I think many people underestimate the level of impulsivity associated with crime.
The average criminal who breaks and enters is not doing research based off your bumper stickers to determine your weekend routine so the house is empty.
They usually are just walking down the neighbourhood and spot an open door, run in and grab valuables then leave.
This is why I have no bumper stickers on my car at all. I’m tempted to get rid of my veteran license plate, but the normal one costs quite a bit more and says “in god we trust”.
I go "Gray Man Theory" with my car and try to blend in as much as absolutely possible. I drive a popular reliable car in a popular color with a standard license plate and no stickers. I figure there is no reason to stand out and cars are some of the easiest ways to waste a ton of money.
I've genuinely considered putting a 'Thin Blue Line' flag or MAGA sticker on it just because it'd make cops in the area think of me as a friendly but I don't think I could live with myself.
In high school, I used to look for the most offensive bumper stickers possible. My favorite was from a band I liked that said "Genitorturers sodomized my honor student". Let's just say that parents of other kids did not like it.
It's not wrong. Not quite as much info as following the average person on socials, but it can be a lot of info at a glance.
Once had a cop show up one day, just asking about something going on in the area, and noticed an empty TV box by my trash can outside. Suggested I uh, don't do that. Basically a big sign pointing to my house "brand new TV inside!". Not done that since.
My solution for the tv box is unfolding the box inside out and tying it into a bundle if it doesn’t fit in a recycling box. Also maybe don’t put out your boxes right after Black Friday or holidays.
I cut up the cardboard and use it for various things around the house, like putting it under the car when I do an oil change, or as liners for the wire rack shelving in my cold storage.
This looks more like paranoia than tips about privacy. Everyone has a fucking giant TV inside their home. Everyone has hobbies.
Unless you are actively targeted by some psycho... or the police. This just makes everyone thinks everyone else around them is out to rob and steal from them. But being from the US and from the police, it's not very surprising. You also need a gun to protect yourself and your family from potential home invaders, you never know because the country is full of robbers and violent people! Don't trust anyone! Just get your kids from school in your giant bulletproof SUV and drive straight to your McMansion where you can barricade yourself with all your precious stuff. In fact you should also take care to hide your McMansion behind a fake facade of poor people's houses to avoid having less fortunate people target it as a potential place to rob.
Every poor person is plotting to rob you! So if you show clues and get robbed, it's gonna be your fault and the police will let you know you were stupid for putting a dirt bike sticker on your expensive SUV.
Anyway, this is all just ridiculous in the first place. If someone wants to know you're not home and steal crap from you, stickers or not, you're already sitting in your fucking car, while not being home. It's already a pretty big clue. Otherwise, are home invaders that diligent in the first place? Are they going to stalk people before robbing their home? Really, the stickers on my expensive SUV parked in front of my big house and the big garage is indicating that there might be expensive crap in my house and in my garage? I'm shocked to see how revealing those stickers can be!
In fact, this being from the police just shows how much they profile and judge the shit out of people before even speaking to them.
I remember for a while back in the late 90's maybe, a lot of kids would have one of those custom airbrushed shirts youd get at a flea market or county fair with their name in BIG BOLD and colorful lettering all the way across the front.
Little kids playing at their local park could easily be approached by a stranger saying, "hey joey! Your mom told be to pick you up. She's in the hospital and we have to leave right now!" The panicked child follows the man who is seemingly confirmed sent by his mom because he knows his first name, forgetting anyone who's not legally blind within a block of him also knows his name.
Luckily we don't see much of that these days. Creeps are now limited to accessing merely every single detail of a child's life because mom runs a Facebook or Instagram for their child.
i mean, here you can just type the plate number into an open government website and it shows your home address. not really seeing a lot of consequences of that.
Yeah, this is more on the 'paranoid' end of the spectrum without being very effective. If you're being surveiled or targeted, there's plenty to dig up already.
No need to shrink away from expressing yourself. and this breeds a mistrust against your neighbors or community.
It kind of vibes more with the MAGAsphere's whole the world is full of scary criminals and terrorists around every corner ready to hurt you mindset, so you'd better gun up, stay tuned into Newsmax, and not leave your house. When I think of privacy, I'm thinking of things at a societal level, corporations, governments, etc. Not oh god the guy down the street is out to get me.
The amount of "OREGUNIAN" and Sig Sauer decals on people trucks, cars and the occasional Jeep Liberty in my area is tragically comical. Just drive through any neighborhood where garages aren't common and you could pick out ten houses to rob later.
You couldn't ask for a bigger target to paint on yourself.
Seriously though, I haven't messed with any stickers since the last time I had a chrome bumper (my first car). I've never (that I remember) stuck anything on the windows at all. I think stickers on paint just looks fucking stupid as shit, but nothing (besides trucks and work vans) has anything but fiberglass bumpers anymore.
I've always had decision paralysis about them ever since. I don't really wanna say "come rob me", (not that I own even 1 valuable thing worth stealing besides the car itself- and I don't even own that yet).
I live in a pretty extremely red area (blue state, but very red region), so I'm not trying to give "please hit me" to probably 70% of drivers.
I don't want the satanic stuff because I hate religious stuff in all forms, even when mocking Christianity, and I have to park in my parents' driveway sometimes and while they wouldn't do anything, I feel like it would be uncomfortable. They know I vote blue, but they still have no idea about the atheism. Yet.
I could do a band sticker I guess. Not that a big chunk of people have heard of it, so who am I metaphorically high fiving?
Right now the car is basically blank. No stickers, no bumper stickers, no decoration, and even the inside is almost completely empty. If you looked in my window you might see the cable that I use to make my android auto wireless instead of wired. But it just looks like a regular charging cord from what you can see easily.
Car is even still (relatively) new, so there isn't even a "personalized mess". It's just empty unless I've just recently left a quick grocery trip, which might see me with groceries in the interior floor instead of trunk.
Even has a standard generic state license plate that isn't customized.
The absolute most you would know about me from coming across my car in a random parking lot is just the kind of car itself being a hybrid, so you could maybe deduce that I hate the entire oil industry's entire existence.
If I lived somewhere that had a decent amount of chargers, I would have an EV (definitely not a Tesla though, and that would be another thing you would learn about me I guess). I know I could get a home charger too but that doesn't work in my current situation, so hybrid is about the best I can do for right now.
Hopefully this car lasts me until either chargers are way more common, or EVs themselves are cheaper. And since it's by far the youngest car I've ever owned, and I put a whopping 1k (yes, one k) miles on it in the almost year I've owned it, I imagine it will last that long. If the US isn't a crater before that anyway.