Bitcoin Forum

In our community, we have a very poor hygiene of privacy and security and that's why many of us are victims of things that are happening on the internet. Be it crypto or not crypto, we need to be very active and protective when it comes to how we handle our privacy and security measures.

Privacy is a tool we overlook but it's something very important that we all need, it's a tool that shield you from anyone, it's what help you control how you expose everything you do on the internet. It's not about whether you are doing something legit or not, it's your freedom and right to exercise because you need it. In fact, having more privacy is how you are going to have more security, a failure in one of them can lead you to the other but the worst is a failure in security is the worst of all because you will lose everything you are trying to protect more especially if you hold coins.

How do you protect your self from the gangster of the internet, I'm going to be share some outstanding tips how to encourage your privacy on the internet and how to protect your self from wild dogs that are going to take everything from you.

Use decentralized VPN and Tor to access the internet: Everything you do on the internet is watch through your IP address and each website you visit but you can delink your activities with using Decentralized VPN and Tor. They help you anonymize your activities on the internet and helps you protect your privacy and information. Don't use centralized VPN because you have to trust them not that  keep your logs on their servers, you never can tell.

Limit places where you keep your informations: Some people don't think twice before they submit their information online. They quickly fill forms when they see giveaways and other goodies but don't know that some of this information are been sold without their consent. Ordinary emails are sold on the internet for KYC verification, this is something I have seen myself people do on the internet, don't give much about you to anybody.

Save informations offline: There is a reason why Donald Trump don't want anything digital in his office because they can be hack. Internet is full of people with different talents and tools to hack into any device, spyware and malware are two different tools that can extract everything from a computer if they have access to any computer, it's better to save sensitive informations like private keys, seed phrase offline to have full protection from hackers.

Don't download things you don't know: one of the quick ways of downloading Spyware on your device is if you download things you don't need on your laptop. If you are going to use need them, make sure they are from official website and they are verifiable. Some wallets example can be verify through pretty good privacy(PGP) key, this is using a signature, the file you downloaded and the public key of that file you downloaded. If the signature you have isn't the same with the one on the website, then it means you have downloaded a corrupted file or compromised file on your device.

You can achieve maximum freedom of security and privacy if you watch your activities online, it will cost you a lot one day if you don't practice it.

One should be aware that the internet is not a safe space and the number of information you have online can be hijack/sold and use against you unfortunately.

People should be aware of this risks and very much know that they need to protect themselves especially in Nigeria were the government give little to no concern of users data. Protect yourself be very much aware of what you are doing because ignorance or laziness may comeback to bite you too hard than you can imagine.
Other tips:

• Use 2FA
• Use strong password for different account/log and password manager
• Be very much aware and mindful of Phishing scam/social engineering
• Don't rely too much on google services for protection or storage of key info because you are in still in a big risk there
• Stay informed

You no go use VPN for everything you want do online. You don't need to use VPN if you are applying for a job in Nigeria. There are some transactions or other activities in the internet that you IP address needs to be visible.   

Greed is one of the main reasons why people give out their information without verification. Immediately they hear that it is  a federal government, IMF or World Bank palliative program, they don't hesitate to give out their details.   

Well you're right but job companies don't really ask for too much about job applicants and even if they do, you will see on the form they request applicants information whether you are international person or national. They ask even NIN this days, so job information is exclusive because they want to know about you before they employ you.


Grants are one of the ways people fall for scams, there was recent student grants forms that was going about. Sometime, you even received text message from unknown people. There are some scammers that randomly call any numbers claim to be customer care and ask for details just to steal money from people's account, old people most often fall for these kind of scams.

OP are you using decentralized VPN and Tor to access the internet right now? How often do you access the forum with VPN and Tor. Because I don’t use these services very often, most of the good VPNs are paid for so I would like to know is the one you’re using free and if you could suggest some good ones you use.

Decentralized VPN or Tor is indeed one of the most efective ways of hiding your IP address,  however just like @Fiatless and @SatoPrincess said, it is not everything you do online that needs a VPN or Tor. Some activities actually require your real IP address to be visible.
For example: if you make use VPN while applying for job locally, you will automatically be disqualifying yourself, coz some companies might see you as an impersonator who is applying from abroad .
Are you also aware that when you are banking online many Nigerian banks due to security reasons, block logins if they detect that you are making use of VPN

So instead of using decentralized VPN or Tor for everything and everyday browsing, here are some safer alternatives-

1) Stick only to HTTPS websites : The reason for this is that the S at the back of HTTPS  signifies secured meaning that your connection is encrypted with SSL/TLS and anything you type, like passwords or card details, is scrambled so outsiders can’t read it. If you even notice, even our own "Bitcointalk forum," as well as "Altcointalk," both start with https://. In their URL addresses.

2) Enable two factor authentication (2FA): This adds an extra layer of security when logging into your account. So even if someone hacks your your password, they can’t log in without the code sent to your phone or email.  

3) Clear cookies regularly: Cookies can be used to track your browsing habits. So if you clear them regularly it reduces the chances of being tracked by a third party.

Privacy is a freedom, it's a choice and don't have to be enforce. Like I said, if you trust the forum enough to keep your logs, why not.

There is nothing like good VPN, they are just servers that are centralized and design to be faster. Basically, Tor isn't like VPN,  TOR route your IP address through different channel of different nodes, the entry node, the mid mode and the exit node, to give you full privacy while VPN only connect your IP address to a single node and to your destination and makes your connection faster but the vpn server knows everything, this is why VPNs are always faster than Tor. VPNs are Tor both helps you route your IP address but Tor is better if you want full privacy.

I’m not arguing about the importance of privacy. You managed to make a long post while avoiding my question, all I asked was the name of the VPN that you’re using and if it’s free.

I'm not avoiding your questions friend. I used Tor browser, an OrNET Onion + VPN, it’s a combine vpn that used Tor to route your ip address with Tor because I used an iPhone. Most decentralized VPN are open source and are available on androids and I don't use androids to test them, Iphones are limited to paid VPNs. I also used Urban VPN on my system sometimes and they are very fast and free.

Tor browser is not officially  available for IOS devices, OrNET is just aa third party app and it uses Orbot (another app , required !) as  the gateway.. more likely as Orbot receiving the traffic from  OrNET then routing it through Tor. It's been a while though, don’t  know if it still uses Orbot but it's good you're  using VPN first before connecting to it since it's  a third party app.

Never connect your phone internet to a public free Wi-Fi except you know more about it, in Lagos there is a lot of free Wi-Fi connection especially from those big hotel but while it proven many times that hackers uses free Wi-Fi to attack and steal users secret information like secret key, bank logs, email logs if those are stored somewhere in the phone.

Be very extremely careful when connecting with public free Wi-Fi, don't be vulnerable and be a victim to such circumstances.

It is very important to protect your online presence. With whatever means available to you and to be extremely careful about giving out your details in a hurry and using public services like Wi-Fi on phones we have vital informations, documents or assets.

The Grant scam and bank customer care scam I s becoming very common in our country and they’re really getting to the elderly and greedy ones who wants “oshofree” money. Let’s do well to educate those around us on this patterns some of these scammers use. To you it might seem old but there are innocent people who aren’t aware and they’ll fall easily to these thieves.

NEVER SHARE VITAL INFORMATION or PERSONAL INFORMATION online until you have confirmed and reconfirmed the source, and it should be something you requested for not the one that request of you.

The Internet which has helped in solving problems also carries with it it danger's so the need for anyone who is making use of the net to become security conscious. Because each day that goes by the Internet is becoming unsafe especially we in this part of the world, giving your attention to security is one thing every should take seriously because every day these inter fraudstars are developing new devices to scam innocent users of the Internet which may be ignorant of what it means to be security conscious on the Internet space. It's not every site that we should upload our information to because, these fraudstars can go as far as setting up sites for the purpose of collecting the personal information of people.