I know, I know the title really does not make much sense, but try to get the vibe. I started using computers quite early in my life.My first machine was a sturdy HP-Windows XP Box .
I never really cared back then about privacy and stuff, for I even did not even know what privacy meant. In fact, I really was not even bothered with surveillance and stuff for quite a major portion of my teenage life.
BTW I am 19 years old as of now.
I became the paranoid freak I am when I was introduced to the Free/Libre Software community.
( FYI :- The above sentence is the best thing that could have happened to me )
They educated me as to what all wrongs were happening in the society in the field of computing.
From then on, whenever I used a computer.. I’m like.. Is this thing spying on me ? Is my private info available to some third party, and if that third party gets hacked will my information be out in the open ?
I could not use my computer in peace.
Libre Software was and is my rescue.
If I feel paranoid about something … I simply go look at the source code of the program, and if I do not want to look at the source code, I check if any of my free software community buddies use it and if they do, that trust gets me going.
I tried using Windows again as a test, a week back. I failed miserably.
After looking at the privacy settings and the whole “Let Us Collect Your Data for your personalised use”, I immediately did a clean Debian install.
Libre Software is also a great way to learn how a program works. Like if you are fascinated by how a program is able to do something, just go look at the code, it is that simple.
This is the end of this blog post …, I just felt like sharing my thoughts on this.