I have fallen down many rabbit holes in my years of exploring the web. But none of them were quite as deep as the Mariana Trench of internet privacy. Like, seriously... I am never getting out of this hole as long as I live.
Learning about privacy and the internet really does open your eyes to some pretty messed up stuff that the tech industry likes to do. Often the case is some people decide to take matters into their own hands.
This usually involves rejecting the conveniences of modern tech offered by big tech companies. Morally speaking, this is absolutely justifiable. Practically speaking, this is absolutely crazy.
To illustrate my point, consider this: Bob is a man with a busy life. He needs all the help he can get.
Enter stage left: Google.
Whenever he needs to figure out something, he consoles his friend, Google.
This Google... is like a magician. It can show you exactly where you are, and show you where to go. It can remind you of upcoming plans. It can answer any question you have. And Google is available 24/7.
What would happen if Google decided to just... say no, and disappear?
It is easy to forget just how dependant we are on tech companies. The advantage of abandoning this great convenience, is that you are no longer bound to and at the mercy of these companies. The disadvantage is that you are now on your own, left to make your own way through this place called real life.
With that being said, I want to talk about a pretty simple practice that can potentially make your internet life far more malleable. It is called:
You probably do this already, only without fully capitalising on its potential. At its most basic level, you establish two identities of yours. One represents your real life online identity, and the other represents your pseudonymous online identity.
With your real life identity, you should not be afraid to... expose your name and personal information to services (how much you disclose exactly is at your discretion). This would be for things that you simply could not do with an alias, such as interacting with your government, dealing with bills, your job, etc.
In my case, the very website you are reading this on literally has my name written all over it. You are in my personal space. I only upload stuff on here that I am comfortable being associated with me.
Most people have social media accounts, where they disclose their real name, face, and blood type. Same scenario. Different tools.
On the flip-side, you have your pseudonymous identity, AKA your alias or... uh, that one time you decided to use the name "mrpongyman" instead of "speak" for your RuneScape account.
This is the identity you do not want to associate with your real life. So let's say you play an online video game. Letting salty players know your real name might not be the smartest move, if you subsequently piss them off in-game.
Or let's say you want to discuss a very controversial or taboo topic. Aliases are useful in that they separate your real life from your alias activity. People under an alias are not likely to get doxxed, and so will gladly speak their voice. The consequences are relatively minute. Everyone hates you? No problem. Just throw away that alias and make a new one.
Another way to look at this is that we're trying not to put all our eggs in one basket.
So how would this work in practice? The challenge of compartmentalisation is to not connect these identities together.
How do you do that? Compartmentalise your workflow.
So for instance, use a dedicated Google account for all your alias activity, and use another account for all your real life activity. Use a dedicated email for your alias, and another for your real life. Use a dedicated phone number for your alias, and another phone number for your real life.
This is really just a basic foundation than a practice, but it is pretty damn powerful in its potential, if you want to prevent your digital life from collapsing, that is.
What's great about this setup is that you can be as meticulous as you wish. Let's say you want to compartmentalise your work life, and your personal life - so three identities total. Alias, work and personal.
Okay no problem. Get a phone number, email and account for all your work stuff (some jobs will provide this for you).
You know how on Android, you have the option to have multiple profiles? You can achieve compartmentalisation easily with that.
These setups are great because even if you use services with telemetry, compartmentalisation makes it harder to associate gathered data with your other identities.
This principle is always applicable even when it doesn't feel so. Try not to browse casual stuff on your work browser, for instance. If you don't want something to be associated with any of your identities, consider using throwaway accounts or burner identities. These are meant to be one-time use things that you get rid of once you're done.
Incidentally, your default browser on computer or mobile may screw things up when you click an external link that opens your default browser, for instance. This is why I use the Tor browser as the default browser for external links.
If you have the money for it, you can take this to the next level by introducing compartmentalised hardware. You could have a work computer for all things related to work (including job searching. I really do mean everything), a personal computer, and an alias computer.
Let's say you like playing video games on PC. Establish a dedicated gaming PC, gaming email, gaming username. You get the idea.
This all sounds pretty inconvenient in practice. And that's because it is... by design, in fact. But inconvenience can work in your favour. Compartmentalising can also help you focus on one thing at a time, without unrelated things getting in the way.
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