
Ask HN: How did you change your online behavior after the Snowden leaks? - tcmb
I&#x27;m currently reading Edward Snowden&#x27;s autobiography &quot;Permanent Record&quot;. It is now over six years since his famous release of internal documents from the Intelligence Community.<p>I have the impression that despite the knowledge that his leak brought us, many have gone back to &#x27;business as usual&#x27;. But if I take it seriously, I would have to assume that all the traffic I am generating is being logged and stored for an indefinite time, and that various international intelligence agencies have direct access to the data stored on servers of all major cloud providers, negating the usefulness of &#x27;https everywhere&#x27; and similar approaches to encrypted transmissions.<p>So I&#x27;m curious how you changed your online behavior in the past six years. Do you store all private data on your own servers? Do you take additional measures with regards to encryption, in storage or in transmission?
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ivanon
I was around 18 at the time of the Snowden leaks. I became extremely privacy-
conscious and ended up closing myself off to the world as a result. I stopped
participating on social media and I think it stunted some of my growth. What I
mean by this is social media has really changed my life in a positive way.
I've met a lot of great people and it's helped me grow my career and business
substantially. I'm glad I got over that privacy phase since it did nothing but
turn me into a ghost. Nowadays, I could care less. I write a lot and I'm
pretty open about my life. Once you put yourself out there, you have to
surrender some of that privacy and that's just how it is.

~~~
Nextgrid
Just wondering what was the turning point for getting over that, and how do
you feel about it now? I’m in the same boat regarding privacy (but more
concerned about cancer - aka advertising - companies stalking me as opposed to
any state actors).

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octosphere
I'm going to 'recycle' an older comment of mine, pertaining to the comments
about the book. The original comment can be found here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20583363)
I was annoyed that someone called Ed Snowden a 'Traitor'. Hopefully it gets a
bit more recognition in this thread

__________________________________

For me he made the Great Game of Privacy a lot fairer. You should read the
excellent entry on Wikipedia about the aftermath of the leaks[0]. If the leaks
meant that privacy-loving folk went 'dark' in light of the leaks, then this is
a net plus. Snowden's actions possibly hindered NSA in catching undesirables,
but it's a small price to pay for a bolstered Internet and privacy-respecting
comms. And who's to say that the apparatus even worked that well in foiling
the efforts of plotters? Bill Binney[1] consistently drives his message home
that the NSA's surveillance apparatus is very inefficient at foiling plots,
and I agree with him.

Even if it stopped one plot in all the time of its existence, it's still an
enormous effort and an enormous amount of money spent just to foil one plot.
Old fashioned police work is better at foiling plots because it doesn't have
to rely on big data algorithms sifting through the noise of Internet traffic
(most of which is innocuous). Old fashioned methods work because they employ
simple detective work - it doesn't need the NSA at every choke point and
decrypting countless crypto.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_Effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_Effect)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29)

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p1esk
Why would I change my online behavior? I hope one day Google learns enough
about me to start showing me relevant ads. Or maybe be even personalized
search results? One can dream...

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buboard
I 'm assuming by now it's a lot worse that what Snowden revealed. I even
assume that E2E encryption can be broken, but it probably takes them longer. I
think people who started using the internet in the 90s are more wary of the
tech anyway - it's a more recent phenomenon that people started sharing real
names and photos etc.

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impossiblewhisk
People like simple answers (Snowden good / Snowden bad). A manipulator makes
you believe THEY trust YOU. The message: well crafted, packaged, and
distributed. Today he profits from national security secrets, whatever that
may mean. How do you know you have enough information to make a correct
assessment? Capturing a pawn at face value may get you a piece, but how do you
know it's not a gambit if you can't see the whole chess board?

Perhaps these assist your question more than this harangue.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Reaction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Reaction)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_global_surveillan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_global_surveillance_disclosures)

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kwillets
It was already pretty obvious with Echelon and so forth; IDK why people didn't
get it before.

I was disappointed in the NSA's security though.

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algaeontoast
Don’t buy any blatantly voice activated shit

