“Let him who hath understanding reckon….”
ET has a very useful summary on how to interact with Big Brother. Below is just a sample.
Practice privacy
Make one or two everyday tasks completely private, just for practice.
Buy and use a prepaid cell phone or credit card with cash.
Turn on a netflix movie at home, then drive somewhere without your cell phone, and add the spent gas back to your car (with cash) before you get home.
Create an email account that you only access from a Starbucks on the other side of town. (Left your cell at home, and refilled your gas tank before you got back, right?)
Pull the battery out of your cell phone and have a private conversation, or put it in the bathroom with the exhaust fan running loudly, and flush before you pick it back up.
Work out codes with your friend, and text eachother with unassuming messages that are actually code for other messages.
Keep track of all the “traffic” cameras at the intersections near you, practice plotting routes that pass few or no cameras (You probably shouldn’t do this on Google Maps…)
Don’t ever think BB is all knowing.
When I was in the military, and studied Signals Intelligence (SigInt), we were taught that patterns of comms are of high importance. For the wannabe stealthy person, simply studying the religion of stealth, and suddenly implementing it, will not do. By now, the NSA, who we know for certain is atop every form of electronic comm, will have put automated SigInt analysis in place on the total traffic stream.
If you have been an average modern communicator, and suddenly you stop being one, you will be flagged, and then you get the full SigInt intercept treatment, probably including full reading of your traffic.
The correct way to do this stealth mode changeover is to figure out how many emails you generate, how many calls and texts you used to make, and keep up the flow rate, tapering it off only gradually, very gradually. Since we are operating on the assumption that no one is monitoring the actual content of our comms, this tactic of changing content without changing flow rate should work. If we ARE being monitored as to content, this method would fail.
BTW, if you are most worried about intercept of local comms, remember that you can still do local comms with older analog equipment. The NSA could monitor analog radio transmissions, but it’s not likely that they do. Acquire some GOOD FRS-band radios, and some Marine VHF equipment. Develop your coded transmissions with your local contact(s), and operate in “watch periods”, where you turn on the quipment on the pre-determined channels, and wait for signals, which give further pre-briefed instructions on further comms.
THe most secure conversations happen under four eyes, not over e-mails or phone lines.