[JohnMakin]

It's like that classic bell curve troll meme - "oh man I better not talk about this anywhere, I don't know who could be listening" is a correct instinct, especially in a western country. Doing anything on the web, whether it be crimes and ecommerce, is absolutely not anonymous. They re-use handles or emails that have personally identifying information, they don't use clean workstations, they brag (dumbest opsec thing ever, giving away information for absolutely no reason than your big ego), they taunt law enforcement. Osama bin Laden basically vanished off the face of the planet when much of the world's most powerful intelligence and militaries were hunting him, and he wasn't hiding in a cave, but he was not connected to the internet in any way whatsoever and communicated via courier, which still got got. The only reason you are anonymous or think you are anonymous is because no one powerful or determined enough has gone looking yet. This is a fact I am convinced of, and I am much more fearful of successful obfuscation tactics and red herrings left on purpose rather than a 20 year old kid engaging in a fantasy that he's so l33t he'll never get caught.

The other thing I'd say to any aspiring criminals out there is it's usually much less stressful and still profitable to get gainful employment if you are actually a talented hacker. Most of these guys seem like script kiddies, that do not understand the ramifications of what they are doing. Some of these breaches will be felt and cleaned up for decades, all so they could get a laugh and a few shekels and their e-peens stroked by other criminals.

[duxup]

>especially in a western country

I'm not really convinced this is a distinction that matters.

[JohnMakin]

To me it does, in terms of data privacy and isolation if your goal is to remain undetected by anyone you wish not to be - it's the wild west, even if you believe the GDPR has been effective. Even if you do believe it's just as bad in the rest of the world, we're heading into some sort of crisis when sufficiently powerful computing becomes commercially available (if it isn't already somewhere in a lab) and all the data these countries have been hoovering up and storing for who knows how long becomes decrypted, I would much rather be living in other parts of the world in terms of my privacy if/when that day comes.

[sofixa]

Are you under the impression things are somehow better in e.g. Saudi Arabia or Russia or China? Maybe if the qualification was "developed countries", because developing ones might not have the budget, but "the west" is just wrong.

[duxup]

I'm not sure I understand.

I guess I was saying that I don't see "especially" the west as far as privacy goes.