In light of yesterday's revelation from Millie Weaver, it occurred to me that https encryption will not protect you from profiling:
dig(1) prints the following IP addresses:
kotakuinaction2.win. 53 IN A 172.67.133.248
kotakuinaction2.win. 53 IN A 104.28.26.95
kotakuinaction2.win. 53 IN A 104.28.27.95
thedonald.win. 287 IN A 104.26.9.222
thedonald.win. 287 IN A 104.26.8.222
thedonald.win. 287 IN A 172.67.73.6
This means someone monitoring the network will flag you as someone with objectionable beliefs, even though they might not see the actual content passing through. Likewise for someone who only browses CNN, reddit or even Gab. I do not know if the .win network is in on it.
Everyone is being binned into sets, groups connecting to the same network are likely to hold similar views and therefore open to targeted agitation and false flags. Like what the interview says, they know what pushes your buttons, they know what makes you rage, they know what gets you worked up. None of a particular network's stance on issues are secret, so they just need to tailor propaganda to get a group working towards their goals.
Encrypted DNS will not protect you either, since it is completely dependent on the provider, not to mention a centralized solution. Furthermore, you'll still need to make a connection to the web server serving the content.
While it may be possible to defeat profiling with fake traffic generators, you yourself remains vulnerable to the networking effects of (likely deliberate) polarization.
PS. Long time lurker, and reddit spacing is atrocious.
The only practical solution here is to not engage. But that's not very productive, is it?
It's like someone figuring out your favorite bar by tailing you for a month. They know because they see you going there a few times. The only way to avoid it is to not go at all. Do you really have a favorite bar if you never go to it?
Security is always a balance between absolute protection and being functionally able to do stuff.
We're all just one autist or state actor away from being fully and completely unmasked. You're best figuring out what you're going to do when that happens.
So far, the move seems to be that, when unmasked, your job will immediately stop trying to be the gray man and instead get as famous as possible. With notoriety, it's harder to get disappeared without anyone noticing, and you'll have an in with better connected and powerful people and a better chance at survival versus trying to be a lone wolf.
I'm not so afraid of being unmasked individually, but the notion each of us can be profiled and binned into datasets, and then agitated into action as required with a push of a button.
Even if "we" here at KIA2 aren't as plugged into social media, there are countless of other groups who are, and far more numerous than KIA2 participants in numbers. They make more attractive target for agitation and manipulation.