"reset the net": one year on from Snowden's revelations on Mass Surviallance

[Red Economist]

so, this morning I found a link to this site:

https://www.resetthenet.org/

it's a public effort for individuals to claw back privacy on the internet as it is now one year since Edward Snowden leaked documents that demonstrated the extent of mass survialliance by the NSA and GCHQ. And I thought I'd share it as it is important to keep this issue alive given that big brother really is watching us.

I signed the petition (briefly pausing wondering if this was in fact an NSA front).

So I was wondering;

1) have you changed the way you use the internet because of what we found out?
2) what advice would you give to someone to cut down the amount of personal data that they put online and increase their privacy and security on the net.

I've cutting down (or certainly tried) how much I use the internet and have gone periods without the internet as it's not a great habit to be online too much anyway. I did seriously consider leaving Facebook, but instead just erased as much stuff relating to politics as possible (particularly as a study that by co-incidence (well, probably ;)) came out at the same time, showed you could figure out someones political views with 85% accuracy based on a person's likes (82% for religious views) without them being shown on Facebook itself; link below), but at the moment it's just too convenient for staying in touch with people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2291749/How-Facebook-likes-reveal-clues-sexuality-political-beliefs-religion.html

I recently tried Tor, but will have to have the patience to figure out how not to piss of Google and Facebook in the process with 'unusual internet activity'.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Not putting the information there in the first place is step one, erasing it will not do a thing, aside from possibly sheilding that information from an potential employer or the general public. I don't think these actions will amount to anything, as i believe this is the 3rd or 4th attempt in just the last year to "take back" the internet. The belief that the internet was some sort of commons was always a delusion amongst users and it was a very useful one for society's masters. There is any number of additional security layers that have been developed by privacy enthusiasts, but I think time is slowly revealing that these are just additional delusions as well. If the NSA or realistically any other government entity wants to know what you're up to, they will find out. That's an ugly reality but kidding ourselves isn't going to accomplish anything.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

You know the NSA does have a physical HQ and is staffed by these weird creatures who have this bizzare weakness towards bullets. Hmmmmmmmm.