I guess a lot of us do some form of privacy/security theatre. I’m at least doing it quite a lot of it, and it’s difficult to stop thinking of new things that could (but probably never will) go wrong.

So instead of hearing how safe and cool your setup is, I’d like to hear how you simplified things and stopped the (hopefully 🤔) needless overthinking.

  • @ExtremeDullardEnglish
    9•5 months ago

    The first step to stop worrying is to know what you’re up against and define the problem exactly. Once you know, you can do something about it, which gives you control. Once you have control, you stop fretting.

    First, know you threat model.

    Then figure out what your requirements are in terms of security and privacy (not the same things) according to your threat model: what you absolutely cannot accept, what you can compromise with, what you can do to hurt the adversary if you can’t fully avoid them.

    Then research countermeasures you’re happy to live with that meet your requirements.

    Then implement the countermeasures.

    Then simply make it a habit to regularly assess the effectiveness of your countermeasures, learn about new threats and assess how they might affect you. Rinse, repeat.

    If you do all that, you’ll be on top of the problem and you’ll stop worrying.