Take control of your data. Host your own email or use a provider that cares about your privacy.
We talk about this so often in privacy communities because, although emails are particularly difficult to secure, they’re so important. Swapping your email provider or hosting your own is so easy to say and so hard to do, but so worth doing. I would suggest taking some steps towards FLOSS/FOSS and other privacy-friendly options in other areas first to get used to the idea of change and some of the difficulties you’ll handle in that realm
Search terms: CBT, mindfulness, thought exercise, emotional control
Can probably throw some of those, or a combination of them and get some paperwork that will give you a much more in-depth explanation and many more options. But, for convenience, here’s one that I use often:
Close your eyes, control your breathing. Imagine yourself sitting next to a stream, surrounded by calming forest noises and water running. When a thought comes to interrupt your scene, put it on a leaf and put it in the stream. Watch as it simply floats away.
What are we actually doing here? Breath control regulates the heart rate which helps lessen anxiety response by the brain, slowing the release of cortisol and beginning the process of reducing emotional volatility. Forcing our focus onto an image and sound, and waiting for interruptions trains us to identify intrusive/unintentional thoughts. “Putting it on a leaf” is basically a euphemism for acknowledging that the thought happened and then moving along. As you practice this, your brain will start to automatically filter more of those unhelpful thoughts out, and when something slips past you’ll have the tools to handle it (assuming you’re still cool-minded enough to begin the process)
I don’t think I could restate this any better. So many people hear about “logical brain” and “emotional brain” and just start trying to eliminate any emotion from logic.
Brother the entire reason we invented homes was because we didn’t fuckin like the alternative. But if we used logic way back in cave man time, it would have been more individually efficient to burn those logs for warmth. It took emotions to get us to the next step and then realise that it was more systemically efficient to burn logs inside of a little cabin and only then could we start applying logic to housing.
Emotions are so important
I don’t know anything about you, but for the sake of argument, imagine you’re part of a marginalized group. Now, imagine that you use a product. The owner of said product has openly stated that they hate your very existence because you’re part of that marginalized group. You have decided that this is a good reason to stop giving them your money.
When does free speech come into this? How does one person’s money/profit affect another’s right to speak? It doesn’t. Choosing where you spend your money is you utilizing your freedom to express yourself via your wallet, just the same as they chose to express themself via words. Both the objector and the CEO are saying “I disagree with your views on the world and as such no longer desire your business”. Well, maybe the CEO still wants your business.
Shadow of War is even better if you haven’t checked it out, at least in my opinion. They scaled up the nemesis system and made combat a lot more flowy and fun
While I see your concern, most hackers go for low hanging fruit. They don’t need to bother going after someone who makes it difficult to get their data, because your neighbor is probably much more accessible. Keep doing your part and restricting access to your data, but keep a clear head about it. Getting excessively worried is just going to make it more likely to slip up, a calm and collected approach will do you well
I’m not certain on how secure this is, but what you’re referring to is usually called “Passwordless SSH”