Obviously a lot of people here hide a lot of information. What is keeping you all from extreme stress considering the possibility that a government is spying on your actions despite strict privacy practices? Considering my current situation and my extreme threat model it feels like the privacy walls around me are closing in. I’m very paranoid. I do a lot of risky and dangerous shit on the internet. Every knock on my door and phone call feels like the police. I don’t talk with others about what I do and I’m always hiding my internet activity from others. Any thoughts would be helpful
Privacy is like swimming in an endless sea: Oftentimes you find yourself barely treading water; often more you’re choking, trying to find your balance and your breath. Never forget that you spent your whole life drowning until you decided to swim, though.
I’m not sure about your situation. But I’d recommended setting up Buskill on your laptop/pc it can wipe the luks slots on your drive making it completely unreadable all by just disconnecting a USB (this could be magnetic so if they pull you it’ll get auto triggered) but then again this is only useful if you live in somewhat free country where cops can’t torture you to decrypt/restore your data.
i don’t know why you need extreme privacy. But what I can tell you is it’s OK you can take a break from whatever you are doing that needs this lvl of privacy.
Reporting on bad regime, they’ll still be doing bad stuff once you come back from a break.
What is keeping you all from extreme stress considering the possibility that a government is spying on your actions despite strict privacy practices?
Threath model analysis. I do enough to not be in the bycatch as more than a IP (no cloud & social media, encrypted private communication, terminating cloud services after use) and low profile enough to not be targeted directly.
What is keeping you all from extreme stress considering
Not being prone to paranoia, as unhelpful as that is
I’m also a realist, which keeps my expectations in check.
Remember that you are one person. Nobody in government censorship or reconnaissance of the public cares about you enough to spy or hack you. You alone aren’t worth the effort or resources.
Remember to play. Go outside for a walk, meditate, consume entertaining non-toxic, non-fiction media, have sex or masturbate. All work and no play makes Ringpop a dull person.
consume entertaining … non-fiction media
Not much there for me. 99% is worn-out tropes or boring telenovela and gameshows. The beauty of drawn media is, that experiments can be published on a budget.
The Onion Router, for internet stuff, or a (reliable and well reputed) VPN. But you have an entire community of people more specialised than me for how to not get noticed on internet anyways. Stays informed on the world, and reduce risky things, for you to get some better sleep. Dunno what businesses you do, but your priority is to stop depending on them. Hiding everything you do is just like putting yourself under the spotlight.
A physical diary that only you knows about, to free yourself from your stressful thoughts and ideas, (with a lighter always nearby) will ease a lot. It works very well for me.
All evenings, take 10 mins of your free time to yell the hell out of your mood in your pillow (gotta think about neighbors). Do sports, or things of your interests. Works too.
Oh and you shouldn’t post things implying that much that you are doing suspicious things, anywhere on internet. Best irl stuff about you to talk about on corporate internet is none, even mundane things like your country. Illegal things must be done irl the good old way.
To remain free (for good reasons or not btw).
But at the end the goal is to protect the freedom for everyone and give everyone a chance to live without interruptions by any entity that wants to regulate that
Why are you doing sketchy things on the internet?
If your own conscience is haunting you, that’s a good signal for you to fix your behavior so you can have a clear conscience and you won’t need to worry about the law closing in on you. What a horrible existence that must be.
User LemmyKnowsBest publicly claims that all laws are just, fair, and reasonable.
Hey I’m technically doing something illegal right now that I do every day all day long and IDGAF because the law regarding this thing is stupid & oppressive & I’m not hurting myself or anyone else.
But WTF is OP doing on the internet that makes him constantly worried the SWAT Team is gonna be banging down his door? That’s not normal.
I don’t really have anything to hide… but I still believe in a fundamental right to privacy and personal agency. For a lot of people, these tools keep them alive (ex. Targeted minorities in oppressive regimes etc).
But for me, this is more of an academic exercise - I find it interesting, and the things I learn can be shared with others who need them more.
If your activities are affecting your ability to sleep and have peace of mind, my only advice is to stop.
What is keeping you all from extreme stress considering the possibility that a government is spying on your actions despite strict privacy practices?
Because I’m a fan of my fucking rights and I’ll defend it against an authoritarian government. I don’t need to be a terrorist to value free speech.
How do you all stay calm with all this pressure?
It’s hard, but by using good tools, writing out my privacy model, being informed. It will not necessarily make you calm about the current state of everything but at least be knowledgeable about how good your entire environment is.
The kind of “privacy” you get by using a VPN or avoiding Facebook tracking your web browsing is absolutely not appropriate for using against a threat model that includes three-letter agencies or even, frankly, the local cops. They can just, like, come to your house when you aren’t there and bug it. Point a camera at your screen, station a dude in the closet, replace the computer with a cunningly painted cardboard replica of the computer which is a spy, etc. Or from the other end, they simply exploit a zero-day in every one of your seven proxies, because they care enough about catching you to burn them.
Sometimes the threat model says you just lose and you can’t actually get what you want by using computers, because you have an information technology hammer and a fundamentally legal or political problem.
If you think the police are actually on to your crimes, stop doing those crimes! If the crimes needed doing for some reason, someone else less likely to be known to the police will probably do them instead, and you can surely find less-crimey ways to further whatever they were meant to accomplish. If you’re in it for yourself for some sort of personal gain, quit while you’re ahead.
If you think you’re drastically overestimating the likelihood that the police are after you for your crimes, and it is affecting your ability to function, that’s definitely a problem for your therapist. Presumably one who doesn’t insist you explain your various crimes to them in detail, a thing which your lawyer (which you also maybe need?) might have concerns about.
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I do a lot of risky and dangerous shit on the internet.
Maybe stop doing things that would get the police at your door?? There’s only a handful of things I can think of that would actually get police at your door for your online behavior and most of them are things that kind of make me ill to think about.
maybe the guy is just brown and afraid of the ICE?
I mean, drugs are probably the most common illicit þing people do online, and it’s debatable wheþer anti-drug laws þemselves are eþically sound, much less effective at what þey claim to want to accomplish. CP and oþer crap is probably a fraction.
In some states in þe US, it’s illegal to try to get some kinds of healþ care.
But, odds are, it’s just drugs.
Drugs or journalism, knowing the current political climate. Godspeed to OP either way - you’re (possibly) fighting the good fight 🫡
Good point, where I live weed is legal as are mushrooms, I often forget that people might still be looking for drugs beyond those.
I guess I always lived by the old adage “always know your dealer” when I was still doing drugs, which is a long time ago now. The idea of getting them online from strangers just seems risky in general.
Great points, and þat’s þe best reason for why drugs should be legal: it’s really best for society when drugs have quality control.
Just ask FDA.
Actually, I would personally feel more comfortable getting them online than I would in person because then I can use a testing kit on it to make sure I’m getting what I’m paying for and if the stuff is of bad quality, I can leave them a bad review so that other people won’t buy from them.
I would personally be afraid to do the deal in person.
That’s why in the old days it was “always know your dealer” as interpersonal trust systems were built on people who weren’t screwing with the quality of what you were getting and you could easily, by word of mouth, tell others to not deal with people who had done you wrong. Same idea, different technology and time period.
Online drug markets are like eBay. Vendors don’t last long if they sell bad or dangerous products.
I doubt it is drugs that op is worrying about. The police need to catch you with that in possession. That doesn’t sound like what op is talking about. Sounds more like he is paranoid about getting caught for past actions.
I agree with that. I also get ill at the thought of posting a facebook meme, or even having a facebook acccount.
https://reason.com/2025/10/10/tennessee-man-arrested-gets-2-million-bond-for-posting-facebook-meme/
or maybe fascists are the problem and need to be tackled???
Some of us think the best way to do that is to build parallel systems of mutual aid (which isn’t illegal) to support each other when things become difficult instead of violence. Especially considering the fascists are trying to foment violence as an excuse to clamp down with martial law and cancel elections. Parallel systems would instead allow us to house, clothe, and feed each other during something like a general strike, which is much more likely to cause a deep impact than fruitlessly trying to violently attack one of the best outfitted and funded militaries on the planet which commands surveillance systems that make our meager attempts at privacy seem foolish at best and downright fucking stupid at worst.
Except that fascists will invent excuses whenever there isn’t violence at all.
Example: Portland, Los Angeles, literally anywhere with an American gestapo presence.
I believe it is worth combatting their surveillance. Our liberty is not a given but needs to be taken. What is stupid is holding too much defeatism.
Mutual aid, as you said, is good; but it should not be the only resort. Against fascism, everything should be considered a valid resort.
Except that fascists will invent excuses whenever there isn’t violence at all.
True, but why make their jobs easier? The more propaganda they have to produce over reality means more truth slips through.
I believe it is worth combatting their surveillance. Our liberty is not a given but needs to be taken. What is stupid is holding too much defeatism.
Gonna just have to agree to disagree on that. I feel capable of privacy measures intended to stop basic corporate adware surveillance, but the idea that we as individuals can battle the tools and capabilities of well funded nation state with agencies like the NSA and CIA involved seems to smack of hubris to me.
Mutual aid, as you said, is good; but it should not be the only resort.
I agree, but I don’t think you’re going to be able to organize and mobilize the citizens against an authoritarian takeover without parallel systems being set up first. Otherwise fascist disaster capitalists will just use their control of such systems against us.
If it’s fucking up your life, stop doing it.
If you need to do it, go do it in reality.
Seriously though, if you’re feeling paranoid about everything, stop doing the stuff that makes you feel that way.
What’s the point of life if crippling, paralyzing fear is all there is to it? I work on being a good steward of my privacy as much as it brings me joy and satisfaction, not so much that it consumes every waking hour.
Whatever it is, review your threat model. What’s done is done and there is little that can be done to redact any evidence you may have left on the internet. Are you able to stop doing whatever it is that is putting you at risk of legal trouble?
If it’s an drug or psychological problem, you need to seek professional medical attention. Many people die or suffer life-changing illness each year fearing that their doctors will rat them out for substance abuse. Don’t be one of them. Patient privacy laws, at least in the US, prevent your doctors, therapists, etc. will protect you if you go and seek help. The main thing that they would have to disclose is if you make direct, credible threats to other people.
If it’s a criminal operation or worse, lawyer up and good luck.
Im not sure what to say with the risky and dangerous shit but as a person living in a country where an unmarked, untrained,unregulated paramilitary masked militia are going after people on pure pretense. I can say Im going to live my fucking life and fuck them all. Never before have I more understood this part of the lord of the rings:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time.”
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
