Nice
Very well written and informative article, lots of good privacy tips on there. I've thought we should have some kind of general guide like this for a while now.
Personally, I have mostly given up on notions of absolute privacy regarding my interactions on Bluelight, and on the internet in general, a good while back. I have several folks that I've met on here on social media, and so while I mostly don't care if people know my first name, I try to avoid divulging too awfully much anyway. I'm just not good at it though, so whatever, I'm not going to stress about it.
I do have a real reason for caring a little bit less than the standard person though. I'm just tired of living in a world in which the discussing of drug use, drug safety, and mental health are relegated to dark alleyways and smoky rooms. This culture of hiding and shaming drug use and pretending it doesn't exist, is a product of the drug war, and it's one of the reasons we have so many social issues and dysfunction with drug addiction and mental health to this day.
I still take a lot of opsec steps with privacy and such, but in a general sense, I don't want to continue to hide who I am and feel some sort of shame about my contributions here. I think this world really needs more everyday, regular working people who are willing to be open about their experiences with substances, mental health, and trauma, because I believe this will set a positive example that will do some work towards undoing some of the antiquated detrimental beliefs about drug use that are still so entrenched in culture. It's not just junkies and homeless people that use drugs, and drug safety knowledge should not be kept in some hidden box under lock and key, everyone needs it, and everyone talks about it, and it's not anything people ought to keep beating themselves up about.
But, I recognize that may seem kind of naive or idealistic, and it's definitely a conscious personal choice that a person needs to make on an individual basis. The threat of negative legal, social, and employment outcomes continue to be very real, and I think internet privacy is something every website like this needs to take seriously and be very aware of.
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This may be helpful to some -
On newer model androids, here are the steps one should take to make sure their camera is not recording their metadata when they take pictures:
- Open the Camera app.
- On the viewfinder, touch the Settings icon (usually represented by a gear symbol).
- Look for the option labeled "Save location" or "Use location tags."
- Turn this option off to disable the embedding of location data in your photos.
For iPhones these are the steps:
Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Camera and select "Never"
