for me and you, that is probably enough.

but you always need to know who or what is a potential threat to you. in the end it is just about making it enough of a pain for whoever might be interested in your data, so it is not worthwhile to them. having to break out forensic tools - just to get encrypted data, is probably painful enough for most. make them play puzzles with metal and glass shards will for sure open some wounds to pour salt on.

cremating disks is a thing for hacker collectives. termite is an extremely interesting thing to observe. but i am pretty sure there are more practical reasons, why people do that.

what would be your way of disposing that sensitive data?

not arguing that there are disks beind disposed inproperly.

i used to work for a company with sensitive data. disks that did get a certificate, where wiped by our guys first. then a truck from the recycling/destruction company would arrive and disks get shredded 1 at a time. the whole setup was in a way, that you could observe the disks being torn into pieces, somewhat bigger than sawdust.

two of our IT guys, two of the guys doing the destroying and some C-Suit would have to sign for every disk they observed being torn to pieces. if you do want to make sure your data is gone, there are ways to do it. admittedly, this way is a bit of a stunt. but it was fun being paid for observing bits of metal being reduced to pieces.

most people can get behind parental control. that is why bad actors are pushing for age verification everywhere nowadays.

i think the issue many people have with that field is, that it enables bad actors to do things. all the while, it does not really do the thing it is supposed to do: if i trust my kid with sudo, the field can easily be altered. if i do not trust my kid with sudo, it cannot install anything either way.

with your last paragraph i (and probably most people) agree. but we already have those tools, right? at least until i knew computers better than my parents, there was no way i could install anything without them being OK with it. even when i was admin on my very own desktop, i was heavily reliant on the parents for everything costing money. yes, even my dumb ass figured out how to pirate stuff. but to do that while being afraid to brick your precious device with some virus - you need some tech literacy, which is for sure beyond changing one value.

who and what is your threat model? as @macros@feddit.org pointed out this article was probably rather accurate.

if you just want to browse anonymously - it is likely, that even the biggest tech corpos can’t de-anonymise you.

if you do small time crime, like buying and selling contraband - likely law enforcement would try to catch you in the real world. you have more vertices and vulnerabilities there, different enforcement agencies are experienced exploiting these.

if you paint a big ass target on your back and get the interest of the CIA or similar - you are probably fucked one way or the other. they may have the ability to de-anonymise you. but if you listen to people that did get caught or do the catching (e.g: darknet diaries), most of the times it is a small mistake. if you only ever play defence, that is enough to loose the game. but what are your options if your adversary is a national agency?

people are disgusting. but it should be illegal to sell food and drink without providing toilets (which it is in certain countries).

mediums are a completely different thing, as they peddle a ‘wonder product’. claiming things without proof and asking for money. but that modus operandi is not restricted to non-science. radioactive underware was a thing…

i am talking about people who did experience something and how they choose to interprete that experience for themselves. if you ask me, it was most likely their body and mind being pushed across certain borders - which made them feel things that where not actually there. if you asked me about my grandfather, i would tell you that he is most likely not here or there and it is just my imagination. but it gives me a little bit of comfort to at least allow the possibility that he is somewhere.

those are all personal choices about personal experiences, which do not affect anybody. but if someone start selling a product or even a religion. they crossed a line and are (trying) to affect other people.

it is not irrational, to observe (or experience) something and not being able to explain it.

i do not have any reason to assume my friend is a liar. so she heard her fathers voice. how or why she heard it we will never know, as she was not hooked up to a brainwave scanner or similar.

apparently we have different people from different times having experienced similar things. thanks @Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works for pointing to the Third Man Factor! so i would say it is quite reasonable to believe something can happen to us humans in extreme situations. is it just our imagination? quite possible! especially considering the more extreme stories mentioned in the wikipedia page surely drove those people to or past their individual limits. but that brings me back to my last paragraph: it doesn’t change anything or even matter. those voices, or whatever they where helped those people survive extreme situations and live to tell the tale. whether it was a deceased loved one, a valkyrie from norse mythology, friendly tree spirit, their subconsciousness wanting to survive, … or just hallucination due to thirst/starvation/exhaustion.

the effects didn’t change. so whatever the cause is, shouldn’t change my, your, or anybody else’s life

thanks! didn’t know there is a name for it

ghosts are like religion: can neither be proven nor disprofen. what do you even consider a ghost? i do faintly believe in spirits:

when i am sitting at the grave of my grandfather, it does feel as he is around somehow. is that because i miss him and wish he is still with us? likely…

a friend of mine recently lost her father. they are both accomplished mountaineers. on a solo tour, she told me, she heared her father’s voice reminding her to be careful - while not paying attention during a dangerous passage. was it her father reaching out? was it her subconsciousness taking the persona of the father? we will never know…

in the end it doesn’t matter in the slightest, what these feelings of ghosts or spirits really are. if our ancestors keep watching out for us, that is great. if our subconsciousness keeps watching out for us, while taking on different personas, that is great. life goes on the same - even if it all was just imagination.

a POS, but a good politician and he had his principles. not many lanisters could claim that much…