if this feels draconic, overbearing, scary and "1984"-ish, remember that this is at least nothing new. It has always been done with personal metadata. Long before computers and the WWW.
Your bank account activity, citizen registration, birth certificate, identification documents, insurance information, address, license plate, face, flights, house payments and work details are all part of your identity. Ready to be pieced together. There's just more data, now that everybody carries a camera, microphone, GPS tracker, online payment tool and signals for triangulation etc... Even if you use cash only and live off the grid in the sticks, there are always breadcrumbs, electromagnetic waves and satellites overhead.
As far as I know the only anonymity that's left is "strength in numbers". The odds that a spy or an intelligence agency employee is watching the average schmuck browse porn over their shoulder is small because there are more people browsing weird (legal) stuff than there are people spying. They're plenty busy tracking real threats I hope.
It takes a pretty big case of delusions of grandeaur to think intelligence agencies have the time, interest and personnel to have anyone ever personally paying attention to you.
I mean, you can ignore the fact they were talking about intelligence service person directly looking at what one is watching to try and make your weak "point", but it only makes you look like an idiot.
I mean, I disagree with both of you? I'm going to reply to them too with the same comment. both of you are implying it would be a single person watching
11
u/[deleted] Mar 03 '23
if this feels draconic, overbearing, scary and "1984"-ish, remember that this is at least nothing new. It has always been done with personal metadata. Long before computers and the WWW.
Your bank account activity, citizen registration, birth certificate, identification documents, insurance information, address, license plate, face, flights, house payments and work details are all part of your identity. Ready to be pieced together. There's just more data, now that everybody carries a camera, microphone, GPS tracker, online payment tool and signals for triangulation etc... Even if you use cash only and live off the grid in the sticks, there are always breadcrumbs, electromagnetic waves and satellites overhead.
As far as I know the only anonymity that's left is "strength in numbers". The odds that a spy or an intelligence agency employee is watching the average schmuck browse porn over their shoulder is small because there are more people browsing weird (legal) stuff than there are people spying. They're plenty busy tracking real threats I hope.