[criley2]

This isn't surprising, I feel like it's been common knowledge. I maintain a token social media presence precisely because I feel it would look weird/suspicious not to.

It's like hiding $500 in a dummy wallet in your underwear drawer, if someone finds it, they think they found your stash and they move on without tearing the rest of the place apart.

Same reason why I let Google hoard many of my photos. It's the low hanging fruit that makes creating a presence easy. Folks aren't going to look beyond the curtain because they expect the curtain to be there and be all that's there. It's only when you leave the curtain wide open being a digital nomad of sorts that anyone looking has to look deep to find anything at all.

In a way, maintaining token controlled usage of these services is more anonymous than avoiding them, which is wild.

[bhpm]

It depends on who you are trying to be anonymous from. I don’t spend much time trying to hide from the NSA. I care more about being targeted for advertisement or having my insurance premiums raised because of some naughty behavior. These are more impactful on my day to day life.

[jstarfish]

> It's like hiding $500 in a dummy wallet in your underwear drawer, if someone finds it, they think they found your stash and they move on without tearing the rest of the place apart.

This is one of the silliest things I've read in a while. Maybe it will stop your junkie kids from pawning your shit but there are no "rules" to burglary otherwise.

We were burgled just last week. Despite stealing a single large high-ticket item ($2000) it wasn't enough to stop them from stealing random garbage and glass and metal jewelry the kids made at summer camp. They took everything they could carry.

[criley2]

Regardless of the rest of your comment, you brought up a great point about how bait can work really effectively. Instead of stealing real jewelry, they stole obvious fakes. I understand that that might sentimentally be worse to you, but it demonstrates how effectively you can counter burglary through baiting, which of course is the very point you claim isn't true.

I'll consider bait jewelry as well, and try to increase the size and weight of the bait to make it difficult to carry more. That's good advice.

[TacticalCoder]

> This is one of the silliest things

It's not silly at all. Taking everything they can carry is not the same as tearing apart every pillow / mattress / picture frame / etc.

I got my house burgled a few years ago: they found my decoy "hidden" stash. I left a 2 gram of gold sheet there (yup, literally 2 grams, worth 80 EUR at the time), with its certificate. That and a two silver coins worth 20 EUR a pop.

They thought they hit the jackpot. They didn't find the real hidden place where shitload of wealth was stored.

I was pissed that I got burgled but at the same time I, literally, laughed all the way to the bank with the actual gold/jewelry. I say literally because I don't keep that at home anymore now (it's in a safe at the bank, which moreover has an insurance).

There was literally 20 000 EUR worth of gold coins and jewelry very close to where they found their "jackpot" (of about 120 EUR).

And it's a trick I learned from my grandpa: he always had two wallets with him. One day he got robbed in a supermarket (well everybody got robbed there that day): he gave his dummy wallet and kept all his money and precious papers.

You are very greatly overestimating the IQ, approximating that of an oyster, of bad guys. Youtube is full of thieves getting caught and you can see the imbecility in their eyes.

Now I'm not saying one or two aren't above the rest but most them are pathetic.

[Aerbil313]

> maintaining token controlled usage of these services is more anonymous than avoiding them, which is wild.

Very insightful, thanks. Still, seems a bit overkill, since I believe there are legitimate people out there who are not using any social media, etc.

[jccc]

Yes but I think the point is even in that case anyone snooping would be drawn deeper to find something.

[MonaroVXR]

Absolutely the same for me, but for the police or NSA or whatever, it's for the people that don't believe that I have the right skills...

"Oh well you're a computer nerd, nerd don't sport" kind of thing