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.
i’ve been more paranoid than most (as evidenced by my recent post history). that said, i think it has a lot to do with the fact that i haven’t sat down and made a proper, realistic threat model. what ends up happening is that you bounce between paranoia and exhaustion, so that you end up with a patchwork of areas where you’re too cautious and areas where you’re not cautious enough. of course, it would be nice not to pop up in XKEYSCORE. but ultimately, you have to live in society, with all that that brings. i’ve had to accept that “people who have linux” is one of the filters they have.
i don’t bother hiding the fact that i go on marxists.org or whatever, because i figure millions of people go on there with all sorts of ideologies. could they individually target millions of people? probably not. i also don’t hide that i go on grad. is that a different issue? i guess it’s possible. we don’t tend to attract undue attention, but there’s a lot less of us. that’s one reason why i’ve recently been paranoid. i guess i can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube on that one.
anyway, i guess what this comment is getting at in the end is that writing down a formal threat model will likely make you feel better as well as improve your security posture. at least, it’s something i ought to do.