[bas]

Consider: if your adversary is the NSA, CIA, or (maybe) FBI, you’ve already lost the game you’re playing.

[no-dr-onboard]

You would be surprised at how easily they can be thwarted by simple technical maneuvers.

YMMV, but ime a lot of people have this bogeyman caricature of who the feds really are. The reality is that these are government agencies that pay significantly below market rate for really intense, highly demanding work shrouded with multiple layers of government grade red tape.

[knightoffaith]

I think it's not a bad idea to overestimate the power of the government to track you; the common wisdom on the internet to make this assumption is probably a good thing so people are motivated to be as safe as possible.

On the other hand, it seems like the Tor users who get caught make clear, glaring mistakes in their opsec. And I always remember how long it took to catch the Unabomber, and how they apparently only managed to catch him because of his brother.

[lazide]

The issue is they have time. Lots and lots of time. And they keep records.

So if you get high enough on the list, it’s like those ‘immortal snail’/snail assassin scenarios.

Even Bin Laden got taken out and dumped in the ocean eventually.

So like Jan 6th - it had better work, or your goose is very likely cooked eventually.

[rockskon]

That's no reason to make it easy on them. Their ability to do bulk surveillance is limited by resources. Don't lower their resource requirement.

[anamax]

They're not trying to get everyone.

They just have to make it painful enough for enough people to get the vast majority of the rest to "fly right."

I'm certain that this is not terrorism.

[Dudhbbh3343]

It entirely depends on how motivated and how much resources they're willing to dedicate to finding you. They're probably not going to go to great lengths to catch a single copyright violation, so simple precautions may be good enough.

If you're a legit threat to national security, then yeah, they're probably going to find you no matter what you do.