It's not a "feeling". You should know for a fact that you are being monitored.

Some steps I've taken
>Only use Signal for private messaging people or talking about any opinions on anything
>Deleted FB
>Use a VPN (ProtonVPN is pretty great)
>Use encrypted email (ProtonMail)
>Only use IG via my browser, on a VPN
>Clear browser cookies after each session

>>1620

Forgot to mention that I avoid Google at all costs and use Startpage as my search engine.

>>1620
i mean yeah, i guess. but what i meant was there being an actual person seeing my screen as we speak. id say thats actually pretty unlikely. companies and governments are a different thing - you are speaking of those, right?

>>1621
Ah its so nice to see someone problematicly paranoid like me. However startpage was sold a while back so maybe you might want to reconsider https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/

>>1628
I'm not paranoid. I saw that re: startpage. I still use it, granted i do it behind a VPN and also clear all cookies

>>1626
an actual person? That's a little narcissistic of you to assume that one entire person has been assigned to monitor whatever the fuck you do on the internet.

>companies and governments are a different thing - you are speaking of those, right?
yes, I was referring to these.

>>1629
what is fueling your desire to to be so uptight about your privacy, anon? just feeling like doing so ?
it's futile, like it or not your data is going to be collected by complex techniques out of your control or even understanding no matter what.
beside, for an average internet user, they don't give a fuck beside knowing what pr0duct/ service ads you may be interested in.

>>1638
>what is fueling your desire to to be so uptight about your privacy, anon? just feeling like doing so ?
It's not really "uptight". I just don't like when I don't have full control over all information about me, or full knowledge of who knows what about me.

>it's futile, like it or not your data is going to be collected by complex techniques out of your control or even understanding no matter what.
This is incorrect. "Complex techniques out of your control" lol yes, the economic powers that be have literal magical powers now that I will never understand.

Beyond that, this is an idiotic thing to say. Why should I make it easy to harvest my data?

>beside, for an average internet user, they don't give a fuck beside knowing what pr0duct/ service ads you may be interested in.
I don't care.

I'm not telling anyone that they should be concerned about this, or even go to the (very uninvasive) measure that I have taken to combat this problem. If you're okay with whoring your information out for mere convenience, be my guest.

>>1639
do you own a smartphone?

>>1640
Yes, I have an iPhone.

Yeah. I ordered some camera covers that you can slide on and off just for some peace of mind. But honestly, my life isn’t that intensely interesting and I’m not a public figure so it doesn’t scare me too much. It’s not a pleasant feeling though.

I always shove my phone under my pillow/in my nightstand drawer when changing.

>>1620
And so are you, despite all the steps you've taken lol

>>1620
Here’s the way I see it:
There are 300,000,000 people in America. 7 billion in the world. Although not all of them have electronic devices, the ones that do probably have multiple (phone laptop desktop, maybe watch, not even including their old ones when they update). Of those people, the number actively protecting their privacy at a competent level must be insignificant, like less than 1%.

Now, if you’re a government agency, thoroughly monitoring EVERY bit of data is impossible. It might be catalogued and stored somewhere in case you become a person of interest later, but they simply don’t have the manpower to tap and listen to every phone line and internet connection at once. And until they get AI running on supercomputers for this express purpose, that will remain impossible.

However, the 1% of people actively protecting their information are inherently more interesting to the government than the random masses who don’t care when Facebook serves them targeted ads. By using a VPN and torrents and anonymized mail, you’re essentially self selecting and telling the web of internet scanners “hey, I’m educated about what you do, I’m trying to avoid it, don’t look over here!” Any agency that wants to snoop on internet traffic is going to pay closer attention to those people. And unless the consumer access services you’re using can stand up to the brunt force of the NSA, I doubt you’re ACTUALLY as secure as you think.

TLDR: by trying to keep your privacy you may actually be putting a target on your back for the gov to pay closer attention to. Just my theory though, I don’t have anything to substantiate this with.

>>1845
Although, I would like to add:

I do the same stuff ;)

Honestly I never found privacy advocates' arguments compelling until I read https://www.socialcooling.com/ and realized that I really have been altering my online behavior subconsciously.

Not really sure what I can do to about it though.

>>1863
I read this great article about a news reporter who got to interview Edward Snowden in russia, and basically the second he got back into the United States he constantly kept seeing his electronic devices remotely executing arbitrary code when he walked into rooms. Super creepy stuff
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/edward-snowden-operation-firstfruits/610573/

Coincidentally the author Barton Gellman also wrote the very hot topic article about how trump might contest the election

I don't really feel the need to hide anything minor from my global lizard overlords. What do I care if they see my browsing or purchase history? Of course I uninstalled drivers for my audio and cameras on all devices though.

>>1835
just tape it over anon

We're living in a technological dystopia and it's happened slowly enough that we are like frogs in boiling water. It's funny to see idiots on reddit and everywhere freaking out about China's surveillance state, as if our own system is that different.

I've tried to get into using ProtonVPN and DuckDuckGo but it sucks that ProtonVPN is blocked in so many services. I don't understand how it works so I don't know if paying for it would help that (I use free version). And it's just too easy to be lazy. Mobile scares me even more because every app asks permission to "record phone calls" or whatever (wtf). I use prepaid phone SIM for easy and have taped over my laptop camera.

>>1897
I mean… you could live in the woods. Move to Nepal and set up shop in the mountains.

>>1620
protonvpn sells your data too, and people who are in protonvpn sell your data without them knowing as well
all you are doing is putting up delays for botnet AI essentially

>>1620
Don't use VPN services, you have no guarantee that your traffic is safe. Set up a private VPN on a server hosting website like linode or some shit (the cheapest option on linode works fine, 5 bucks a month), it's cheaper than most options, plus you pay per hour instead of years so you can cancel anytime. Since you have direct access to the VPN itself you can disable logs, which makes it a lot harder to monitor you.
There are tutorials online on how to do it, I did it myself without any real knowledge of Linux.

because it is all being monitered.

I know it's possible to hack peoples phone cameras and just watch them and I know it's unlikely but I have no way of knowing it's not happening to me. That's what really scares me about it

>>1893
I prefer the sliders to tape since they’re more convenient if I wanna take a selfie. I can just slide it back instead of having to cut a new piece of tape

it literally is and om terrified of everything i say online, even using anonymous forums. the thought my ISP can see everything i do terrifies me. they even censor some sites.

Guys. Yes, we're all being watched. Yes, it's creepy as shit.

However- think about how fucking incompetent people are. How incompetent the government in your country is. They may be keeping tabs on every single citizen, but I seriously doubt they're doing it well. What brings me comfort is knowing the last time I tried to deal with bureaucracy, it was a total shitshow and nobody in power knew what they were doing or how to get any legal matters taken care of.

>>2262
Get a VPN! Mullvad VPN is 5 bucks a month.

>>2276
Your VPN is cheap because it isn't secure.

>>2278
Still better than nothing. Honestly all this cyber security shit confuses the hell out of me and I don't have a computer science bf to help me.
How isn't it secure? I read a ton of reviews and it's supposed to be a good and transparent one.

>>2279
VPNs all hand their logs over to the government when asked. Tor has government controlled exit nodes. The real way not to be tracked is to use a public wifi but be aware you can be wifi sharked by a random person.

>>2280
Oh, I know that. I just care about my ISP selling my data, not whatever the fuck the gov is doing. I can't help any of that stuff.

>>2281
In that case, cheap ones are still more likely to sell as they have to make their money somehow.

>>2282
Even if they don't keep activity logs?

Well a lot of things do get monitored and a lot of your info is saved forever on mainstream websites that also work closely with the CIA like Facebook or Twitter.

The American goverment been getting more creepy with it's practices.

>>2501
Kek is this real?

>>2501
What is that

>>2503
A sasquatch.

>>2500
I am kind of scared for the future honestly. We are getting to the point where reality itself is meaningless

>>2500
>>2510
What is happening in the video? I don't get it.

>>2511
the mics have been edited in

>>2511
It's a deepfake, that's just a whitehouse staffer, Joe Biden was actually taking a bath at the time.

Yes lol. I talk about something to a friend and later my phone shows me adverts about it. I'm 100% any smart device is being monitored.

I spoke to a friend of mine who was in the Bundeswehr about their experiences and my phone gave me adverts about joining the army for about 3 start months. It even tried to get me through my presumed unacceptance, giving me adverts for queer people joining the army and shit like that.

>>1897
IMO it's not possible to avoid the surveillance, so I don't worry about it. We are boiling our own pot anyway, I can't do anything to stop it.

>>3203
>whitehouse
took me a while to realize you're talking about the united states presidential mansion

>>1619
No, you're just a schizo

>>3211
What else could she even be referring to?

>>3217
the power electronics one

>>1619

I worked at a big tech company, and even though no one is probably actively watching what you do, there's enough tracking being done that your digital footprint is pretty extensive. At my company, there was a lot of emphasis on scrubbing user data, anonymizing it, and what not, but even then, things slip through, and we're supposedly one of the better companies in this regard.

Telemetry is really the only way a large software company is gonna be able to tell how it's products are working, and then there's the whole "we wanna sell/analyze your data" thing.

Basically, yeah, but it doesn't mean you're special :'(

yes, there's certain things I won't talk about around any sort of electrical device. I won't tell anybody what I'm scared of around them either.

Pretty sure that in the future all kinds of activists and aspiring politicians will be blackmailed into compliance, over shit they said in their childhood or teens. Surveillance makes this possible.

>>1621
>>1628
>>1629
You can use Searx too as a search engine, I had a poor first impression with it but others seem to think it's OK. I like Startpage a bit.

>>1845
>It might be catalogued and stored somewhere in case you become a person of interest later
That's probably it and it's a bit scary itself.
>until they get AI running on supercomputers for this express purpose
The government has really advanced AI already, this is actual public record at this point not even conspiracy, they might code the language a bit but it's out there