stevegattuso
This site is an always-in-progress repository for my thoughts and ideas. You'll generally find me writing about sustainability 🍃, urbanism 🏙️, programming 💾, vegan cooking 🍛, and whatever else pops into my mind.
🔗 Privacy is Power
Published on Feb 7th, 2017.

I really like the way this article articulates why putting effort into digital privacy is worth our time. Recently I’ve been moving myself away from cloud services in favor of self-hosted open-source projects. I’ve switched from using GitHub to Gogs, Evernote to vimwiki, GitHub pages to my own web server (deployed by Jenkins), encrypted backups using borgbackup, and Dropbox to Syncthing.

It’s been a lot of fun building this self-hosted network of services, but it’s also important to recognize my privilege in being able to do so. Not everyone has the time, motivation, and skill-set to replace the various cloud services that may be snooping on their lives. Even more concerning is the general population’s lack of interest in protecting privacy; I all too frequently hear friends and family use the argument “I have nothing to hide, so why should inconvenience myself?”

I think there is a lot of untapped potential in creating open-source, encrypted, and decentralized software that is more accessible to the masses. A combination of privacy education and easy-to-use software could be a potent force against government and corporate snooping. It’s obviously much easier said than done, but I think it’s an important battle to continue fighting nonetheless.

Quick plug: the EFF is fighting this exact battle. If you’re interested in helping the cause and are financially able, please consider donating!