senseless fight against privacy
Privacy. What does this word even mean? Hiding your online activity? Anonymizing personal data? The inability to be identified by street cameras? Privacy...
uBlock, AdGuard, DNS with analytics blocking, sophisticated Linux focused on security, sandboxes, browsers with "tracking protection." They all share one thing in common — our data will end up on the internet anyway. Chats in messengers, face captures from city cameras, a random photo from a passerby shooting a sunset — all of this will inevitably end up on the internet and stay there forever.
Unfortunately, in today's digital world, we have no real control over our own data. All these GDPR, SOC certificates, and other regulatory mechanisms cannot protect us. Rules are followed only on paper, while data continues to leak. Yes, perhaps somewhere it will be anonymized, but who can guarantee that?
We're trying to fight an immortal privacy hydra, cutting off its head only to see ten new ones grow in its place. The number of companies collecting and analyzing our data is growing exponentially. There are such massive information aggregators that we don't even know exist. Entire empires built on our data, whose operations we cannot influence in any way.
This fight seems pointless — what's the use of blocking analytics or refusing to use a convenient app if other leak channels will work anyway? At first glance, it's a waste of time, but... In a way, I even like it. Fighting the system — how poetic that sounds. Yes, there might be no practical sense. Yes, nothing will change globally. Yes, we have to sacrifice comfort. But the very act of resistance, even if there's no victory in the end — that's the meaning itself.