For a few years now, mass surveillance and its implications, especially in the age of AI and age verification, have hugely affected my life. To keep long stories shorter I’ve sacrificed a lot of convenience for the sake of my privacy, but I’ve also been slowly coming to the realization that maybe all of the things I have done to stay private haven’t been so worth it? I live in the USA, and my main fear is that when it all goes tits up here I—or significantly worse, my family—are gonna be on the death squad hitlist for my radical tendencies. I plan to hopefully leave the West by the time that happens, but weeks and decades and all that.
This has all come to a head recently because my GrapheneOS phone’s WiFi/Bluetooth radio crapped out only a couple months after I had paid it off and flashed GOS. It brought me a lot of peace to know I was no longer being spied on by my phone and that I also had the comfortable ability to integrate my phone into my homelab setup that I couldn’t do on stock PixelOS. I went out and got a Pixel 11, only to discover the jury is still out on whether Graphene is gonna support Pixel 11s at all, and nothing has been released.
This has all caused a huge headache where I am anxiously awaiting a release of GOS for the 11 while also trying to not hold out for my entire refund period so that I don’t end up stuck with a stock android phone. I had a refund put in when I first heard it wouldn’t be supported, then Graphene went back and said that it will be, so I cancelled the refund, then Graphene went back on that again and it now seems uncertain. I’ve got about another week to return the phone, I’m probably gonna wait another couple days to see if they release the OS for the 11 and if they don’t I’ll refund and get a 10.
Regardless, this whole situation has really made me question: how much do you comrades worry about actually being surveilled on a day by day basis? Do you try to read theory in a way that avoids surveillance, or do you all think I’m being a bit too paranoid about all this? Sometimes I think its ridiculous to expect the NSA or something to come and target me, but then again we live in an AI age nowadays.
Honestly I just don’t think about it. I have a good VPN which is the biggest help to hassle ratio and I try to keep my revolutionary talk off my mainstream socials but I am 99% sure my name and address are on a list somewhere or would get dragged up if someone was making a list.