1. Important concepts explained

⮞ Privacy

Privacy can be compared to a conversation between the last 2 people on earth. The conversation is contained between the involved parties without any fear of anyone listening in.

Achieving 100% privacy means being able to exercise free will with 0% risk of consequences due to no one even knowing anything has happened or has been done.

⮞ Anonymity

Anonymity can be compared to a person talking on the phone on a crowded train station, you can see that see that a conversation is ongoing, but can't hear anything and you can't make out who the person talking over the phone is.

Achieving 100% anonymity means being able to exercise free will, but with a potential risk of consequences due to external actors being able to either listen in or are able to see that someone is doing something.

⮞ Security

Security can be compared to a conversation between 2 parties in a house. People standing on the street can see that a conversation is ongoing but can't hear anything and can't open the door due to the door being locked.

Achieving 100% security means being able to exercise free will with 0% risk of consequences even though people can hear, see, listen in or hear what you're doing. 

➥The optimal balance of privacy, anonymity and security is fully dependent on your goal.

Example 1 - Anonymity:

Let's say that your main source of income is from carding. Staying under the radar is your number 1 priority.

This is because of you not being able to guarantee 100% security or 100% privacy simple due to the tasks and tools you use being directly tied to systems that are created on the base of transparency; getting as close to 100% anonymity in this case would be your goal.

Example 2 - Privacy:

If you're torrenting movies, your goal is to retrieve data from a host without anyone listening in.

Having good privacy in this case means establishing a secure connection between you and the endpoint from where you're downloading the data from. 

Example 3 - Security:

If you want to keep all your personal data such as photos and files safe, security is the highest priority.

Hosting your files on a public site or cloud storage poses no risk as long as good security is exercised, which in this case would be encryption, password protection and/or file obfuscation.