It’s interesting that privacy gets brought up so much in bitcoin circles like this one. Not that this post talks about bitcoin, but I want to point out a couple of things:

Bitcoin doesn’t solve the privacy problem. It’s a public ledger, and the hoops you’d need to jump through to avoid being detected by digital forensics are massively extreme, if not impossible for most people

We need to think about the internet differently. If you want privacy, get off the internet. There are things you can do to help cover your tracks, and that’s where this post is helpful, but it’s important to acknowledge that this isn’t a complete fix.

For example, VPN’s aren’t a complete fix. First off, your traffic is already encrypted without a VPN, and the only thing an attacker in the same network can view is the domain of the website you’re visiting. If that’s concerning to you, you should be aware that by using a VPN, you’re giving that info to them instead. It’s still a trust relationship, and if you have trust in their integrity, you also have to have trust that their cyber security and grasp on complex cryptographic protocols is bullet proof (spoiler alert, it’s not).

And - even with a VPN - that traffic is still going somewhere. You’re almost certainly interacting with a server and database controlled by someone you can’t fully trust to keep your data safe.

Yes - do what you can to mitigate this stuff - use a password manager, etc.

But think of it this way - everything you send or receive over the internet is going or coming from somewhere you can’t fully trust.

We need to think about the internet differently. Complete internet privacy is all but non-existent.