A while ago I reached a point in my privacy journey where I simply felt bored. It’s not a result of going too far in privacy, but simply my threat model has caused me to let go of a lot of things that used to entertain me (games, movie streaming, short form video, etc.) The entertainment landscape in privacy seems pretty bleak, since you no longer own the movies you watch, the games you play, and lots of proprietary software along the way. I entertain myself through FreeTube, physical copies of movies, and offline installations of games like Minecraft, but it’s still a step down from how it used to be.

What do you do to keep yourselves entertained in a privacy conscious way?

  • mipadaitu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    79·
    5 months ago

    Hiking, camping, fishing, outdoor activities.

    Woodworking, painting, knitting, blacksmithing.

    Basically anything that’s not connected to a screen.

    • Lemongrab@lemmy.one
      31·
      5 months ago

      Public library would be less private than just pirating the book. Public spaces tend to be thoroughly captured by stray security cameras (often with terrible Security). Impossible to avoid going outside lol so most likely fine.

        • Lemongrab@lemmy.one
          5·
          5 months ago

          Yes, I know that. Some people may need to take extra precautions when going outside. The reason for my original comment is that “outside” does not equal “more private” in many circumstances.

          Humans need sunlight and it helps to release dopamine and vitamin D. Important.

  • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
    231·
    5 months ago

    Buy a book with cash. Read the book.

    The entertainment landscape in privacy seems pretty bleak, since you no longer own the movies you watch

    It’s the other way around.

      • merde alors
        12·
        5 months ago

        then don’t go to those bookstores with cameras 🤦

        not all bookstores have cameras

        • Tony N@lemmy.ml
          45·
          5 months ago

          I was being facetious to make a point. There is a limit to the amount of privacy that one can achieve while still residing within a modern society. As with all things, it’s a personal choice. Everyone has a limit up to which they are comfortable surrendering their privacy. You can be tracked and recorded even walking the streets in many cities, and in most retail stores. How far is one willing to go to be private?

  • DARbarian@kbin.run
    231·
    5 months ago

    Personally I haven’t really changed anything about my entertainment other than how I attain it. Torrented movies, shows, and books, cracked games, and ad+sponsor blocked YT via Piped mean I get all the same entertainment as ever if not more (plus I actually own it forever). The only thing I’ll admit I miss a bit is Reddit.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      43·
      5 months ago

      Never mind the security cameras, and the drones, and the smartphones, and the satellites…

        • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
          41·
          5 months ago

          Where I live, there are security cameras all over the buildings and the lamposts and the traffic intersections and the parking lots, plus Ring/Nest doorbells everywhere. There are more cameras outside the buildings than inside. Everybody is carrying a smartphone and I see people taking pictures or video with them all the time.

          Drones and satellites are really only outside.

          So I don’t agree with your conclusion.

  • Xerenogan@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    13·
    5 months ago

    Board games with friends and family. My brother rotates hosting board game night with his friends and it’s great fun.

      • kugmoEnglish
        4·
        5 months ago

        unshare -nc

        Not my problem.

        • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
          72·
          5 months ago

          Online features don’t work on pirated games in 99% cases (it says “connection error”, “failed to connect to insert the developer company name here servers” or something similar) but I’m afraid the telemetry still works.

            • gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world
              4·
              5 months ago

              You’d be surprised how often none of that is touched, and I really doubt any repackers are bothering to block any network calls if the original scene release didn’t. I’ve used some equivalent of OpenSnitch that prompts on all network requests that I haven’t explicitly allowed already for the past decade, and at least 90% of all games I downloaded during that time tried to phone home.

              ALWAYS set firewall rules to block internet access to any software you pirate.

  • RmDebArc_5English
    8·
    5 months ago

    Emulation is a great for offline gaming. You can also find some great FOSS games on flathub like srb2, srb2k and Mindustry. You can also get old books for free on Project Gutenberg and audiobooks on Librivox. In Germany (and other European countries) there is state financed tv which has free drmfree adfree and (relatively) privacy friendly streaming services. Newgrounds also is a treasure trove, especially for music. Also there is piracy

  • Tarogar@feddit.de
    71·
    5 months ago

    Anything that doesn’t require high tech still works really well. Don’t need to worry about tracking software that tries to sell you something with say a horse or two. And as a bonus you get lots of physical activity as well which is healthy.

    • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
      22·
      5 months ago

      Don’t need to worry about tracking software

      Unless you do it near a device with gapps installed because these were proven to collect real-time microphone data (may not be the case anymore).

  • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
    6·
    5 months ago

    I just get a separate device with a fake identity and no personal data for games and proprietary software. Short videos are hosted by very invasive companies and don’t have any APIs or anything to make custom privacy-friendly frontends so it’s out of the question (fortunately imo because that things are addictive and can degrade a person in months). Idk much about movies because I’ve never used a paid movie service like Netflix but since they’re paid, privacy is very questionable there.

    Unfortunately digital entertainment is very privacy-invasive overall. You can fix some of the privacy issues by the cost of convenience but some things will remain too invasive to be viable in many threat models.

    • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
      3·
      5 months ago

      Short videos are hosted by very invasive companies and don’t have any APIs or anything to make custom privacy-friendly frontends so it’s out of the question (fortunately imo because that things are addictive and can degrade a person in months).

      If you view tiktok content thru ProxiTok, it fails to be addictive because things like autoplay and recommendations are disabled.

      • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml
        3·
        5 months ago

        ProxiTok

        Never heard of it but if a client with proper profiling mitigation exists, it’s awesome. Though (as I understand) since there’s pretty much no useful content on TikTok (unless it’s a shortened copy of a YouTube video or something), good recommendations are really needed to keep the user entertained so privacy-focused clients without total profiling kill the point of the app.

  • _haha_oh_wow_English
    71·
    5 months ago

    Go read at your local library, you don’t even need to check the books out if you read them there.

  • poVoq@slrpnk.net
    61·
    5 months ago

    You can make your own open-source games, it’s pretty fun. And of course there are loads of games that have no telemetry what so ever.