[Biglad465]

If you wanted to take this further, you could discuss policy and law surrounding these issues. Johnngnky already mentioned GDPR, which is a great start (and is very well-known). You could discuss whether you think these policies actually safeguard data, or if they give companies legitimate means to store and sell. Implementing "agree" buttons on websites - Is that really changing anything, or just covering companies backs when it comes to collecting, storing and selling data?

I definitely planned to talk about a little bit of that and will research even furthur , thanks .

I can't even use a VPN lmao.

The thing I do is go to command prompt and change proxy from there, it works pretty well in my opinion..

If it works.. it ain't stupid. I definitely feel more secure with a VPN on but I have doubts if It actually has that much of an impact. I was talking to another user who said you're actually more noticeable with a VPN and the best way is to blend in with the crowd.

[Drako]

The answer is an undoubted and astounding, yes. Depending on if you're born in this day and age and your parents had social media, your anonymity was gone almost the day you were born. Along with that, companies mining your data and the leaks that occur help out a lot. All you really have to know about a person is just a full name, IP address, a phone number, and you're golden. You can find anything you want to know with a simple whitepages search. There's no such thing as anonymity, it only exists in the hackers wet dream!

[slothic]

People have been desensitised from the idea of anonymity because of the saying "If you have nothing to hide then why try hiding it". Also with the leaks of tools such as the nsa 0-days which allow you to hack into a computer without a problem and spy on people. Also with all the google analytics and other random stuff which keeps info about you like cookies.

[Blink]

People have been desensitised from the idea of anonymity because of the saying "If you have nothing to hide then why try hiding it". Also with the leaks of tools such as the nsa 0-days which allow you to hack into a computer without a problem and spy on people. Also with all the google analytics and other random stuff which keeps info about you like cookies.

That saying was probably more of a byproduct than a direct cause.

[Biglad465]

Some of us are lucky to have been very careful with posting personal info of themselves online from a young age,
I never posted a picture, or an audio clip of me
I never had facebook
I have a dynamic ip (I know your isp can still trace these back to you, but it's still better)
Never used my real name for anything
Regularly moved countries
And recently, have been using a browser called Brave, that blocks ads/trackers/malicious scripts from websites, Learn more here

I somewhat envy those people , I recently did a background check on someone for my spotify upgrade service and found a surprising amount of data. This could be interesting...

[mothered]

I can't even use a VPN lmao.

Simply Install It and hit the connect/start button.

It can't get any easier than that.

[Magnetron]

In the beginning, anonymity was sacrosanct and people were encouraged to use handles and protect their privacy. Since the net was opened to the retard public thanks to Facebook and Youtube, the reverse became the policy. Now identity politics is a cultural imperitive and everyone is encouraged to profile themselves to the tiniest detail and be the specialest snowflake.

But behind all this is the trend of centralizing everything. Corporations want to retain power, monopolize and exploit everybody. Decentralization = the people own and control the infrastructure and they can't allow that. This is why Bittorrent never should've become a thing. P2P networks were perfect the way they were, but idiots decided to trade their freedom and security for convenience and speed.

There needs to be a modern equivalent of what Ben Franklin said about people trading their freedom for security deserving neither. Well, all the stupid fucks who abandoned P2P in favor of centralized services to enjoy super fast download speeds also deserve neither. I celebrated when Megaupload was busted. That fucking idiot Kim Dotcom was keeping IP logs of all his users which the authorities later got their hands on. I pray every single user gets tracked down and busted too to teach them a fucking lesson.

Social media? Exact same thing. Service requires your real name and address before you can use it? Fucking avoid it like the plague. You end up getting in trouble? How did the authorities even know your address? Oh, you willingly provided it when you signed up? That's real touching. Enjoy prison.

Seriously, what are these people even good for besides building botnets with?

[catchnina]

With the way the systems are setup (social media and all) people are al wanting to send their information to everyone without thinking. I say it takes a lot of effort