I haven't yet read the paper so I can't speak to the specifics yet but broadly no you're not wasting your time.

When considering privacy, security, and anonymity online you have to understand what your protecting against. Every system has a weakness or a backdoor or the ability to be compromised through human fault. Nothing is a magic elixir to protect you from all eyes. Therefore you need to know your goals and likely adversaries. A state level actor(NSA) with enough time and money will be able to find you. But most people aren't facing such actors.

If you secure yourself well however it'll be a lot of effort. It will be hard as well to even know you're "worth" finding.

Before this comment gets too long my conclusion is that using a security or privacy focused Linux distro is worthy because, if literally nothing else, it helps a key area of cyber security. It minimizes attack surface area. This exploit should serve as a reminder to be vigilant but to never assume you're truly private just because you did 1 or 2 things right.

Anyway Linux gang 4 life. :tux: