1. Google account - I have one because it's required for Android, but I have never used Gmail, do not search from my Google account or ever log into it from my browser.
2. Facebook or any subsidiaries - never.
3. General Web browsing - reject 3rd party cookies automatically, browse with uBlock Origin, disabled JavaScript (via ScriptSafe) with selective enabling of scripts, Privacy Badger.
4. Only enter my real name online for things I explicitly need/want associated with me. Only enter my real address if actually needed for a delivery or other reason.
5. My mail client is set not to load remote images, which protects me from those 1x1 tracking images.
Many of these make the Internet a better experience, and certainly protect my privacy to a large degree. Yes, corporations have some data on me, but not much, and it's not all correct. I also don't feel I'm missing out on too much cool tech stuff, a lot of the privacy-unfriendly stuff is entirely unnecessary, for me at least, or replaced by alternatives that are not much worse.
I haven't run stock Android in a while (and instead just CyanogenMod), but I'm pretty sure that it's not actually required, i.e. you can skip account creation during setup and then install alternative app stores like F-Droid, Aptoide or Amazon.
If we include CyanogenMod or other ROMs, then it's definitely possible, though. I do own and use an Android phone and deleted my Google-account probably half a year ago...
One of the great things about Cyanogen is maintaining tight control even over Google's apps and how much they track me.
Are you sure? How much is Play Services tracking you?
I run MicroG on my own phone, personally. It's a FOSS implementation of (most of) the Play Services APIs.
Unless you are using some sort of VPN or proxy that's constantly changing your IP as you're browsing, and a browser that consistently changes or masks fingerprintable information and wipes all persistent tracking beacons, then what you're doing is not even remotely sufficient to evade tracking by any entity. What you're doing is definitely not enough to avoid Google or Facebook.
At this time I believe nothing can do this with 100% effectiveness. The closest would be to use Tor Browser and never disable NoScript and only use sites that don't rely on JS... but even then there are many theoretical workarounds, many more to come in the future, and probably various unknown techniques currently being tested or deployed.
I know enough about the technology to realize it saves me a lot of time, effort, and stress to just accept my fate. I no longer include ad networks or big tech companies in my personal threat model, even though I dislike what they're doing.
That's the reasoning I came to as well, I'm fine with certain sites using JS, session data and filling up my .cache if it's convenient.
The more I understand my fingerprint on the web the less paranoid I get. Lots of comments here advising not storing anything, or using anything... they may as well use tails as their main OS or throw out their computers entirely.
The same privacy-intense users lose credibility when they advice people to trust a bunch of add-ons instead of using system-wide blocklists in their host file or strict IDS rulesets.
On the comparatively rare occasions when I need more privacy, I do more. For instance, I tend to use Tor if I'm staying at a hotel that ties the WiFi connection to you personally - I think those connections are as bad as it gets for privacy.
And while his/any steps aren't enough to mitigate all tracking, they do mitigate a lot of tracking, which is far better than doing nothing.
Also, consider that data isn't necessarily properly associated with who you think it is. I often see suggestions that are clearly due to my wife's browsing on her own computer (which is nearly identical to mine in terms of browser fingerprinting). Obviously we have the same IP to the outside world and we share some interests, but not everything!
- Electric, gas, sewer, water, trash utilities that you basically can't live without.
- Thinking of going rustic? Better not own the land in your own name. Most places, parcels are easy to find online.
- Property management companies
- Sites that facilitate rental applications
- Your 100+ year old bank
- Credit card and auto lenders
- Employers and job application websites
- Cell phone networks
- AT&T, Comcast, and all but a handful of indie ISPs
- Insurance companies
- Retail stores and gas stations with your loyalty programs
- People who regularly enter your property like building maintenance, trash collectors (often spies for the municipal building inspector), etc.
- Cops and neighbors who can observe your daily routine
- Vital records offices that know who your families are
Hell, just yesterday Verizon gave my mom a $20/mo discount to plug something into her OBD II port. WTF else can that be for?
Facebook and Google are the kindest to your privacy. Your data is a closely guarded asset, protected by competent engineers, used to tailor your experience and show ads. All these other entities, many of which you basically have to do business with to lead a contemporary life even without social media and smartphones, know who you are, where you live, what you drive, who you care about, how much money and credit you have and how you use it, and they do not even try to keep these data in house. When the government or a PI is looking for someone, that's where they look first - to data bought, volunteered, interviewed, and stolen from every kind of company except modern tech, often through well defined and documented interfaces like LexisNexis and the credit bureaus.
Luddite doesn't do much. You have to sublet informally (usually illegal), get paid in cash (employers don't like to do this unless they are illegal businesses) under a false name (fraud), never use banking or credit, not own, rent, register, or insure any cars, buy single ride subway tickets (more expensive), and have a forgettable face (genetics?) etc. People can't even manage this when their lives depend on it. Fugitives are almost always caught these days - this is how. It's nearly impossible to avoid leaking your biographical data and physical location.
Modern tech might give more insight into your mind, I suppose, but deeper privacy than that is very hard - actors in a capitalist system are starved for information about their counterparties and work hard to get it.
And the other important distinction is that these other things are highly compartmentalized, tech isn't, especially for the kind of person likely to be reading HN. I'm sure I am not alone here in that I basically live on the Internet. I read news online, I buy the books that I read online, discuss topics that interest me, watch movies, research my medical issues, read about stocks I invest into, talk to friends and family. My complete browsing history would certainly reveal more about me than ransacking my house for all the physical items, and corporations like Facebook try to have access to that, plus more - such as your private conversations, which is why they push their own messaging services.
This is the truly scary combination. The extent to which online activities matter in your life (especially for the tech-inclined), and the ability of large companies to automatically process and analyse those activities.
Why would Verizon want to connect anything to your mom's car?
That's very strange. Could it be that they want to monitor cellphone coverage maybe? Or even monitor their competitors' coverage?
It just creeps me the hell out thinking that my telecom would like to connect something to unrelated stuff...
I don' think this is right. When you were being a "luddite" you probably had less data collected about you, but you couldn't see that. All you can see is the cool tech stuff you are missing out on, so you feel that keenly.
I think the reason a lot of people give up their privacy is that they feel like they have lost it already, so they might as well "Get what they can" from it. I don't think this is the right way to think about things. Not every company is sharing data with every other company (yet), so each new toy/app/gadget you used by a different company creates a new entry in some database about you.