that's what happens when non-cybersec people are in charge of cybersec things
If someone wants to map your name to your home address, they already have the voter registration database for that.
they have a thing like haveibeenpwned there. i checked, but mine wasn't included.
this time
Google is tougher to get rid of though
Getting off of Facebook directly contributes to their premise that everything online will be public. If you don't want it to be public, don't put it on the internet.
My take: Unfortunately, there are some places where we pretty much don't have a choice - banks, insurance, some government, etc. And the solution to this is to incentivize these institutions to lock things down better.
1. Don’t use or get off gmail (fastmail is good but not free).
2. Limit your use of google search. If you need to try to mask your identity as best you can.
3. Don’t buy google hardware. Because you and your data are the product for google. The hardware is a Trojan horse.
you can mitigate, not avoid. but how do you avoid government data collection and (possible) data leaks like this?
The radical solution is to understand that everything is out there, data brokers have collected and will sell everything you do.
We need to start demanding transparency. That's it. The whole solution. No business should be permitted to have data secured. Period. Hold whatever's needed for immediate transaction purposes, everything else gets WIPED.
Credit bureaus have already exposed us all. Open their databases, no more secured storage allowed. They can dump their data or accept responsibility 100% for every field they hold onto.
Every other company can follow suit. Every government can follow suit. No more black ops, CIA, FSB, any intel security. No more separate government databases for each department or program, just one open cluster of everybody's info.
Screw corporate trade secrets and copyright and every other protection. Open every database and every server everywhere.
It'll take maybe a generation or two to adjust to the new reality, but when everybody has to have all their actions out in public, maybe everyone will start to realize that the world really is a different place.
Maybe enforcing radical honesty on everyone will help eliminate all the class distinctions, judgments, tribal bullshit when the 1%'s actions are as wide open visible as everybody elses.
Maybe data brokers wither and die when nothing is monetizable anymore.
Maybe the constant stream of corporate malfeasance goes away when all the records are there for everyone to see, all the time.
Maybe we actually start to recognize and treat the mental health issues that result in stalkers, abuse cases, stealing from the elderly, pedophilia, drug addiction, when all the dark web and every other facilitator is in the open.
Maybe a couple of decades down the line we'll have people who understand that their actions have consequences and every choice affects those around them and when lying is near impossible the whole damn planet will be more sane for it all.
Or I'm a nutcase, or too early for my time. Who can tell?
You should also have the right to update or modify any state stored about you at any time; after all it is yours.
No one who collects it wants that though.