You feel awful now, but what you've written is very encouraging. You're doing the right thing.
Coding can be put to good use too. Perhaps there's an open-source project you can contribute to that has a positive benefit to offer society? What social injustices are you most passionate about?
I also intend to leave Facebook (again) very soon. The only reason I haven't in the past is that I didn't want to lose contact with some people, but I figure if I share my email address as I leave anyone that wants to contact me can do. We don't have to employ a scorched earth policy every time we want to change, losing everything we got from something, we often have better alternatives.
I should move away from Gmail for similar reasons, does anyone have suggestions of a secure email service with webmail and Android app access?
You're right, we should use our skills in open source projects. I think decentralized technologies are the way to fix the problems with Internet.
Speaking of Gmail, I also want to stop using Google services. I went back the good old times, just setup a mail server on a linux dedicated box and started sharing my new email address. It's going to be painful but there's no way around it. You can then setup POP or IMAP on Android like we always did before.
I remember a discussion with a friend of mine about the source of these problems, we came up to the conclusion that Internet was an amazing technology when poeple could speak up their minds freely, this is how Internet itself was built and the same for good Open Source projects like Linux. But now we let the greedy guys run businesses with internet and they are trying to replicate the physical world. We are basically transforming what was a door to creativity and freedom to a mirror of our daily lives. And the common factor to all these problems is "identity". Most internet technologies and new startups are obsessed with identity. We are linking authentication to more social networks. Linking our phones to online services and always giving our identity in the process. I wonder what would be the Internet if there was no way to have "identity" at all supported in the protocol level. Maybe it's too late.
I can reassure you it's not too late. If you wish to get involved in the decentralised web as a coder, could always participate in the technologies surrounding the Darknet Plan... http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/
Personally I believe the Darknet Plan is doomed to fail on a large scale unless they tackle the downsides of decentralisation, but that's just my personal opinion. There's plenty of work to do, I'm sure you could find some tasks that interested you.
With email, you're right that POP/IMAP on a dedicated box is preferable from a security standpoint. Food for thought, thank you.
> With email, you're right that POP/IMAP on a dedicated box is preferable from a security standpoint.
This depends on your threat model, and I'd argue that this statement is untrue for the vast majority of people, even people who have the technical know-how required to run their own email server. Running an email server, keeping it up to date with the latest security patches, managing SSL certificates, blocking spam, blocking malware, and blocking phishing attempts are all things that Google is better at than you. Part of the reason for this is their access to incredible volumes of data, which lets them analyze trends and emerging threats across an relatively large subset of the email-using population.
The average user's threat model is much more along the lines of phishing, malware, or spam-related fraud. Google is incredibly good at protecting people from these threats (as is obvious when I compare the volume of spam, which often contains malware or phishing links, that I receive on my Gmail account against my other, non-Gmail accounts).
Of course, if your threat model is that you require protection from law enforcement or government surveillance, then Google may be a poor choice as they are legally obligated to turn over information about you that is requested by such entities. If that is your adversary, however, than you should have a lot more work to do to protect yourself than just quitting Gmail and setting up your own mail server.
I famously left Facebook over 4 years ago. Yes, a bunch of friends from high school thought I 'unfriended' them, but they all eventually figured it out. I got involved with Digital Detox and try to unplug regularly. Like meditation, almost.
I've moved completely away from Google. DuckDuckGo for search, here.com for maps, fastmail.com for mail (using my domain, so I'm not locked in), Firefox as browser.
It was not as hard as I expected.
I guess the email was the hardest one do to. I needed to change quite a few addresses for different accounts. I've also put a permanent vacation responder stating that I use new email. It was definitely worth it. And the best: even from usability perspective, I like fastmail.com better than Google.
Thank you for the suggestion throwawayaway, but I don't think Yandex is quite what I'm looking for. They might state that they don't share data with the NSA, but I wouldn't trust any company that relies on data mining for their profits with my email.
I don't mind paying a small monthly fee for a secure email service. Does that expand my options?
That's because Yandex is a Russian company - they share their info with the FSB. Ditto for QQ mentioned in the sibling comment and the Chinese MSS. Like throwawayaway said, pick your poison.
Coding can be put to good use too. Perhaps there's an open-source project you can contribute to that has a positive benefit to offer society? What social injustices are you most passionate about?
I also intend to leave Facebook (again) very soon. The only reason I haven't in the past is that I didn't want to lose contact with some people, but I figure if I share my email address as I leave anyone that wants to contact me can do. We don't have to employ a scorched earth policy every time we want to change, losing everything we got from something, we often have better alternatives.
I should move away from Gmail for similar reasons, does anyone have suggestions of a secure email service with webmail and Android app access?