The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

I'm waiting to see if this gets traction on HN. In case it doesn't, and so I can propose something only to the few who dig to the bottom of the comments:

The problem is social. A technological solution will not suffice.

I also try to find a compromise. If we're talking pragmatic, as opposed to ideal, my suggestions in the current environment are:

1) Be offline as much as possible. I have banished the webbrowser from my phone and tablets. The main computer is completely airgapped; I keep an old laptop around to go online. But I installed an app called Self-Control and use it in whitelist mode. I keep a separate To Do list for things that require internet access and when the time I set in Self-Control has passed, I do all my "internet errands" in one go. Usually does not take more than 1-2 hours/ week all in all.

2) Since you care about privacy, you already do all this but for completeness sake: ublock, ghostery, etc. are your friend. I also use an app called Little Snitch. Very useful! Obviously, I don't approve of Facebook, Google etc. but I actually went one step further and block all their properties in Little Snitch. No beacons, "like buttons" or supercookies for me, thank you.

3) Even with (2), I avoid the web as much as possible. In fact, with the exception of HN, I'm usually not on the web anymore. For news or some light magazine reading, I download the PDF editions (or have them sent to my email). For documentation and manuals, I use an offline reader called Dash. When I want to watch a video, I use youtube-dl (on my "internet groceries day"). For ebooks, I have a dedicated reader that is completely offline (needless to say, I do not sync with "the cloud"; Marvin is an excellent alternative to iBooks for reading epubs). In general, all my media library is local: Music, movies, TV shows, magazines/newspapers,…. I don't do streaming, I don't do "cloud". Storage is cheap, why give up your privacy for nothing? Unlike fking webpages, PDFs don't track your reading/thinking behind your back, you can annotate them if you want, and overall I think they offer a better reading experience compared to a webbrowser, esp. on a bigger tablet like the iPad Pro or (haven't tried but should be the same) Surface. Since I really, really dislike ads (= being told what to think, how to feel, etc) I even paste over all the ads before I read a magazine or newspaper! After a bit of practice, I can do it now in about 1-2 minutes per PDF. It's a small price to pay to keep these mercenary memes from infiltrating your mind.

4) For email, I switched to Protonmail. I understand that the NSA can hack them if they really want, but that's okay, they are not my threat model. My goal is to keep what I write in confidence from being read by Google/Gmail, Microsoft/Hotmail etc. So I usually send "pseudo-encrypted" versions to such addresses (where the reader has to enter a simple password, just to keep it from being machine-read as per default). Alternatively, I might send an encrypted PDF if it's more formal or important.

5) For more fluid, extemporaneous communications with friends and family, I mainly use iMessages. In general, Apple is your sole remaining friend among the mainstream vendors (and like I said, I'm talking pragmatic here, not ideal). If someone is on Android, there's still the cross-platform Signal app. Facebook-owned Whatsapp is an obvious no-go. I found that people usually can understand if I explain it to them why. It's like second-hand smoking, only worse. If they insist on exposing me to their "smoke" (or, negative externalities), then I cut the contact.

One last comment: If you feel like you are getting "de-synchronized" from your environment, consider that that might actually be a sign that you are detaching from the hivemind and starting to think on your own again. It's not a guarantee that you will be more (or more often) right than the crowd but at least you have a chance of thinking an interesting thought or developing your own good taste, of not being trite. So take courage! :-) I found that with a bit of effort, it's possible to keep some measure of privacy and make it a bit harder for these people to psychologically profile and manipulate you.

I'd really like to see your extended thoughts, and this is getting better traction than I'd hoped when submitting it.

I half agree with you: technological solutions alone will not suffice, though they may be part of the solution.

But additionally, legal reforms, economic reforms, and social reforms need to be part of this.

Legal reforms to limit the ability of organisations to access, appropriate, store, exchange, and act based on exfiltrated data.

Economic reforms, as noted, to change the business model of publishing from ads-supported media.

Social reforms such that people push back on this. That's less a burden than necessary, IMO, as awareness of the scope of invasion seems highly developed, though responses to that are presently limited.

In concert with the above, provided and mandated technical means for people to protect their information, and to keep corporations and other organisations from grabbing and using it in the first place.

This is only an inevitability because we do not control our software and hardware. It is entirely possible to replace most of these privacy-destroying technologies and services with privacy-respecting free software solutions. Check out this list of alternatives, for example: https://degooglisons-internet.org/liste?l=en

> Companies can still track me, my data's still out there.

I don' think this is right. When you were being a "luddite" you probably had less data collected about you, but you couldn't see that. All you can see is the cool tech stuff you are missing out on, so you feel that keenly.

I think the reason a lot of people give up their privacy is that they feel like they have lost it already, so they might as well "Get what they can" from it. I don't think this is the right way to think about things. Not every company is sharing data with every other company (yet), so each new toy/app/gadget you used by a different company creates a new entry in some database about you.