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Ask HN: What has the NSA changed about your daily life?

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Ask HN: What has the NSA changed about your daily life?

#1
- I've purchased an offshore VPN plan.

- I started using PGP when at all possible (especially with business partners).

- I took measures to mask my surfing activity via a couple Firefox extensions and the ilk.

- I'm currently in the process of figuring out where to migrate from gmail for my catch-all email (personal is already migrated).

- I stop using gchat.

- I am very careful what I text (and use iMessages whenever possible).

- I am deliberately choosing to meet people in person whenever possible, instead of a quick phone call or text.

What have you done?

Re: Ask HN: What has the NSA changed about your daily life?

#2
Hmm..

* I quit using Facebook (didn't delete it.. that data's already out there), and if family really wants to get ahold of me, the messages point at a disposable email address which itself points at one of my real ones.

* I quite using Chrome, not out of any Google animus, but because Firefox has a better plugin ecosystem wrt. privacy.

* Noscript, donottrack.me, adblock, HTTPS everywhere, the whole nine yards.

* I'm in the process of quitting all cloud services I comfortably can. I purchased a HP microserver and a static IP from my ISP, I no longer need most Google services or Dropbox (Owncloud is amazing), soon I'll have my own email locally too and I can quit using them for anything but searches.

* I've started using PGP to communicate with everyone I can convince to set up the software, and always always use it if I have the option.

* I'm still looking for a way to encrypt VoIP in a reasonably palatable way. Skype is right out, but most of its alternatives are terrible for one reason or another.

Re: Ask HN: What has the NSA changed about your daily life?

#5
1. Educated myself about the issues and how it affects me 2. Looked into small practical steps to change my online habits 3. Signed up to EFF and ORG to get more news, updates and insights on the issue 4. Realised more and more how brave people like Edward Snowden are for whistleblowing

Re: Ask HN: What has the NSA changed about your daily life?

#6
It gives me anxiety every minute of every day to start. Can't really tolerate watching my fellow humans be trampled all over by people they elected into power. Can't really call yourself a free people if you can't even communicate in person or online without being monitored.

btw- i thought we determined that iMessages were bullshit because of key distribution and even if the people couldn't hack it, apple is most definitely givin' it up to big bro..

Re: Ask HN: What has the NSA changed about your daily life?

#9
Of course the government was spying on everyone since before 9/11. This whole terrorist boogeyman show has happened before, except they were called communists then, and the time was the red scare. Only thing that has changed is that it is much easier for the government to spy on and track the population now since they all seem to be carrying smartphones.

Quit carrying smartphone except for business. Quit carrying ID...this is legal here, unless I am driving or going to a bar. Started using cash/btc for everything. Emailed myself a list of the flagged gov terms. *Use TOR and Tails to visit certain websites that the men in funny hats might not approve of, and to talk about certain things that they might not approve of.

Wonder if I'll get raided by government thugs...

It is curious that there was not on-demand admin access to any windows/mac os install among the docs that Snowden leaked, maybe Greenwald is saving that for another couple weeks.

Oh and for kicks here's something for the NSA bots to chew through, "Assassination, Attack, Domestic Security, Drill, Exercise, Cops, Law Enforcement Authorities, Hazmat, Nuclear, Los Zetas, Snowden, gPGP, DDOS, Hamas, Bulgaria, Jericho, Chemical spill, Cloud, Bacteria, H5N1, 32D3, F2H3, Toxic, Government, Tyrant, Roman empire, Bread and circuses, Avian, CKIR, Subway, Snowcrash, Moon landings, Area 51, Government, Idiots, Orwell, Gas Mask, Hurcles, Windows backdoor, UNIX, Hackers."

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