People are way too paranoid about being tracked online. You aren’t that important. Trust me. Yes, the government can follow everything you do. But there are hundreds of millions of people online. There aren’t that many people on the other side, watching you.

Take talking to underaged girls online, for example. I work with children, and each year we have a cop come in and talk to them about online safety. One day, I asked the cop about the realities of catching these guys. This is what he told me:

In order to get caught, the girl or her parents have to contact law enforcement. THEN they have to collect evidence from her computer or phone. THEN they have to get a warrant. THEN they have to subpoena IP records. THEN they have to send people to your house, and look through your computer. Then they have to prove that you were on the other end of the computer, and it wasn’t just someone else using your computer/wifi. THEN they have to present all of this to a judge, to see if it is enough for a trial.

All of this, just to bust one pervert. If they are in different states or countries, which they usually are, it gets that much more complicated.

That’s why every time you hear about a guy getting busted for this, it’s because he actually tried to meet the girl in real life. It’s much, much easier to get a conviction if you can show the guy showing up at the girl’s house. Only a complete idiot would do that.