Covering Your Tracks Online is Suspicious

The drawback to covering your tracks like this on a daily basis is that it sometimes makes you look like, well, like you’re covering your tracks. People who engage all of their privacy functions sometimes stand out in a transparent society. It may make people suspicious, thinking that you’re up to something. If you’re only encrypting your communications with certain people, it sometimes makes it look even worse, like you’re collaborating—and it also pinpoints who you’re in cahoots with. So if you’re going to push ahead with enhanced privacy, do it across the board, in all aspects of your life. Create a cover for yourself while you’re at it. If you build up a reputation as one of those old-fashioned “privacy nuts,” people are less inclined to think you’re up to no good—they’ll just think you’re weird. If you have a good reason for the enhanced privacy—such as freelancing for a client on a top secret hypercorp project—even better. Then you have justification for protecting your affairs.

Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Eclipse Phase - Panopticon (2011-06-15)

• identity
• surveillance
• technology