Topic: What are your steps for digital privacy? (here are mine) (Read 504 times)

for anyone interested I found this page: https://panopticlick.eff.org/
which basically says that by making your browser "private", the privatization itself is a way to identify you..

also another interesting site: http://webkay.robinlinus.com/

I don't really know but while actually using these services, how well could the phone IP be used to localize someone?
I mean, if it's the same as a computer (knowing approximately in a city), then it's still pretty bad, just that we don't have the exact location on?

Turn of location services for all the apps in the settings of your phone.
If you really need them, you can only allow them to collect your location when you're using the app and not all the time.

Yeah, it's a important thing. Or, I did adress this in my post up top -
you can turn off lots of stuff, but it still surely gathers it, right? I mean, it's just not displayed for the user.
So, it doesn't truly do much to turn it off I fear

but it might be helpful as a "wake up call" to get a summary of one's google activity..
although it leaves much out, like location tracking on phones and such 

A thing to visit to see how much data is actually collected from you is
myactivity.google.com

And that's just from the google account you log in with
Apart from the things you mentionted, I'd also advise encrypting your devices.

You're definitely right! I never really calculated that part in.
However, I have to add something to this:
facebook, google, all their data collection stuff: it's too "shady".
we can disable facebook, but we can never leave? (can't delete account permanently).
it's never clearly told, what exactly they are doing with our data. "oh we're using it for personalizing ads". right.

it's naive to believe that is all, and as an example in the thread start about the Windows "terms of use", they intentionally make it difficult to clearly understand what the data is being used to.

I'd "lay down my sword" in this fight if I could completely and entirely and irrevokably(no data backup), disable and delete all type of tracking related to me.
I can still see ads on google and facebook, just not personalized for me. is that such a big problem?
it could be an "opt-out" type thing, the majority of people still would be part of their monetization program.
They'd still earn money "by me" due to me still seeings ads.

an example is, you can "pause" google's data gathering, such as "dont have video history", "dont give me personalized ads" and so on,
same (iirc) with some of facebook's stuff..

but does anyone genuinely believe this actually does anything except not display the data?
it's still being gathered, no doubt. not a single doubt in my mind that it's all actively gathered.

if I could be 100% convinced that google and facebook and windows and all the other services, completely stop analysing me - then I'd be fine with their privacy intrustions, aslong as it's a CHOICE to give them data.
I don't care if Google can't give me as relevant youtube videos or google links, that's an OK expense for this.

I mean, how many people do you think actually know even 10% of what data is being gathered and what it can be used for?
here, on this forum, people are still, at the very least slightly above average of a regular computer user(since bitcoin isn't "every day life" for most people).
so it seems like we could assume we know a little bit more, and I still admit I know next to nothing of the depth of our data use (and I've still been doing programming and general computer things for a long time, not an expert tho).

If we could get it black on white, what these big corporations actually do, I'm sure people would leave.
That's all I want - if we are told the truth and can choose, I don't mind then if everyone except me still wants to use these services.


sorry, my post sounds a bit .. repetetive.

That’s a great post, thank you. Just want to comment on your first paragraph:


Most people are pregmatic more then they are idealists. They can support the right to privacy by principal, but when it comes to take actions that would make their lives less convenient, they will most likely forget their ideals. That is not necessarily a bad thing. People know their personal data is collected when they use the services of Google/Microsoft or social media (I am not talking about services that secretly collect your data without any noticr, which is illegal in most countries). They know that and still choose to use them as they give them value.

Without collecting data, most if not all of those services would no longer be free. Moreover, ads would be less effective and companies would waste money on ads that wouldn’t reach the relevant audience. They would make less profits which usually results in their products becoming more expensive. Finally, people won’t stop seeing ads, they would just see more irrelevant ads (wouldn’t you prefer seeing ads that might interest you and make you buy their product rather than ads of products which are completely irrelevant to you?). I can’t say with complete confidence of course, but I believe most people would rather share their personal data than pay to use their everyday services.

This is only relevant to data being collected for marketing purposes. If the data is being used by the government that is another story. However, government that collects data on civilians and use it against innocent people, is probably not democratic anyway, and can abuse pretty much everything.

thats because he was smart enough to be paranoid and took steps to preserve his/her/their privacy from the start

myself, being the ignoramus that i am and coming from the dial up BBS world where we all knew each other, didnt.

Satoshi succeeded quite nicely

Exactly. We don't know how much information about us is already out there, yet we still can't stop using the internet because it's becoming a necessity for us. Somehow, I think even if we deactivate or delete our accounts it's still all out there already.

pretty much for anyone who has used the web at all and was not paranoid and taking steps to insure privacy from the the beginning its already too late. im pretty sure records were kept and accessible to the government right from the start, or very close to it.

most of us who started using the the internet and web in the '80s had no idea how much privacy we were giving up. i certainly didnt.

Thank you for these tips. It is a long read, but I've learned a couple of things. I agree with using VPN or TOR browser, although for those of us already and have been using Microsoft Windows 10 for quite some time now, it's maybe too late already.

What you mention there at the end, is something which disturbs me - not the argument by itself, because I can see why people fall for it.
However, it makes it sound as if there is no choices, it sounds like there's two choices when it's phrased like that:
1. sacrifice functionality/speed/etc to get some privacy
2. have no privacy

I think this is the wrong way to look at it.
I mean, anyone who's not very stupid and is committing serious crimes, would likely be protecting himself, which means that in general, those who store all our data and such, they don't really gain anything in terms of "fighting t*rrorism". it's just done to get people to accept their loss of privacy.
It's not nature's path to take our privacy, it can of course be changed! (and I feel this will happen with the crypto movement, somehow..!)

Although I guess that doesn't really apply to using facebook and sites like that, but those are irrelevant since we can simply choose not use those services. using a VPN and logging into your real name facebook doesn't do much in terms of protecting yourself, I guess I'm referring more to the general surveillance of the internet. Everyone suffers from privacy intrusion, with the argument of "preventing t*rrorism", while it actually does nothing apart from making us more 'docile' in some way.

Yeah that's true. Right now it's really a matter of convenience. Using Tor is very slow. And it's true, logging in to everyday websites, like Twitter, FB makes you suspicious to those sites. So it's really a matter of convenience.

In my daily life is it really worth the extra work, stress, when in the end I have nothing to hide.

Very well said! It's outrageous.
it's like the general public is brainwashed to that "if you don't have anything to hide, it doesn't matter".
Quite dangerous where society is heading!


It sounds like you take it quite seriously! Isn't using smartphones a bit a like a flaw in your 'protection' tho?
Smartphones seems to be the absolutely #1 worst thing to have for privacy  
and yet we're becoming more and more dependant on them.. dangerous!
it seems like so many sites and services demand a phone for "2fa", for some reason!
Why can't they just let us get hacked if we don't want to use 2fa?

It's a conspiracy! 

To preserve privacy I kill my identity as soon as I feel my privacy is compromised.
what this means:
hard slow format my devices(smartphones, tablets, pc)(I will save my important data to airgapped storages)
I don't care deleting online accounts as I'm very good to forget passwords, and I don't use old accounts anymore.
I never submit personal informations like pictures or audio that can be used to connect my old identities with the new one.
I don't use any service that require kyc(or I use fake/dummy kyc data)
I use anonymous vps to get a private vpn.
I don't care about  a reputation history, I think present is what matter.
I have no friends.
I try change my speech style and known languages.

....

sometime I can not remember my real name and I feel like I don't exist.

perhaps what you do now is not "bad" but who knows what will be considered "bad" in the future.

perfectly legal stuff you do now may come back to haunt you later. depends on what the future government decides.

heck even exorcising you right to online privacy now (using vpn, tor, monero, whatever) is enough to flag you as a suspicious person in places.

I don't really worry too much about browsing the internet since I don't do anything bad. Don't really care if a computer is tracking my habits for advertising. But I tried to keep my crypto relate stuff in a separate computer. And when trying a new coin I use in a virtual machine, for months before I think of putting it with coins I know are legit.

Brave seems to be a browser with built in adblocking? I'm not sure, but that alone wouldn't do much against Google, if you still use it?

My personal step to keep my privacy in Facebook is not to use Facebook at all. This company has shown without any doubt a remorseless and aggressive tendency to use data without any consent and lives only on content created by others.

Regarding Google, I think Brave is at the moment a better tool.