"Caring about privacy almost ruined my life."

every once in a while I get an email from someone who watched my videos on online privacy and they now want to take their privacy more seriously good for them but a lot of times people tell me how overwhelming it is once they learn about how extensive online surveillance is because the rabbit hole is deep it's not enough to change your browser and your search engine you have to change your email you have to install Linux instead of Windows you have to delete all your social media you have to get all your friends to switch to message genu on Signal you have to throw away your smartphone or install a degoogle Android ROM you have to use tour for everything online and even that's not enough they're still watching you you have to only use cash wear a mask everywhere so surveillance cameras can't track you is that even enough take a deep breath a lot of people have talked about this feeling of overwhelm that you get whenever you want to protect your privacy and it's so common that people have come up with a name for it is called privacy fatigue the list of steps you have to take to protect your privacy is endless and they come with some serious downsides gone is all the convenience of doing anything digitally and you have to live like a Hermit if you want true internet privacy but no matter how much you do to mitigate all the data collection about you you will never be truly private as long as you use the internet the only way to opt out 100% from the surveillance is to never use the internet and move to a cabin in the woods but what if you didn't have to do all of that I've heard a lot of stories about how getting into privacy almost ruined people's lives one of those stories is my own I first learned about how much data big Tech was collecting about me from watching YouTube videos I took advice from people that cared about privacy and at first it didn't seem that hard so I started doing simple things like switching my browser from chrome to Firefox the problem is the more research you do the more you find out that you have to do I started learning more and the more I learned the more paranoid I became if I don't do everything possible to protect my privacy I'm still compromised I just couldn't do everything possible to escape surveillance I was younger and more broke at the time and I didn't have the money to pay for a VPN private email service a new phone that I could install a custom ROM on and a new laptop that I could libbre boot to get around the surveillance and the management engine I felt defeated I couldn't beat the evil Mass surveillance Boogeyman I had created in my mind I assumed that if I couldn't beat the system there was no point to what I was doing eventually I just gave up and went back to using Google for everything because it seemed impossible and my story is not the only story out there I've heard from others that have similarly gotten interested in privacy and even gone as far as to cut off friends who they can't message privately I've gotten emails from students that are increasingly having troubl making relationships with friends because everyone is using social media and they can't when you're the only person in your world that cares about privacy it can get pretty lonely but I don't think that caring about privacy should come at the cost of your life your relationships or your sanity one of the most important things that a lot of people skip over with privacy is determining your threat model or the level of privacy you need who are you protecting your personal data from exactly I've talked about this before but I really want to go more more in- depth in this video because getting this right is the difference between you losing your sanity or not now this channel has always been primarily about protecting your data from Big Tech and Broad government surveillance big data is constantly collecting data about everyone and it can be used for things like giving you more targeted ads as well as things that are much more personal like affecting your insurance rates because your medical history was sold since the government also has their hands in every big tech company lots of law-abiding citizens also don't want the government to have a complete history of of everything they've ever done including things that might become illegal in the future so on this channel that's what I'm mainly concerned with I teach about how to mitigate this kind of data collection as much as possible instead of sharing everything with Google we want to minimize the data that they have about us but you have to think about your own needs maybe you're not really concerned about keeping your data private from Big Tech you just want to keep it safe from hackers or maybe you're on the other side of the spectrum and you're criticizing your government in a place where it's dangerous to do so and you need to have a higher level of privacy or you're literally going to prison but people don't understand this they talk about the solutions to the problem before establishing what the problem you're trying to solve even is to borrow some terminology from the world of obsc or operation security most people talk about the counter measures first instead of the threats they're protecting against now a countermeasure is just a response to a threat so an example might be if you're concerned about the threat of big data using browser fingerprinting against you you might use a browser that can evade fingerprinting like the mulad browser so the mulad browser is a countermeasure to fingerprinting but if protecting against fingerprinting is not something you care about why are you taking advice from people who do care about that but if you just want to be super private and anonymous online you might think to protect yourself against every threat just to be safe but it comes at a high cost it comes at the cost of convenience and your time and the worst part is you might be wasting time and effort protecting against an imaginary threat let me give another example it's like saying that putting a lock in your front door makes you more secure so putting a lock on every door in your house must make you even more secure right sure I guess it technically would slow down an intruder but I don't know anyone that wants to go through the inconvenience of pulling out a ring of keys every time you go into a different room just to make yourself a tiny bit more secure at the same time it probably is a good idea to have a lock on every door and a bank but they have a different threat model than you do just because it's the right level of security for them doesn't mean it is for you in the Privacy world people love to read or watch privacy tutorials and recommendations that talk about all of the solutions without asking what the problem is that they're trying to protect against let's be honest I know you clicked on a video before called something like how to be private and anonymous online with a picture of a guy in a dark hoodie but when you watch a video like this you immediately get overwhelmed with how many steps there are right and they're always talking about how you can keep your data safe from them whoever they are when you watch a video video like that without any context you're again thinking about the counter measures before you think about the threats as another example you might hear that a good countermeasure against online tracking is tour and you're right in a way because tour is a very good tool for high threat models against specific threats but then people fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of the tool and they start doing weird things like trying to use T on a strict as setting for everything or you hear some wild things like people trying to use tour to log into their Facebook or their bank account they've gotten extremely confused all because they didn't take the time to originally establish the level of privacy they need Tor is a tool for being anonymous online so how does it make any sense logging into your personal account tied to your real world identity using T it doesn't but that's what happens when people misunderstand all of this people try to protect themselves from everything without understanding what that entails but there's no such thing as having 100% privacy or anonymity online it's just not possible to defend yourself against every possible threat and if you wanted to try you would basically have to give up using the internet given the fact that you're still watching this video I'm going to assume that you don't want that so I want you to think about what specific threats you actually want to protect yourself from if you want to protect yourself from the government is the government actively trying to track you down if yes then good luck but if not you're probably just concerned about blinket government surveillance you also have to think about how concerned you are compared to other threats for example I care hear more about not being tracked by big Tech than I do about government surveillance don't get me wrong it's important but it's not my number one priority that's why I don't wear this goofy mask every time I go outside to protect against surveillance cameras sure some people actually do need to worry about surveillance cameras and you know what more power to them but it's just not something I'm concerned with because you also have to ask how much convenience are you willing to give up because if you want to go full skitso you have to replace everything in your life and possibly give up all your friendships I'm going to assume you don't want that either so you have to compromise so before you start in this whole privacy Journey you need to figure out what you want first or you're going to be headed in the complete wrong direction let's talk more about compromises it's okay to use some tools that others wouldn't you have to determine what's right for you and you can't just blindly follow everyone else as an example I even have a Facebook account wow what a hypocrite every privacy Talking Hat in the internet says you should delete your Facebook but I only use my Facebook for Facebook Marketplace I use it to buy things secondhand because it's the only place that people post secondhand listings online where I live I put as little information as necessary and don't use my real email address or even my full name and I only rarely use it and maybe for you having a Facebook account is worth it if it's the only way for you to keep in touch with your friends and family of course I recommend using it differently than most people I would say use it as little as possible and don't put much personal information on it but you definitely can use something like Facebook while still caring about privacy maybe you can make a few adjustments instead of having long conversations over Facebook Messenger you can use it as a tool to schedule meeting people in real life where your conversation won't be mined by adte but there's no one siiz fits all profile when it comes to privacy maybe what works for me won't work at all for someone else who would prefer to never touch a Facebook product ever again and that's fine I'm also not saying to just give up the fight for privacy by all means if you can convince your friends and family to switch to Signal go for it but you don't have to do everything all at once and yes you are able to make some compromises and still have a level of privacy but you're still able to have privacy in other areas of your life it's not the end of the world there are people who will gatekeep privacy by saying you're not private online if you do X Y and Z but you don't need to listen to them sure you can always improve it but going through every step in the YouTube video with the dark hoodie guy is not for everyone because privacy is an incremental process I've touched on this before but people think that online privacy is a binary black or white thing that you're either private online or you're not but that's not how it works it's a staircase of small steps you can take and the more you take the more you'll be above the surveillance by all means educate yourself about online privacy so you can take steps to improve it knowledge is key but the goal is to minimize data collected about you scaring yourself by watching videos about how you need to take all these steps or you won't have any privacy doesn't actually help anyone instead it immobilizes you and prevents a lot of people from taking any action like I mentioned before that's what happened to me the Privacy fatigue got to me and I just got overwhelmed and paranoid the more I learned I had all the knowledge but I ended up giving up and completely stopped caring about privacy for a while just thinking about it stressed me out so I just didn't think about it and the only reason I started caring about online privacy again is because I took this more holistic approach to it and I think it's the path that you should take as well maybe you can't replace your Android phone with a privacy phone or a phone that you can install a custom Android ROM on because you can't afford it right now but you can still take other steps use it less often leave it at home sometimes when you go out do more things on your computer than on your phone install privacy respecting apps using the FID store there's a lot of small improvements you can take without throwing your hands up and saying you have no privacy if you have a phone that's what a lot of people say and does nothing but Inspire inaction in others so if you want to care about online privacy without going insane start by determining what level of privacy you really need too many people learn about online surveillance and suddenly think that they have to be a secret agent using Torah and all that look is a useful tool for some but probably not for most of the people watching this video who are just concerned with big Tech collecting data about you so I'm here to tell you that you can be a normal well-adjusted person and still care about privacy you can still have friends and communicate in ways other than carrier pigeons you can still participate in society just maybe not constantly on your phone like some people and just because you care about privacy doesn't mean you need to fall into the extreme paranoia that comes with not having an understanding of what you're protecting yourself from figure out what you want to protect yourself from and how much convenience you're willing to give up and then start implementing Solutions now if you need me I'll be in my cabin in the middle of the woods raing my Manifesto if you want to see more videos about privacy like this please consider supporting the channel using the link in the description or by becoming a channel member even just $3 a month really helps me to dedicate more time to making videos like these

Support my work on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/ericmurphy Overwhelmed by all the steps you have to take to be private online? Feel like there's no use in fighting the man? You might have privacy fatigue. Let's talk about how to have privacy online without completely losing your sanity. My website: https://ericmurphy.xyz Watch my videos on Odysee: https://odysee.com/@ericnmurphy Credit to opsec101.org for the lock analogy I used in the video. 0:00 Intro 2:45 What's your threat model? 8:10 Compromises 11:32 Conclusion