Unless you pay big bucks for the companies who wipe/erase your digital foot print and you attempt to do it yourself you are just kidding yourself. Phone records, emails and texts are stored by all the service providers. The US Gov does and can get access to your stuff regardless of what other say.
Don’t you think there is a big difference between what a government agency has access to, and some internet keyboard warrior looking to publish personal info about someone online, just to fvck with them, or a lazy criminal looking to use easily found in an identity theft crime.
I know you have seen the other side from the government’s perspective but that is not information that everyone has easy access to.
Your point about using your phone number at the grocery store is also a good one. That info could be stolen from someone within the organization or maybe through some system breech. However that’s no different that say the recent T-Mobile hack. If that info gets out and I’m part of that data set, it’s out. I guess someone could go to the dark web and buy such a list. The thing is that the average joe doesn’t have access to that info either.
So you are saying there is just no value whatsoever in trying to remove the low hanging fruit?