This is strictly prophecy, not technical advice.
I have a very strong sense that Big Tech will survive the implosion of the USA. Google will continue to expand their vertical integration of Internet services, and thus their control. Amazon will continue invading every corner of consumer commerce. While Windows will continue to be something of a boondoggle, Microsoft online services will remain quite reliable. Apple will take some major hits, but the elite won’t let it die.
There’s nothing you can do about surveillance and tracking in the long run. If your mission and calling requires anonymity online, then you’ll need to learn how to run Linux or BSD, and learn how to navigate the Net with a measure of anonymity. It’s no small task to do that, but it remains possible for now. The same goes with non-contract cellphone service (“burner phones”). We are approaching the point were hiding in the catacombs, as it were, will not be possible without major changes in lifestyle and probably geographical location.
Our mission is to manifest shalom to the world around us. You are the only one who can know where your mission field is. If that field includes online communications, our biggest problem is not tracking and surveillance, but keeping our message clear. Even censorship is quite limited in its reach, especially online. People who want to get their message out will always have an outlet, and those drawn to that message will always know how to find it. This is the promise of our Lord.
There is one particular flaw that we should avoid in our conversations with those around us: Never accept the premise that human rights or constitutional rights mean anything. A great many comments I encounter online assume that there is some virtue in citing how this or that is illegal in one sense or another. That has nothing to do with whether it is moral, but more to the point, it has nothing to do with how governments act. It’s just propaganda noise. It rarely makes any real difference in what is coming at us.
Get used to analyzing things from your heart. Keep hold of what’s eternally true, and you’ll be less likely to get entangled in something that God will not put in your hands.
