I haven’t ever really talked about this before but I’d like to introduce a concept that I’m going to call “security nihilism.”
Here’s the deal: You’re already burned.
It’s over! There’s no going back! Your face is in a database and your DNA is in a database and your social profile is in a database and there’s nothing you can do about it. Even if you didn’t put it there somebody else did. Congrats, we’re all fucked!
Facebook builds shadow profiles on people who don’t have accounts. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Your cousin signed up for Ancestry and your brother did 23&Me.
So what can you do about it? Essentially nothing. So there’s no point in panicking.
You know what you have to do if you want some kind of privacy? Start leaving your phone at home randomly. Or at work randomly. People don’t think about the fact that their cell phone’s location data (which is constantly tracking even if you don’t enable location data for apps) is a more effective way of tracking them than anything they post online and it’s *real* easy to get a warrant for that data. And if you suddenly ditch your phone for the first time in several months it’s suspicious as FUCK.
Automated license plate readers track your drive. Do you commute? Do you drive the same way every day? Why the sudden change to your routine? What were you doing that you needed to park your car and wander away suddenly? What are you hiding?
Complaining about people posting selfies when companies are compiling DNA databases sharing them with the FBI is like blaming ocean pollution on people using plastic straws when about half of plastic ocean trash is abandoned fishing equipment.
Do you use gmail? You’re fucked.
Do you have a bank account? You’re fucked.
Do you use public transportation? You’re fucked.
Do you go to school? You’re fucked.
Do you have a job? You’re fucked.
I had to track down a guy who didn’t have facebook or social media profiles, didn’t have a listing in the phonebook, didn’t have a linkedin. I started with his first and last name and ended with his supervisor’s phone number, a ten year history of his income, and his home address. I got to it through his son’s little league team.
And I’m fucking J. Random Nobody. I don’t even have shiny databases full of tracking data.
So you’re already burned. There’s no going back, we passed the tipping point. Even if you threw out your computer and shut down all your accounts and smashed your cell phone and lived in the woods there’d be video of you walking out of town for the last time and satellite images of wherever you ended up setting up camp.
I was never going to be able to hide from the cameras on the streets and the data in my cell phone and the scanners that look at the license plate of my car and the information that my school sold about my age and income and interests. So fuck it. Share a selfie.
[fyi the secret to actual opsec is to trust no one and to have no discernible patterns - being in a facial recognition database doesn’t matter if you make a point of not showing your face when you’re doing whatever you’re doing that you want to keep quiet; your goal isn’t to evade the facial recognition software as you’re on the run from the government, your goal is to never even show up on their radar]
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