Stop Caring About Privacy.
My mother just went through setting up her Windows laptop and talking with Cortana about setting up her Wifi, searching for updates and automatically saying yes to all of the default features. She's effectively turned into the grandma that only cares about email and internet, giving no halt towards exposing everything she says and everything she clicks on to the Microsoft database.
I remember Bryan Lunduke, a Youtuber that talks about Free and Open Source Software (Linux especially), sounding the alarm bells about how Microsoft is basically sticking their dicks inside of the Linux ecosystem, with stakes in the Linux Foundation and ties to Ubuntu, and how screwed our privacy will be in the future.
I remember all of the outrage against Windows 10 capturing an excessive amount of data and sharing it with the NSA, from keystrokes to entire screen captures. Thousands moved over to Linux only to fall under the same spell of "sending anonymous usage data" from Mozilla and Canonical (owners of Ubuntu).
And now, it seems that with all of my care towards protecting my privacy, not just using Linux but a custom fork of Firefox, a decentralized encrypted messaging app, and basically having nothing to do with Microsoft, my entire house now has Windows 10s, smart TVs and an Xbox One.
So everything outside of my head is potentially being recorded and used to give me relevant ads. On top of my Google and YouTube use, regardless of DuckDuckGo.
If you're dealing with anything like I am, you may have already accepted that there's no hiding.
And yet... is it really all that bad?
The Pros of Privacy
It seems that the benefits of having privacy with your technology use ranges from peace of mind that the government isn't spying on you, to... well, just that it seems. And yet news has come out that even the chips inside of our computers and the infrastructure of the internet itself are plugged into the government systems.
So maybe that peace of mind is only in your mind. We can then live blissfully in denial, cruising through the deep web and ordering drugs with our Monero anonymous cryptocurrency. At least with cryptography, there's no known hacks for exposing private blockchain transactions, although there was a rumor.
The Cons of Privacy
Well, let's suppose that the privacy works. Now we're expending extra effort in trying to keep a low profile. We're using alternative OSes we don't understand, applications that get way less updates and financial support, and getting freaked out that the government is one step ahead of us.
We're keeping information secret and watching what we say. We're always using private tabs and logging off our Google accounts every day. We're supporting other private softwares with our money because they can't make enough with ads (since we're either using adblockers or not clicking them since they're not as relevant from the lack of tracking).
We're restricting the flow.
And we're more suspicious, masking our identities and using Monero to buy drugs. What's in that package? NOTHING MOM. The IRS asks "How did you pay for it? There's no banking records." and you say that it was a gift, yet you didn't put it on your tax return. Now you're in hot water because you're hiding things.
Risk Analysis
Think of the pros, and think of the cons. Is it worth a potentially false peace of mind? Are we withholding information for good reasons or out of fear?
Are we living in fear?
By living in fear, we give that which we fear power over us, remember that. Lunduke "feared" all he wanted to, but that didn't stop Microsoft. We fear loss of privacy, but we give it away all the time, and it would actually be unhealthy not to, I would argue.
