mikedilger on Nostr: Complete privacy is neigh impossible. You can't achieve it in the domain of computers ...
Complete privacy is neigh impossible. You can't achieve it in the domain of computers and the Internet and mobile phones.
The US intelligence agencies know the top secrets of Russia and China and North Korea. Russia knows the top secrets of Israel and the US. If intelligence agencies cannot protect their own top secrets using the best technologies available, what chance do you have to protect your anonymity online? Maybe you can protect your bitcoin seeds offline using seedsigner or cold card because they are offline, but beyond that you are more exposed than you think you are. Do you use Starlink? Do you think that access point (even if bypassed) isn't slurping up your physical position as you walk around the house? I bet it can see the wrinkles in your ballsack. You think they can't listen to you via electrical power lines in your house? Do you think satellite images are only as good as seen on Google Earth? Do you think computer chips don't have backdoor circuits? Why do you think the US cares so much about Taiwan and China? It's not because of the wellbeing of Taiwanese people I guarantee you that. Why do you think they banned TikTok and Huawei? I was approached by government agents in the late 1990s seeking to "slurp" all the data from Sun Microsystems, and we laughed at the notion (the bandwidth was not available, it was nuts). Yes, we fought down the clipper chip and felt like we had won... but a few years later I heard about ECHELON and was appalled to find out this had started way back in 1971. They've had their fingers deep in this pie for a long time. My work in computer security did nothing more than to convince me that computers cannot be secured. We lost a long time ago.
The only thing that protects most people is the fact that there are 8 billion of us, and those who would come after some people have to pick and choose who to come after. Like pack animals, you can blend into the pack and not get picked off by the wolves. But it's not because you are invisible.
The US intelligence agencies know the top secrets of Russia and China and North Korea. Russia knows the top secrets of Israel and the US. If intelligence agencies cannot protect their own top secrets using the best technologies available, what chance do you have to protect your anonymity online? Maybe you can protect your bitcoin seeds offline using seedsigner or cold card because they are offline, but beyond that you are more exposed than you think you are. Do you use Starlink? Do you think that access point (even if bypassed) isn't slurping up your physical position as you walk around the house? I bet it can see the wrinkles in your ballsack. You think they can't listen to you via electrical power lines in your house? Do you think satellite images are only as good as seen on Google Earth? Do you think computer chips don't have backdoor circuits? Why do you think the US cares so much about Taiwan and China? It's not because of the wellbeing of Taiwanese people I guarantee you that. Why do you think they banned TikTok and Huawei? I was approached by government agents in the late 1990s seeking to "slurp" all the data from Sun Microsystems, and we laughed at the notion (the bandwidth was not available, it was nuts). Yes, we fought down the clipper chip and felt like we had won... but a few years later I heard about ECHELON and was appalled to find out this had started way back in 1971. They've had their fingers deep in this pie for a long time. My work in computer security did nothing more than to convince me that computers cannot be secured. We lost a long time ago.
The only thing that protects most people is the fact that there are 8 billion of us, and those who would come after some people have to pick and choose who to come after. Like pack animals, you can blend into the pack and not get picked off by the wolves. But it's not because you are invisible.