Go Off the Paranoia-Soaked Deep End and Lose Your Mind
Look, the truth is this—you can do all this stuff and still have your privacy and data completely wrecked. Hackers can still get in. Whatever Western government you’re living under can probably still target you with eye-of-Sauron-level surveillance. The social media company holding your data can misconfigure its databases and leave your email address and phone number exposed. In reality, it’s a wash.
However, if you really want to be totally safe and make sure your personal information is protected, I’ve thought about it and there are a couple of additional steps you can take. Here they are:
— Drink heavily and ruminate on the madness of the modern world.
— After a nightcap or three, go to the nearest window and throw your stupid computer out of it while screaming “I’M MAD AS HELL” like Peter Finch in Network.
— Escalate things and murder your phone. Desolder the fucker, smash it to pieces with a ball-peen hammer—then burn the parts in a ritualistic conflagration in the backyard. Later, siphon the phone’s ashes into a little glass vial and hang it around your neck to remind you of your triumph over evil.
— Cancel your lease, sell your earthly possessions and just drive. Where? It doesn’t matter. You just have to get out of there.
— Live in a tent in an unincorporated territory and read books and river bathe. Learn to enjoy the simple things—like the sound of crickets at night, the majestic sight of a buck as it traipses across the prairie, and your own body odor.
— Pray that someday, in some as yet unseen American future, your congressional leaders will grow real, actual testicles and introduce laws to regulate the dystopian corporate monsters that have swallowed the world and eradicated human privacy.
— Weep for humanity.