To be honest, I totally underestimated the difficulty of this endeavor. I can barely move without being captured anywhere with my data. Already after a week, I realized how big the dependence on online services is and how little I've cared for my privacy in the past. Why do we exchange our privacy as easy against a few free apps and the supposed protection from terrorists, money launderers and internet trolls?
My attempt to be 100 percent anonymous
I started my experiment by reading some books, including Dragnet Nation by Julia Angwin and The Art of Invisibility by Kevin D. Mitnick. After I had acquired me some knowledge, I installed Tails Linux operating system, only surfed with the Tor Browser and used DuckDuckGo as a replacement for Google.
The biggest challenges I experienced at work. I need many tools for project management, collaboration with freelancers, content marketing and much more. These programs store a lot of data about me on external servers. As an alternative, I could use open source software. It protects my privacy better, but is usually so bad to use and slow that I can not use it in everyday professional life. It seems to me that I use a computer and the internet for the first time and have to learn everything anew.
On Facebook, I tried to create a new account via an encrypted connection. Four times. Just as often locked me the service and deleted the new account. Mark Zuckerberg has a crystal clear message to every user: Who does not reveal his data, is undesirable! Other well-known services responded similarly.
The opening of new accounts in usual online services is usually only possible via at least two data points: Email and Phone or Smartphone App. This not only makes it harder to stay anonymous. Most of the time, your own data is immediately wildly scattered across the web, because a connection between different apps is made. For example, if you're on Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp will automatically get your data because these services are part of the Facebook empire.
From Tails Linux, which is recommended by Edward Snowden, I was so frustrated after three days of poor usability and incompatibility that I remorseful returned to Mac OS.
What I have learned - and what you should learn too
After only a few days, I realized how great the dependence on online services is and how little I have cared for my privacy in the past. I can barely move without my data being collected anywhere. It has become clear to me that absolute anonymity is only possible if I consciously break laws and completely renounce conventional online communication, all financial transactions and travel. Even if use secure connections to the Internet, a small hint (email, phone number, IP address, login) is enough to reveal my identity and the game is over.
But there are also some nice things when you try to live totally anonymous. I talk to my fellow human beings much more often because I can no longer ask Google for advice. It is liberating not to constantly stare at my smartphone, but to perceive the environment more consciously.
Even though my work and communication with friends has become more exhausting due to the lack of apps, I already notice how little I miss all the constant notifications on the smartphone and my laptop. No more phantom vibration in my pocket. No guilty conscience if I do not check my messages every day. Instead, I meet people without having to send messages about the current location three times or more. In the future I will think much more about who stores my data and why.