So I was sitting at a coffee shop, casually configuring Gentoo on my Thinkpad T420j, when this girl walks up and sits on the chair next to my self-hosted VPN server. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her a bit about my machine and the customizability and user-friendliness of Gentoo. She laughed and said she just used a MacBook, but she might try out my setup some time. So, we continued talking: about life, about our jobs, about the city. After around ten minutes, I told her I needed to start heading home so I could install LibreToastr on my new toaster oven, but then she asked if she could get my phone number.

“I haven’t had a phone number for years”, I said, but I offered to give her my end-to-end-encrypted private key for my federalized OpenComm account. She laughed and said “I don’t have any of that, I just want to get to know you a bit more.”

That was when alarm bells started going off in my head. You know who else wants to get to know me more? Big tech, and the three-letter government agencies. I was already a little spooked by this girl, but it was then that I realized she was really a spy trying to collect my data via social engineering, to try and sell it to advertising companies.

I immediately packed up my bags and ran out of the store; any second longer I talked to her could increase the chance that my identity was compromised. I can’t believe I was almost stupid enough to give my OpenComm key to a complete stranger. It just goes to show how you can never trust a normie, even if they seem friendly. Have any of you guys ever had run-ins with government agents like this before? What tipped you off that they had malicious intentions?