this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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Privacy
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Why wouldn't they tho? Both persons had the same shirt on. That seems like a no brainer to me. Maybe I'm missing something. It's one of the reasons when I go out in public, I do not wear clothing that are emblazoned with logos, graphics, words, etc. For one, it doesn't do anything for me to wear logos, graphics, words. To me, it's akin to having a political yard sign or bumper sticker. What do you gain from it? What's it do for you? Some guy wearing a t-shirt with a cannabis leaf across the front, again why?, and it's an easy identifier and puts another tick mark for complimentary evidence.
I'm a big fan of it all.
Maybe I should clarify - I'm not a fan of human noise (there's probably a more precise term) - I'm more in favour of privacy/anonymity in the midst of actual, randomized noise, that isn't just random human activity.
I don't even mean t shirts with a logo. It could've been a pair of jeans on a specific date at a place in conjunction with 5 other (random obfuscated) things that a poi also happened to do. Like googled 'how to fold a swan' or whatever.
Even if you didn't do these things but was instead random generated traffic, it would generate unnecessary attention.
One might argue that if enough people adopted such methods, authorities would have too many leads to follow up. But then again, the chances of a random string of generated activity coinciding with that of a poi isn't high, so there likely will be a manageable number of leads.
Even if the number were higher, they have proven to have no qualms about skipping due process. As long as they might've gotten the actual poi, they have no problems subjecting many more unrelated to the same treatment because everyone is some sort of terrorist now.
They could also arrest you just because you have higher than normal randomized traffic and activity that you can't or won't answer for.
"Why did you search how to fix a sink leak and then how to fold a parachute within 2 minutes of each other?? You must be a terrorist generating random activity to hide your true actions. What do you have to hide?" - "found coke stuffed in all the couches and beds boss"
I hear what you're saying, and I'm not going to call it paranoia, however, that isn't in my threat model. Entities that can come into your home, arrest you, and ship you off to Guantanamo for buying a parachute and a drain kit for the sink are not in my scope. Frankly speaking, that is probably not in 90% of most people's threat model, who care about privacy, anonymity, and security. Those entities don't even need to fabricate an excuse like a couch full of coke, to give you that full Guantanamo experience.
To tell the truth, I probably couldn't account for 75%+ of the websites I've visited just today. When I get to researching something, it's usually pages and pages, from many, many different sites. Highlight, search, read, nothing here, go back, highlight, search, bingo! Now for more in depth reading. Highlight, search....ad nauseam. This process happens very quickly. I don't watch TV at all, and I don't read fiction. 99.99% of what I do read tho, comes off the internet. So, they'd have to sift through a bunch of data.
I'm quite certain that all of my privacy, anonymity, security, and obfuscation efforts has put me on someone's list, but again, that's not in my threat model. I'm not hiding from the government. I send them tax forms every year. I vote prolifically in both local and nationwide elections. I pay property taxes, etc. They know who, and where, when it comes to finding me. If I were a person of interest, they'd come visit. Now, I'm certainly not going to overshare with them in the least either. Hell, I'm not hiding from anyone. I'm just preventing unauthorized access. That is what keys and locks do.
Rock on bro!