I have a threat model, and I stick with it. It means I'm very comfortable where I'm at.

I also acknowledge other peoples threat model don't match mine. Most people aren't as strict as me, and some of you here are far more strict than I. That's okay, and I'm not going to to crazy trying to control something I can't.

Then I try to apply the same logic to the world. Yes there's a lot going on and being established in laws and practices that we most definitely need to be aware of and raise awareness of. But that being said, I can't control everything so I try to to let things I can't control get to me. The way I see it if they get to me and affect the quality of my life, then they've won even if they don't have my data. So I try to stay sane that way.

Mostly though, I try not to be a weirdo. Yes I'm weird compared to he average. But who wants to be average? That's how I express myself. I'm not going to put down anybody on social media, but I'm also very clear I'm not and have such a better life for it. Guess what, nobody ever disagrees with me. They don't say I'm wrong. They know in right because they feel it. They just don't have the will power to take the steps I do. So again, I never argue or say I'm right. I say I'm right for me, and let then know it in a non judgemental way.

I'm the beacon. If I'm 100% right and am a jerk about it, they'll reject the message because of me. But if I can show them it is possible to be private and control your data and live a fuller life because of it, then maybe it'll inspire them to take the plunge. Educate and inspire.

Look into threat modelling, we're all striving for more privacy-friendly ways to keep in touch with people, and if you seal yourself off too early, you'll suffocate.

I know my friends and colleagues well in person, they know that I'm a privacy nut, and we agree to not report me missing just because I'm unreachable on a particular day. But knowing that they SMS each other their plans and that I'm probably not a target of the state, I'm cool texting them things like when we're eating out together.

Also don't be disheartened, I keep at it even though my methods are nowhere near airtight. Even if every move of mine is known, the surveillance capitalists will at least know that I am flipping them off and trying my best to make their jobs hard.

I smoke a lot of weed

I don't. Writing this from the psych ward. The voices finally respect my privacy here.

After many tormentous nights I've come to accept that people a lot smarter than me are paid a lot more than me to make a buck off my back every way possible. I may not win the war, but I sure as hell don't have to make it easy for 'em.

It does please me to read so, so many others are waking up to big data and the greed/selfish nature of data brokerage by turning on flock and data centers. Politicians might even jump on board if they can swindle enough votes.

Haha! Yeah, might... I know.

Honestly, I just did everything one after the other so it's less of a hurdle and you can dedicate yourselg to figuring out and learning about that one particular step, both from a technical and social way. I didn't even make a list or whatever, if I then feelt comfortable, I automatically went looking for the next big decision as if it was some kind of obsession (it was).

First I literally just switched browsers to Firefox forks with uBlock and got a VPN on my phone or PC. Got used to using them which was fast, also no social issues whatsoever obviously.

Then I started to get rid of most subscribtion services like actually downloading the four albums I hear instead of paying for Spotify and reduced what I post and deleted most of what I had posted on social media. This one was also easy, not much to it.

I switched to Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC, still Windows but feels more like a Linux distro. I still needed it for university with online exams and stuff, but definitely better than other alternatives. Honestly, this step was too little, I already wanted Linux, I just couldn't lmao. Dual boot was out of the question, I can't do two things at once, just a me thing I guess.

When I couldn't be as private on my PC as I wanted to, I just sold my iPhone and got a Pixel with GrapheneOS on it. That was a learning curve but I basically dedicated two entire days on it and set everything up exactly like I wanted and got everything working exactly like it should.

Now we get to the first actual socially hard step the only thing I didn't install on the Pixel was IG. From a privacy stand point I WANTED to get rid of it waaay sooner, but I was addicted, like actually not figuretively. I made a few attempts to keep it but use it less in the past to no success. I purposely didn't install the app since this was a new phone and clean start anyway and forced myself to only use it in the browser which were extra steps to make it less of an automated habit thing and obviously a shitty experience in itself. After a week I noticed I wasn't actually looking forward to using it anymore, made a close friends story with an explanation and a phone number and nuked my account. That step did go smoothly and the people that mattered started writing me more on Whatsapp. I mean better than IG, but still a thorn in my eye. I would have loved nuking that one too, but in Germany this is basically the only way to communicate. Will come back to that later, dw.

With the last online exam from the uni passed, I ditched Windows for Linux the same day. Fucking finally, I was looking forward to this one. I did have a few years of experience running Linux on stuff like modified 4.1/5.1 Mac Pros, but never actually as a daily-driver so not much getting used to, I felt relieved lmao.

A few months went by and I was itching for the next thing. I always wanted to nuke Whatsapp but again, in Germany that's next to impossible. I did however get my wife to use Signal semi-reluctantly after she complained that I sometimes don't see her Whatsapp messages on my Pixel. After another month I decided fuck it, wrote a wall of text like this one and not angrily or condecendingly but neutrally and carefully explained the risks of this app and big tech/government surveilance and that I will be deleting Whatsapp tomorrow. Socially that step was the hardest by far. Got some shit for it but ultimately if using this spyware is more important to you than contact with me then go fuck yourself.

So yeah again, I didn't even mean for this to run like a list, but I seemingly made the unconcious decision to takle it one problem at a time, get used to it and only then move to the next step. It's easy to get overwhelmed, so just view it as a process.

In the end I'm super fucking happy I did it. My head is much much much clearer and productivity through the roof. I opened a small business on the side at the start of the year and this week I began working on a Linux distro. I reverse-engineered the way SteamOS makes Arch semi-reliable and improved on that, combined with the optimized kernels and for your CPU-arcitecture compiled packages. Unthinkable if you only scroll on IG on your iPhone and then work on your Windows 11 PC.

it gets a lot easier with time . making switches like os , browser , search engine , etc are all huge steps , then ditching big tech and replacing them with foss . it ' s always hardest ditching some stuff becus of friends , but making new accounts on better and more private places and using those when you can . do you need help with specific switches to make ?

many people will treat u as crazy , it is sadly the world we are in where we have been taught that only criminals want privacy .

Nope. I value my privacy and walk the talk. I do what I say and I dont care.

My life became so much more meaningful without social media and FB and WhatsApp in my life. So much more space to go hiking and camping and whatever.

by not overwhelming myself.

i set up privacy slowly, and compartmentalize things that are not private and stop worrying if i can't do anything about it. it's ok if i can't do any of that fully either.

One day at a time, one thing at a time

Your point is very valid though, you could personally do everything right, but your co-workers, employer, friends, family, the people you live with, your school, the local supermarket etc will still completely fuck you over.

The best we can do is put the effort into what we can control, and hope that we have a positive effect on those around us.

You should also know when you are right, and respect yourself for that.

Moving away from windows, google, amazon, meta, twitter, spotify, whatsapp etc is not difficult, deal with those easy things first.

do you ever feel like you have to choose between being ok or having friends and being private.

Not anymore.

my friends dont use private things so i have to deal with it or be calld werid

Then you have enemies, not friends.
Friends respect you for who you are, and that includes your privacy. Real friends OPSEC.

privacy to play games

LAN parties are pretty private.

I don't. I just stay "insane".

Finding things to do is a matter of picking up the phone and calling my friends and asking them what they're doing and inviting them to do things I'm doing.

It's a struggle, for sure. I don't þink I have any balance. I do a bare minimum wiþ uBlock - I used to try to do more but it eats up so much time and in a trade-off between living life and fighting web sites, it's not top of my priorities. So I block about mid-level, and if a site doesn't work I do someþing else if I can.

We keep our subscriptions to a minimum and self-host a lot of stuff, and don't use LLMs. I'm in fortunate our family is accommodating and are willing to use DeltaChat for messaging. We do what we can, but when push comes to shove, we don't fight too much; we're lucky in þat we don't have a lot of pressure to expose ourselves.