What Snowden brought to the light in 2013

When I had reddit (deleted a few years ago), I posted a screenshot of my android launcher, and someone pointed out that I was using google apps, and said "protect your privacy", he gave me some resources and that's where it all clicked for me. What a nice guy.

I just wanted to watch some porn in peace without my parents knowing about it.

I'm gay and didn't want people to know when I was younger. I think everybody who says they have nothing to hide has either not thought very deeply about what they may want to keep to themselves or does not understand the principle that people should only ever know about you what you want to share with them.

Also, if being an open book is the norm, everybody with good reasons to not be completely open (like I used to be) will eventually stand out from the crowd. Keeping everybody else's private stuff private also means you can keep your own stuff private.

There's a great quote from Snowden about the right to privacy you can look up here. Excerpt from the page:

"people saying they don't care about rights to privacy because they 'have nothing to hide' are no different than people saying 'I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say' "

Sexting my wife, then reading an article in the 2000s about how the NSA keeps all cell traffic. Privacy is a human right.

Seeing how easily extremism can come into political power, and minimize the chance of my data being used against me for some reason.

Well. Isn't anyone's business what I am doing. I want to decide on my own what I want to share. Unfortunately some corporations exploit that little willingness, where others are respectful.

Even if I don't have to hide anything, it's still no reason given to tell the world. I mean - I don't live in a glashouse, even when I got nothing to hide.

Edward Snowden

i somehow stumbled across duckduckgo and ended up reading its write up on why we need to use google search alternatives. The big one that clicked with me was how google can (and likely does) manipulate search results based on race and other factors. it immediately clicked why so many people are so self confirmed in their own biases and how to protect free and rational discourse we need to protect privacy.

When I was quite young I was trying to figure out how to play games on a school computer and must have set off some red flags because the IT guy came in and asked what I was doing.

Prying parents, I won't say they were overkill but they would look through my phone weekly and if I left it unlocked they would browse through my private messages and stuff. Now I have a separate password for everything have all of my important files in Knox on my phone a 1tb encrypted partition on Nixos and I plan to replace my phone eventually with a google pixel running graphine. I hated being spyied on and its sad that there's people who live like this in general. The only plus is I convinced my friends to use signal and that's how we call and chat now.

I think it's kind of sad that we need to ask the question of what got you into privacy, as opposed to what caused you to give up your privacy. I understand why we must the question, but it's still sad to me. This is my answer, by the way. Because we need to ask "why privacy", is the reason I want privacy.

I'm German, it's in our DNA.

For me privacy is free speech, no one knows who I am, so I could say whatever I want.

Free speech never happens on Twitter, FB, Insta, cuz they all linked to our identity, or email, phone number....

I think a pretty significant part was moving, kind of by chance, to Linux and then watching videos of the content creators that revolve around it, but even before that I think I started questioning the matter more when I played (please don't laugh) Watch Dogs 2, I know it's silly, but it had some themes that were really compelling, the techno dystopia going on is pretty accurate in how bad it can be and playing as characters that go against it made me think a bit more about that, then after getting really into privacy I realized how spot on it was in several instances

Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother - it was actually a summer reading book in high school. Later, I read Snowden‘s memoir when it came out.

Edit - timing of reading the memoir

Edward Snowden's reveal of PRISM.

I used to be stalked a few years ago, and I started to search for anything related to privacy, stalking and such. (Things are ok now.)

When I was younger I was amazed by how easy it was to track people on the early internet. this is when putting a script tag in a comment section to show images in comments was popular but quickly became exploited and faded away. I also became worried about this in my web development class learning how to use JS and saw how easy it was for a bad actor to execute malicious JS on people’s browsers.

I researched Snowden and my youtube feed got very pro privacy, joined privacy and degoogle subreddits. Here I am, a linux user with grapheneos.

i was online before cookies were online, before smartphones connected billions and everyone put their faces on zuckHead's site to write each other insults while shitting

i saw it go down 😱

Activism.

Post 911, the "War on Terror", and the Patriot Act. I was young enough not to have complex political opinions, but it all stank to me.

For me, it was an advertisement in my gmail for something my spouse had searched for on a separate computer that I had never logged on to. I don't recall what it was, but it was something like a new cookware set. It was odd. I started noticing it happening again with other people whom I correspond with for items I don't need (dog kennels near you). I wasn't on any social media except maybe YouTube.

Later, I started reading about the profiles companies keep, how you have no control over what is collected, for how long or if you want it to stop. I found myself using the computer less and less, feeling uncomfortable being watched if I looked up medical symptoms or just shopping around for things.

My family would show how cool it is that Google knows when you have a doctor appointment and where you are and what traffic is doing so that you need to leave in 10 minutes to get there on time. I found it creepy.

I awoke to see cameras everywhere, tracking cookies, apps tracking me for no reason. People willingly putting spy cameras next to their front door, pointing directly at my bedroom window, where I walk, sending data to Amazon. I started reading how it's their data and they'll willingly turn it over to anyone who asks or pays for it. I read about a guy who was arrested (and later released after hiring an attorney with his own money) for being near a home where a murder occurred, unbeknownst to him.

I have nothing to hide, but I have everything to hide. Now mind your own business!

The start was wanting to reduce my exposure to recommendation algorithms. That got me thinking about what absurd amounts of very intimate data companies have about us, and how they can use that to influence people.

Long story short. I googled my name and city and was sufficiently creeped out. Ive been online a long time and just didn't notice how much privacy had eroded around me. It's like that parable about how to cook a frog. They just slowly increased the temp on me. Fortunately I've jumped out of the pot before I got cooked alive.

I worked in a field that managed a lot of technology in retail stores. The big ones know everything about you, it's just astonishing. At the time (around 15 years ago) there was very little oversight, but also most CIOs were inept and couldn't really make the data sing and dance. Today that is very much no longer true, and it's almost too easy to build a comprehensive profile of an "anonymous" guest and then attach it to their personally identifiable information, all without their consent or knowledge.

My dad bought Linux magazines when I was a kid. So I thought tech and Linux were cool, I then grew up (still using windows and chromium) and discovered how much those 2 spy on you, I first made the switch from chrome to waterfox (I associated Firefox with old Windows XP PCs) then, I think mental outlaw got me into the Linux and privacy world once again, but I was already at least a bit conscious.

For me it was a convergence of things all at the right moment: Edward Snowden just happened, I just bought a new phone (to experiment with) and I saw a comment on Reddit detailing some privacy tips/tricks which made it seem very easy to get on board

I forget exactly when it happened, but shortly after Facebook launched to the public. I had an account for a few years but was always uncomfortable with it. Then when Cambridge Analytica and Facebook were exposed I went scorched Earth.

Since then I've learned programming, networking, and some basic cryptography in an effort to better understand and protect myself. I've been a Linux user for about 25 years, so it wasn't too hard for me to adapt.

I discovered privacyguides.net. good website.

Reading 2600, running a BBS and the phreaking scene. Reading 1984, Dostoevsky.. all more or less at the same time. Gave me strong opinions on the need for privacy, and the shear insanity and corruption of thought crime.

Rapid loss in security regarding rights

Wanted to "aquire legitimately" a movie and from there learned more and more about how big business and big brothers all over like to invade privacy for power and profit.

I was looking at cool world record gokart pictures in 2008, and the next day the sidebar on Facebook was full of ads for the shitty kart track by the highway. It felt dirty and unsettling as a 13 year old that everything I was interested in would immediately be sent straight to the weirdest meth head carny I knew.

Then the Snowden leaks happened, and at that point I was fully radicalized.

Having two brain cells to rub together.