Back in 2020 when I first started getting into Linux or just Cybersecurity as a whole there was always talk about privacy and anonymity. And don't get these two confused, they are different in a way most people don't even really realize. I'll briefly explain for those who don't know, in my own words so don't crucify me if something is a little off.
Privacy is minimizing tracking. Think ad blockers, vpns, not using Windows, hardened browsers, these are great examples of enhancing your privacy. The goal of enhancing your privacy is also keeping your real identity seperate from your "private" identity, think having a work email tied to your real life name and identity vs having an aliased email address even with an email provider like Gmail, although much less so now since I think(?) they require a phone number at sign up 100% of the time now. Regardless, enhancing your privacy online is simple and often unobstructive, hell even using Windows there are many things one can do to remain relatively private at the time of writing.
Anonymity is hard to give a short answer for in terms of defining it and is much better demonstrated through examples. For one to be anonymous an amnestic operating system like Tails is required. All network traffic is obfuscated often through the Tor network. Accounts are made with burner emails or dark net hosted ones or not at all. Text communication itself is encrypted with PGP, writing styles are altered to avoid fingerprinting. Metadata on all files is scrubbed. In short anonymity requires constant paranoia to maintain and often doesn't facilitate the more fun aspects of using a computer, such as gaming or watching media.
World Governments as a whole have recently been targeting people in both of these camps. The internet as a whole is becoming less private. It's a fate that as recently as 2020 been a topic of discussion. But back then it was a little more laid back, you'd often get called paranoid even on places like 4chan's /g/ board for taking the steps to enhance your privacy. It is often misconstrued that those who take steps to enhance these 2 aspects of their internet usage are only doing so because they are doing something wrong/illegal, often in my experience this is not the case. Jeffery Epstein was not using encrypted email after all. To see the fears I had back then slowly come true in real time is a terrifying experience I'm sure many might relate to. And with this rise of tyranny has been a rise in people who are becoming more aware of it, but not many people who seem to care about doing anything about it.
With this rise in awareness has been a rise in what I call "The Midwit Doomer". Somebody who knows just enough about the systems that track them and (falsely) conclude there is nothing anybody can ever do to stop it. You can often spot these people in the comments section of content relating to priacy focused content, often Linux or Tor discussion, spouting complete nonsense that anybody with any knowledge into these subjects can immediately spot.
Examples of this include:
And while I am strawmaning these examples spend 5 minutes in an Instagram comments section about privacy/anonymity tools and you're bound to find comments similar. I will admit if I didn't know how to get to my downloads folder these points would seem compelling. Unfortunately my laptop is Librebooted to I can't claim ignorance.
To be honest I don't know, and I'm not going to give advice in this blogpost on how to combat these issues. But with the rise of talks about AI surveillance, digital ID, ID verification on the OS level it's getting increasingly hard to not notice that maybe on day I might have to abandon my hobbies simply out of principle. And while I am mentally prepared to lose my entire online identity besides the bare minimum I'd rather it not come to that if I can help it. I always keep myself updated on stuff like this, I already have tools in case SHTF to hold out a little longer. I will no ID verify for anything online. I recommend you do the same. The world is hell.