"I was literally just talking to Kelsey about her kid, and now I'm getting diaper ads! I'm not even seeing anyone!"
A few weeks ago, I got a piece of mail explaining that there'd been a data breach and my data had been compromised. I was offered a year of "data safety coverage" if I opted in, but what was most remarkable was that I don't even remember doing business with the company that had the data breach. I clearly did, and when I looked it up, I'd created an account in 2018, but I hadn't really kept much information in there, and most of it was out of date by this point anyways.
We've all been there. We all know that there's a ton of information about us out there, and there's a lot of really great work being done by a lot of companies and government workers to keep that data where it is supposed to be. We agree to their terms and conditions and never pay attention to what they do with our information1, or whether they have any kind of reputable security practices.
But it still happens. And the companies that run the internet are still doing everything they can to invade every inch of our digital lives, often in the name of "delivering better ads", and their employees and leadership justify this behavior as if boring advertisements caused people as much suffering as smallpox did before they came to rescue us.
When Did We Become Okay With This?
When did we become okay with this? When was "you can use our website if you agree to give us your passport number, social security number, and the right to name your firstborn" an acceptable condition for permission to order a custom t-shirt? And how on earth am I supposed to believe that all the startups out there– young, scrappy, understaffed, and overcaffeinated companies that operate on a hope and a prayer– are succeeding in keeping my data safe? In the age of AI, many of these startups are leaking their OWN sensitive data, allowing malicious developers to use their systems for free. Whether they're mobile apps or security camera companies, they are hosting sensitive data, and you have almost no control over how they keep it, who they sell that data to, or what they learn about you from it.
How can we start taking online safety back into our own hands? Is there a way to functionally use the internet without giving up our privacy?
The Old Way: External Hard Drives
Fifteen years ago, we used to back up all our information onto external hard drives - the fairly inexpensive rectangular USB disks we'd plug in to our computers. This was actually not a bad idea! Our data should stay local. Sensitive things should stay at home. What's the least distance my information can travel, and how can I keep it close to myself?
The hard drives fell out of fashion for cloud use because they weren't convenient. They were a great way of managing things, just slow and cumbersome compared to the ease of taking a picture and instantly being able to access it on any device due to the cloud. But the cloud came with a cost - privacy. Now your photo lives on a Google or Amazon computer somewhere.
A Better Future
We believe your data should be hidden, encrypted, and most importantly, kept at home as much as possible. Your personal data– your photos, documents, treasures, passwords– should only exist in your home and be shared when you specifically and intentionally release them to the world. We want to create a world where photos of your kids aren't used for AI training data, where your "budget 2025" spreadsheet doesn't exist on Amazon, and where your password is accessible to you, but doesn't even transmit over the internet for you to see it. Let's dream of a future that's safe, secure, and where companies don't have access to what they shouldn't have in the first place - and we'll be okay with a few less invasive advertisements.