[_qbxp]

This is something that's always been fascinating to me. In any thread about privacy, there's always a comment along the lines of "if your threat model is a nation-state, then you're screwed." You hear it about DDG, Tor, client-side but web-delivered encrypted email, etc.

What if your threat model is a nation state? What's the proper way to ensure your privacy that does not require abstaining from the internet? Is a high degree of privacy even possible?

[jokoon]

Privacy from the state never really existed, even before the internet. Paperwork always allowed the state to know things. Information has always been power, and information is an important tool for governments so they can be able to work. I think it always has been.

I'm more worried about privacy from private interests. The issue is what the governments do with data, and if the government let private parties access it, and where do you draw the line between the government having right to access, and companies being allowed to access it, because you will often have situations where things are not clear.

To be honest I will always have a problem with the whole privacy/surveillance debate, because there are things the government should know, but only because it is the government. Private companies are now being able to track people and have the same kind of data the government has.

So there is a big nuance, and it is often shut out by the outrage, which frankly comes from a libertarian agenda, which I have a problem with.