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walkitouthttp://www.pewinternet.org/2015/03/16/Americans-Privacy-Strategies-Post-Snowden/
"These figures may in fact understate the lack of awareness among Americans because noteworthy numbers of respondents answered “not applicable to me” on these questions even though virtually all of them are internet and cell phone users."
Weird conclusion to come to.
Look. I used to hang out on the cypherpunks list. I did my time reading _Enterprise of Law_ and _Machinery of Freedom_. I knew about RSA and PGP and EFF when Snowden was the age of my _younger_ child. I looked at the list of things that Pew thought people might want to do post-Snowden wtfery (proxy server, Tor, Blur, DuckDuckGo), and I had long previously decided that everything on that list was way more trouble than it is worth. Way. More. Trouble. And I don't just mean how difficult is it, technically, to actually implement any of that.
Obvs, any sensible person contemplates the language that they use and how they would feel if that language was recorded and then consumed by someone other than the intended audience, and, sure, I have deleted comments and threads from social media when I thought the person who posted them on ones I control might someday regret those comments. Especially if there was any chance that my _failure_ to delete them might then reflect poorly on me. I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you could embarrass the fuck out of me with something I've got online (I spent a couple years in my late 20s _routinely_ flashing security cameras. That must have left _some_ kind of breadcrumbs).
But mostly, I figure I'm kinda right down the middle when it comes to Am I Gonna Be Perceived As A Problem By the Guvmint, and I'm pretty sure that's true of the vast majority of the people interviewed by Pew. And that's the _real_ reason nobody actually gives a fuck. The bummer is that everyone feels like they have to be that last extra bit paranoid, post-Snowden.
Save the emotional effort. You don't really care anyway, or you would have done something about it.
"These figures may in fact understate the lack of awareness among Americans because noteworthy numbers of respondents answered “not applicable to me” on these questions even though virtually all of them are internet and cell phone users."
Weird conclusion to come to.
Look. I used to hang out on the cypherpunks list. I did my time reading _Enterprise of Law_ and _Machinery of Freedom_. I knew about RSA and PGP and EFF when Snowden was the age of my _younger_ child. I looked at the list of things that Pew thought people might want to do post-Snowden wtfery (proxy server, Tor, Blur, DuckDuckGo), and I had long previously decided that everything on that list was way more trouble than it is worth. Way. More. Trouble. And I don't just mean how difficult is it, technically, to actually implement any of that.
Obvs, any sensible person contemplates the language that they use and how they would feel if that language was recorded and then consumed by someone other than the intended audience, and, sure, I have deleted comments and threads from social media when I thought the person who posted them on ones I control might someday regret those comments. Especially if there was any chance that my _failure_ to delete them might then reflect poorly on me. I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you could embarrass the fuck out of me with something I've got online (I spent a couple years in my late 20s _routinely_ flashing security cameras. That must have left _some_ kind of breadcrumbs).
But mostly, I figure I'm kinda right down the middle when it comes to Am I Gonna Be Perceived As A Problem By the Guvmint, and I'm pretty sure that's true of the vast majority of the people interviewed by Pew. And that's the _real_ reason nobody actually gives a fuck. The bummer is that everyone feels like they have to be that last extra bit paranoid, post-Snowden.
Save the emotional effort. You don't really care anyway, or you would have done something about it.