this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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Privacy
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I don't think what you're saying here in this last reply competes with what I am saying.
It is both/and. Not either/or.
My strat combines naturally with using advocacy, electoralism, lying flat, malicious compliance methods, militancy, legal/beurocratic methods, economic methods, etc.
I am for all of these. Whatever works.
But ignoring the human relationship dimension and exclusively focusing on prosecuting tech, imo, is not a serious strategy.
Besides, someone who needs to hide their ID now should use Tor now. Someone who has a lower risk profile can afford a solution that aims to poison the well for the long term in preference to a better ID protection.
I am not doing anything illegal, I want to poison the well if I can. I still use Tor sometimes anyway. I want the whole fingerprinting industry to just go away.
Be careful what you wish for. As hardware attestation continues to spread, companies won't need fingerprints to identify you. Though if you want, hardware attestation can be thought of as an unique and unforgeable fingerprint. Poisoning the well won't work for it.
Just to clarify, hardware attestation is not bad in itself. It can be used by the user to secure their device (aka secure boot). It's when third-parties try to use it, where it becomes a threat to privacy. Like a website asking for your hardware-attested device id.
Of course we don't want to give our id to these third parties. But we need to convince everybody else to do the same. Because if everybody else gives up their id, then websites won't care about the few "privacy extremists". And those people will simply be locked out of the web.
But anyways, back to fingerprinting. I feel like the best way to get a sense of the scale of the issue, is to simply dive into the developer discussions around it. Look into mailing lists and feature discussions for Tor browser, Mullvad browser, and Brave. I guarantee you there are discussions around trying to make the browser look identical to the average user, and the challenges of doing so.
Again we're back to bad fear-based logic.
You're saying hardware attestation is a looming punishment for poisonin fingerprinting.
Wrong.
The enemy wants hardware attestation now, and they want it bad. Nothing you do or avoid doing can influence this because they, the enemy, are responding to their own hungers.
I repeat, there are only two valid reasons to stop prosecuting a fight, and this isn't one of them.
You are offering an incorrect model of the enemy as a nanny who will try to shape my behavior in responce to my behavior. I "need" to please the nanny and I "need" to avoid pissing off the nanny. Your argument is designed for that sentiment: nanny-pleasing.
The correct model is one based on INTERESTS. The enemy has an interest in hardware attestation regardless of what we do or don't do. They will prosecute their interests KNOWING those are deeply unpopular. Look at the Guardians Of Pedophiles party, the GOP in USA. They are unpopular. They are hated. They KNOW this. They keep trucking. Why? The INTEREST didn't go away. The interest is not socially shaped, unfortunately (or fortunately?).
If you believe hardware attestation is inevitable, then why bother poisoning the well for fingerprinting? None of that will matter once hardware attestation takes hold
I apologise for a 2nd reply, I just wanted to clarify.
What I cannot readily control (or don't know how) is the internal hunger stemming from the soul (mine or enemy's).
But which hungers get to dominate in a public arena, I do have a say in that. So having some hunger may be inevitable, but making that personal hunger into an impositional system for everyone, that's not inevitable.
So yea, they want hardware attestation now. They're not relaxing until they find out what we do with the fingerprinting ecosystem first. That's laughable.
Since they're going to do what they're going to do, and since the outcome is never set in stone ahead of time but instead has to be discovered by living life, we have no reason not to chase our dreams and ambitions as much as they chase theirs. I have no reason to preemptively block or throttle my energy. I am not here to please any would be nannies. I have fears, but do not allow my fears to impact my logic. And besides I fear surveillance capitalism more than whatever else the "punishment" is promised to be.
I admire the drive. And I am not here to discourage you. The privacy world could always use more driven people. There are tons of projects that can use more supporr, like I2P, Tor, Monero, Internet Archive, Whonix, Qubes, etc. Keep at it and I'm sure we can win.
Nothing is inevitable. Everything is negotiable.