If your whole Internet activities were monitored by intelligence services how much dirt would they have on you?

[noname223]

Nice try FBI!

I ruminate so much about having received too many subscriptions for my antipsychotic medication and I fear hell will break loose. ChatGPT says it is more likely my psychiatrist will be in trouble but I don't want that. I am not sure how many medication I am able to get from now on. I Was paranoid about it. I am a hoarder and fear supply chain will collapse and apocalypse could potentially happen. You should not give the power to me to hoard as much medication as I want. I will cut off my medication reserves drastically. But I still fear even getting one more medication will get me into trouble. My psychiatrist got a Warning from my health insurance that my medication cost too much. I am in panic since. For a long time I have not realized that I get too many. I Was sort of psychotic and I am autistic.

The point I want to make. I don't understand how some people have the nerves to commit major felonies. There is this Case about the "White Tiger". A German young adult involved in exploiting, blackmailing teenagers in the worst sexual ways (764 communities). I read an article about an FBI man who was furious about the German law enforcement. First, they got White Tiger posessing child pornography and blackmailing teenagers on Discord. He was 17 to that time. They gave him a warning in 2021 and he promised that He won't Do it again. No punishment. Two years later After several warnings from the FBI, they researched his Computer Files found videos as you would expect it. But in 2023 there were allegedly not enough evidence for being involved in criminal activities. White Tiger continued his crimes. Pressured a young American man to commit suicide, filming it, making fun of it. Then in 2025 the German authorities finally intervened. So why did it take it so long? The FBI gave like thousands of warnings in between. The German authorities said they had to Analyze Every second of his terrabytes of videos first, before they had the legal means to stop him. By the Way I read there is a quote where he bragged to have abused 2600 children in the meantime. In the German article I read they say there are 260 cases where He was potentially involved. And it seems like this German news magazine already does way better Research than the German police.

I wish this Monster was extradited to the US. German prisons are way too comfortable for him. But sadly that won't happen.

One of my worst acts is I circumvent the paywalls of newspapers. The NYT blocked me from accessing their website because of that. Maybe I should worry less in my life...

 

[Dejected 55]

What do you mean "IF?"

 

[noname223]

What do you mean "IF?"

I also thought about that. I was not sure how to formulate the titile. I also meant if all your computer files were analyzed by them.

I am not sure whether US surveillances can read chats of the messenger Threema. It is a Swiss messenger and the US is angry on Switzerland for their data protection. They probably can read it. I am not sure. I mean why should there be special phones created with the sole purpose not to be tracked using them. I am also not sure how safe VPNs are even with the right ad-ons.

I rather meant if they deep dive into your case. We all get surveilled by automatic surveillance measures. But it does not seem to be the case that the authorities act really fast. They take time. I read some internet horror stories. The 764 communities get taken down one by one. But it is likely in the shadows there are a couple of cults,, criminal networks etc. under their radar.
I find it interesting terrorists used the chats in video games a lot to make plans in the past. But intelligence services seem to have gotten into that trick.

I think US intelligence services are probably pretty good. But there is so much data to analyze. I don't think most crimes are punished. Probably only a small minority.

 

[Dejected 55]

The primary saving grace for most people is... there are too many people for the government or law enforcement to go after everyone. And it's not worth them expending lots of time and effort going after small stuff unless you happen to make the wrong person in power angry. You can be sure IF you manage to get on the radar of someone powerful, you'll be raked over the coals for the most minor transgression. Otherwise, most people are going to be relatively safe because they want the big fish.

That's why governments do the keyword searches in the background on everything. They are constantly looking for conversations with or about certain people in the world or messages that contain certain topics... then they dig deeper on any of those people that they find an abundance of hits on the keyword search. That's really all they have time to do unless you go out of your way to call attention to yourself specifically.

As for VPNs... VPN companies have a neat scam going. Aside from people using VPNs to obscure their country of origin so they can access websites of countries they otherwise could not... VPNs really don't keep you anonymous at all. In fact, they might actually be less private if you stop and think about it.

When you use the Internet normally, all your traffic goes all over the place and only the intended recipients decode it. As in, you send a message it really goes everywhere but most systems ignore it except the destination, and then those other traces evaporate with only the source and destination keeping your data for any length of time. Only someone actively monitoring your connection would be able to intercept anything, and that would only be true if you were on their radar and if you are then they will find you.

But using a VPN... your connection to the VPN may be encrypted, and the VPN connecting to everywhere else wouldn't identify you... but the VPN itself now has a single point of source of ALL your data. So if someone wants to know what you specifically are doing, and they find out you use a VPN, they just have to go to the VPN and everything will be there.

Now, a VPN might claim they keep your data private... but really? Maybe they don't monitor and sell it to anyone... but if law enforcement or governments come knocking you can bet they will comply. They have no real reason not to, they already made their money off you.

So, basically, your normal Internet connection is only marginally less secure than one through a VPN. Someone who wants to track you, will still be able to and perhaps much easier through a VPN data stores. And, truth be told, there are at least a few unscrupulous VPNs who probably do monitor and sell data on the sly.

Think hacking too. Everyone always tells you how careful YOU need to be, right? Keep your passwords different and secret and change them often or whatever... but how many individuals really get hacked? Hackers hack the big databases where the most bang for their buck is... They hack corporations and banks and ISPs and, yes, VPNs... any place where lots of your data and millions of other people's data can be found. They don't have to hack you when they can hack the places millions of people use every day.

 

[Vlad Tepes]

A lot lmao

 

[SuicidalCurryBoy]

Just uniform porn.
And a few sites like this.

Nothing illegal.

 

[whyyyyyyyy]

What do you mean "IF?"

Exactly,, LOL
I think there would be stuff that could tarnish my public image, but nothing for which I would be imprisoned

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

There is no feds on this world that would care of you circumventing paywalls on newspapers...I think?

Also , how much dirt? 0 dirt probably; whatever that should mean? I don't have anything illegal in my computer nor have I ever used it to buy anything illegal, I pirate mainstream new games from time to time but it's not illegal in my country.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Asides from here, it would be a very boring investigation.

 

[Pluto]

 

[orbit]

I mean are the feds really going to arrest me for swiping some gamecube roms? I don't think so. They have better things to do.

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

I get the paranoia, it gets worse when you have other struggles going on, but I've know a lot of people doing shady shit and like, nothing happens, it's kinda like worrying about getting hit by lightning or a car, just something extra in your life, or like STD's, you have a "risk" even if you wear a condom, but like, are you gonna miss having sex for your entire life? For me it's mostly anger due to limited freedom of speech and stuff like that, cause I don't see crime dropping, not offline or online, also, there's 8 billion people, that's like, a lot of football stadiums.
And even IF they are like watching you, so what? Like, you can still do the things you want, unless you get into some heat first, you are always "safe".

What's insidious about this, I think it's just like another method of control, cause if you have dirt on you, you are less likely to run for office, or like get involved as a public figure, less likely to like, "speak out", I think that's the primary goal they have. To scare you.
If they got everyone's, they would need to put every human in jail, and then themselves inside too

 

[Eriktf]

The primary saving grace for most people is... there are too many people for the government or law enforcement to go after everyone. And it's not worth them expending lots of time and effort going after small stuff unless you happen to make the wrong person in power angry. You can be sure IF you manage to get on the radar of someone powerful, you'll be raked over the coals for the most minor transgression. Otherwise, most people are going to be relatively safe because they want the big fish.

That's why governments do the keyword searches in the background on everything. They are constantly looking for conversations with or about certain people in the world or messages that contain certain topics... then they dig deeper on any of those people that they find an abundance of hits on the keyword search. That's really all they have time to do unless you go out of your way to call attention to yourself specifically.

As for VPNs... VPN companies have a neat scam going. Aside from people using VPNs to obscure their country of origin so they can access websites of countries they otherwise could not... VPNs really don't keep you anonymous at all. In fact, they might actually be less private if you stop and think about it.

When you use the Internet normally, all your traffic goes all over the place and only the intended recipients decode it. As in, you send a message it really goes everywhere but most systems ignore it except the destination, and then those other traces evaporate with only the source and destination keeping your data for any length of time. Only someone actively monitoring your connection would be able to intercept anything, and that would only be true if you were on their radar and if you are then they will find you.

But using a VPN... your connection to the VPN may be encrypted, and the VPN connecting to everywhere else wouldn't identify you... but the VPN itself now has a single point of source of ALL your data. So if someone wants to know what you specifically are doing, and they find out you use a VPN, they just have to go to the VPN and everything will be there.

Now, a VPN might claim they keep your data private... but really? Maybe they don't monitor and sell it to anyone... but if law enforcement or governments come knocking you can bet they will comply. They have no real reason not to, they already made their money off you.

So, basically, your normal Internet connection is only marginally less secure than one through a VPN. Someone who wants to track you, will still be able to and perhaps much easier through a VPN data stores. And, truth be told, there are at least a few unscrupulous VPNs who probably do monitor and sell data on the sly.

Think hacking too. Everyone always tells you how careful YOU need to be, right? Keep your passwords different and secret and change them often or whatever... but how many individuals really get hacked? Hackers hack the big databases where the most bang for their buck is... They hack corporations and banks and ISPs and, yes, VPNs... any place where lots of your data and millions of other people's data can be found. They don't have to hack you when they can hack the places millions of people use every day.

using a vpn doesn't make you anonymous but its a useful tool for many things, torrents, regional locks like uk users on here, i use one so my traffic are encrypted for ppl in my house, public wifi, etc

for daily use a vpn can be great but anything remotely shady then tor are the way to go