[mikegioia]

My take on this problem is that most people here do in fact value their privacy and the fight for privacy. That's why Snowden articles rampaged this site for so long. However, the divide comes when the decision to actually change behavior arises.

We know what we can do for better online privacy:

   - Use tor for all internet activity
   - Pay cash for everything; do not own any credit cards,
     or use a service like Blur
   - Bank only with banks that don't share our data
   - Don't use a modern smartphone
   - Use PGP for all email

The list goes on and on, but who here does any of these things? Who wants to sacrifice the convenience of paying with a credit card online and managing their banking with Mint? The threat of privacy violations is not real to many people right now. They either can't or don't extrapolate the ramifications of losing their privacy in the future, or don't weigh the imposing risk as high enough to alter behavior.

Have I changed the way I conduct myself online? Absolutely. I do four of the five things I listed above but I could never imagine a small percentage, let alone a vast majority of people implementing them in their day to day lives. That's the core of the problem that we need to solve first.

[robotkilla]

I ditched my phone about a year ago. This works for me because I use hangouts for all calls and texts, but I'm not sure if this actually gives me more privacy - now I just have my communication routed through google instead of verizon. Regardless I love that I ditched the phone. Beyond privacy, spyPhones are a scam.

[mod]

They cost too much, and the privacy issues are obvious--but I really love my phone. I don't even use the phone/sms options very much, what I really love is the data service & "computer" and what it gives me.

Spotify in my car, gps/maps when I'm out of town, google results, HN, etc...I'd miss it sorely if I ditched it.

I could spent a lot of time and/or money setting all of that up in "offline mode," essentially. Mp3s, some map software, wikipedia offline...but in the end, we really can't trust pretty much any of the hardware available, so it might check in on every open network or something.

I'd totally splurge for an anonymous plan, with a trusted data provider, and open hardware platform.

Note: I did go 3 months with no phone a couple of years ago while I lived in Costa Rica--but I was either on my PC or at the beach. Never wanted a phone.

[robotkilla]

i was just as tethered to my phone until I got rid of it. The fact that I don't leave the house much puts me at an advantage.

[d0ne]

If you don't carry around another radio enabled device then you have given yourself back a material amount of privacy as your physical movements around the world are harder to track.

[robotkilla]

This is true and was one of my motivating factors.