This is abismal advise (and potentially self-serving advise, if you work in the industry) to give. As ever, there are nuances; "only a Sith speaks in absolutes" and all that.
#1. You have no privacy ONLINE. Providers have perverse incentives to sell you out down the river. Therefore, you DEFEND yourself by keeping a shallow online presence. If you are a casual user, you keep as little information online, specially in social media, as possible. If you need an online presence, you ASSESS the risks and pay time and money to MITIGATE those risks. If you don't see a Return-Of-Investment on those mitigation efforts, chances are you have been CONNED into thinking you need an online presence, but you probably DONT.
#2. There is no ABSOLUTE security. All possible defense measure CAN be circumvented, not not necessarily WILL be circumvented. You ASSESS as many risks as you can imagine, and MITIGATE only those where you expect a positive ROI. The ones you don't mitigate, you ASSUME. The ones you cannot afford to assume, you DO NOT TAKE by refusing to use the system.
#2.a Corollary to #2. If you take ZERO risk management, you still have a BASELINE level of security based on the risk-reward analysis by the criminogenic/sociopath portion of the population; they will not attempt an invasion if they do not expect to get away with it, or to gain something out of it. The more cynical people in the know claim there's no security, the more this baseline approaches zero and the more vulnerable the general population is.
#2.b Even if you are not part of the general population, the lower the BASELINE, the more time and money you PERSONALLY have to invest in risk management to achieve a bearable level of safety. Cynicism is costing US time and money, pal; don't pee/shit on the village's wheel just because it looks edgy!!!
#3. All your CURRENT digital information is already public or will become public AT SOME POINT. You can do better and pick the technologies that will push that point FURTHER into the FUTURE. And for not yet digitalized information, you may make conscious decisions whether the convenience is worth the risk.
#1. You have no privacy ONLINE. Providers have perverse incentives to sell you out down the river. Therefore, you DEFEND yourself by keeping a shallow online presence. If you are a casual user, you keep as little information online, specially in social media, as possible. If you need an online presence, you ASSESS the risks and pay time and money to MITIGATE those risks. If you don't see a Return-Of-Investment on those mitigation efforts, chances are you have been CONNED into thinking you need an online presence, but you probably DONT.
#2. There is no ABSOLUTE security. All possible defense measure CAN be circumvented, not not necessarily WILL be circumvented. You ASSESS as many risks as you can imagine, and MITIGATE only those where you expect a positive ROI. The ones you don't mitigate, you ASSUME. The ones you cannot afford to assume, you DO NOT TAKE by refusing to use the system.
#2.a Corollary to #2. If you take ZERO risk management, you still have a BASELINE level of security based on the risk-reward analysis by the criminogenic/sociopath portion of the population; they will not attempt an invasion if they do not expect to get away with it, or to gain something out of it. The more cynical people in the know claim there's no security, the more this baseline approaches zero and the more vulnerable the general population is.
#2.b Even if you are not part of the general population, the lower the BASELINE, the more time and money you PERSONALLY have to invest in risk management to achieve a bearable level of safety. Cynicism is costing US time and money, pal; don't pee/shit on the village's wheel just because it looks edgy!!!
#3. All your CURRENT digital information is already public or will become public AT SOME POINT. You can do better and pick the technologies that will push that point FURTHER into the FUTURE. And for not yet digitalized information, you may make conscious decisions whether the convenience is worth the risk.