Ask HN: Is data privacy on the internet overrated? - zkid18
======
giantg2
Depends on the data and from whom you want to keep from knowing it.

You'll never have full privacy due to government surveillance programs. Even
if you use E2E encryption, they will keep your data indefinitely until they
can crack it. The NSA does this and I assume the other members Five Eyes do
too.

Companies also collect your data. If buy stuff online you need to provide a
company some basic data, at least stuff like an address to ship too.

You probably share data with individuals, such as HN posts or comments, Ebay,
etc. This is probably the most benign data. It's probably also the most likely
to be an explicitly hostile actor aside from dictatorships. Individuals could
also intercept your data or access it from companies or governments that have
it stored.

So you aren't going to have privacy from governments unless you stop using
digital systems and stop using other places that use digital systems over the
internet (think doctor's office, work, etc).

You could stop using online companies for things to prevent some of your data
from being collected. But you still have places that digitize your info and
connect it to or transmit it over the internet (insurance, banks, healthcare,
etc).

As for individuals, you have the most control over who you explicitly send it
to. You mostly have to worry about attackers in-transit or at-rest.

