and I plan to replace my phone eventually with a google pixel running graphine. I hated being spyied on and its sad that there's people who live like this in general. The only plus is I convinced my friends to use signal and that's how we call and chat now.

I think it's kind of sad that we need to ask the question of what got you into privacy, as opposed to what caused you to give up your privacy. I understand why we must the question, but it's still sad to me. This is my answer, by the way. Because we need to ask "why privacy", is the reason I want privacy.

I agree. I think for most the answer may be a mix of complacency, convenience, and conforming to the norm.
privacy is a minority

I'm German, it's in our DNA.

Can you explain? Is noone in Germany using Facebook and WhatsApp?
- Of course we do, but for example we use nicknames on Facebook and our government shot down the real name verification they were pushing.
  
  Data privacy acts are actually enforced, and most users are at least somewhat informed about GDPR and their rights.
  
  Meta is not allowed to link facebook and whatsapp user data to get around that, so the data gathered within whatsapp is not nearly as powerful as the connection between the two would be (three, if you count Instagram), etc. etc.
- I am also german. Of course not everyone here cares about privacy, but in average much more people than in other countries I would say. But the "average german" uses FB and WhatsApp. However, many like me never had them installed.
  
  I think it's because of our recent history full of spying secret services (Nazis and east germany) and the education in family and in school about the history. My family is from East germany. The stasi (east german secret service) observed everyone they could with hidden microphones in private rooms, reading your lettters, force your friends to spy on you etc. So the people that raised me are very aware of spying... From my grandparents and parents stories I cared about privacy from the beginning. My parents also used Linux since I remember them using computers and gave us phones with lineage etc.. ...

For me privacy is free speech, no one knows who I am, so I could say whatever I want.

Free speech never happens on Twitter, FB, Insta, cuz they all linked to our identity, or email, phone number....

exactly. thats why i only use temporary email to register. and use different username on different platform
Then do not use them. Use anonymous apps instead: Session, WireMin, SimpleX, Damus. I personally prefer WireMin because it has secret groups. Only members know I exist.
- I used Session before switching to WireMin. It's a good choice for a private messenger, but not an app I would use daily.
  
  I have a personal blog on WireMin, so I can post whatever I want. And I think they made interaction much easier, cuz I can explore public chat rooms and other people's blogs in the discovery section, which give me more stuff to do on the app.
  
  This is the chat space on WireMin I like to check out daily, people usually talks about privacy news there. https://i.wiremin.com/invite/?g=k50898835053

I think a pretty significant part was moving, kind of by chance, to Linux and then watching videos of the content creators that revolve around it, but even before that I think I started questioning the matter more when I played (please don't laugh) Watch Dogs 2, I know it's silly, but it had some themes that were really compelling, the techno dystopia going on is pretty accurate in how bad it can be and playing as characters that go against it made me think a bit more about that, then after getting really into privacy I realized how spot on it was in several instances

Nothing to laugh about, Watch Dogs 2 does a good job of portraying how things could and likely do look like already.

What stuck with me the most was when they talked about health insurance upping their prices if they catch you ordering one too many pizzas.

That sounded so outrageous, but it'll sadly be normal.
- Oh, glad it's not only me!
  I always wondered why so many seemed to dislike it, I thought it was good, though I never played the first one so maybe they didn't like how it compared to it

Edward Snowden's reveal of PRISM.

Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother - it was actually a summer reading book in high school. Later, I read Snowden‘s memoir when it came out.

Edit - timing of reading the memoir

I fucking loved that book. There's a sequel that came out, its not as good as the orginal but it continues the story and pretty ok.
- Homeland, right? I read it too - it was pretty good but that was so many years ago. Only until recently did I realize that he’s a commentator on internet privacy.

I used to be stalked a few years ago, and I started to search for anything related to privacy, stalking and such. (Things are ok now.)

When I was younger I was amazed by how easy it was to track people on the early internet. this is when putting a script tag in a comment section to show images in comments was popular but quickly became exploited and faded away. I also became worried about this in my web development class learning how to use JS and saw how easy it was for a bad actor to execute malicious JS on people’s browsers.

For me, it was an advertisement in my gmail for something my spouse had searched for on a separate computer that I had never logged on to. I don't recall what it was, but it was something like a new cookware set. It was odd. I started noticing it happening again with other people whom I correspond with for items I don't need (dog kennels near you). I wasn't on any social media except maybe YouTube.

Later, I started reading about the profiles companies keep, how you have no control over what is collected, for how long or if you want it to stop. I found myself using the computer less and less, feeling uncomfortable being watched if I looked up medical symptoms or just shopping around for things.

My family would show how cool it is that Google knows when you have a doctor appointment and where you are and what traffic is doing so that you need to leave in 10 minutes to get there on time. I found it creepy.

I awoke to see cameras everywhere, tracking cookies, apps tracking me for no reason. People willingly putting spy cameras next to their front door, pointing directly at my bedroom window, where I walk, sending data to Amazon. I started reading how it's their data and they'll willingly turn it over to anyone who asks or pays for it. I read about a guy who was arrested (and later released after hiring an attorney with his own money) for being near a home where a murder occurred, unbeknownst to him.

I have nothing to hide, but I have everything to hide. Now mind your own business!

i was online before cookies were online, before smartphones connected billions and everyone put their faces on zuckHead's site to write each other insults while shitting

i saw it go down 😱

It's interesting how a lot of people who got into social media because of Facebook have since left it and got into privacy because of it.

Activism.

I researched Snowden and my youtube feed got very pro privacy, joined privacy and degoogle subreddits. Here I am, a linux user with grapheneos.

Kind of ironic. Got into privacy, thanks to Google.

Post 911, the "War on Terror", and the Patriot Act. I was young enough not to have complex political opinions, but it all stank to me.

Long story short. I googled my name and city and was sufficiently creeped out. Ive been online a long time and just didn't notice how much privacy had eroded around me. It's like that parable about how to cook a frog. They just slowly increased the temp on me. Fortunately I've jumped out of the pot before I got cooked alive.

The start was wanting to reduce my exposure to recommendation algorithms. That got me thinking about what absurd amounts of very intimate data companies have about us, and how they can use that to influence people.

I worked in a field that managed a lot of technology in retail stores. The big ones know everything about you, it's just astonishing. At the time (around 15 years ago) there was very little oversight, but also most CIOs were inept and couldn't really make the data sing and dance. Today that is very much no longer true, and it's almost too easy to build a comprehensive profile of an "anonymous" guest and then attach it to their personally identifiable information, all without their consent or knowledge.

I discovered privacyguides.net. good website.

For me it was a convergence of things all at the right moment: Edward Snowden just happened, I just bought a new phone (to experiment with) and I saw a comment on Reddit detailing some privacy tips/tricks which made it seem very easy to get on board

My dad bought Linux magazines when I was a kid. So I thought tech and Linux were cool, I then grew up (still using windows and chromium) and discovered how much those 2 spy on you, I first made the switch from chrome to waterfox (I associated Firefox with old Windows XP PCs) then, I think mental outlaw got me into the Linux and privacy world once again, but I was already at least a bit conscious.

Reading 2600, running a BBS and the phreaking scene. Reading 1984, Dostoevsky.. all more or less at the same time. Gave me strong opinions on the need for privacy, and the shear insanity and corruption of thought crime.

I forget exactly when it happened, but shortly after Facebook launched to the public. I had an account for a few years but was always uncomfortable with it. Then when Cambridge Analytica and Facebook were exposed I went scorched Earth.

Since then I've learned programming, networking, and some basic cryptography in an effort to better understand and protect myself. I've been a Linux user for about 25 years, so it wasn't too hard for me to adapt.

reading privacy policies.

I was looking at cool world record gokart pictures in 2008, and the next day the sidebar on Facebook was full of ads for the shitty kart track by the highway. It felt dirty and unsettling as a 13 year old that everything I was interested in would immediately be sent straight to the weirdest meth head carny I knew.

Then the Snowden leaks happened, and at that point I was fully radicalized.

I don't know. I've always been into tech

Having two brain cells to rub together.

Wanted to "aquire legitimately" a movie and from there learned more and more about how big business and big brothers all over like to invade privacy for power and profit.

Rapid loss in security regarding rights

Free software and the FSF. When the Snowden leaks came out, they weren't news to me – just confirmation.

thehatedone

I work in a related field.

Im here for the free shit, always have been, always will be.

The matrix, where all humans interconnected to create a virtual reality and later Edward Snowden revelations made me realize I am not a crazy bastard.

my digital mess got me reading more and somehow I got here