Privacy

[bestof2005]

Dont mind the fact that this is an alt, i havent made a thread here in months anyways. Im aware that people sometimes merit these threads, I ask that these be given to the people who reply sharing information contributing to this topic as they'll make use out of the merits and the forums here far more than me.

I never cared about privacy because I was going through a completely horrible bad luck time in my life for a long time and I'm also still no ones target.

Sometimes I come back here spending a minute or two viewing the forums, and recently viewed a thread by Leo talking about how websites can sell data and so on, and it made me realize how I never cared to think about all this even though I see plenty of websites I visit have some small info box about selling data and having some opt out/reject thing. I may not be anyones target right now but in 3-10 years or so i won't be surprised if i become a target.

The browser I use is chrome, I have been aware of for a long time sucks for privacy, I just dont know the full extent of how bad it is. I would certainly like to change this up for a browser that just auto blocks giving away cookies. Does anyone know of some good browsers?

It made me start wondering. Another thing im wondering about is how websites can store information of the people who live in countries, such as the USA and I do remember seeing one for Canada before. Theres plenty of these websites. How are they exactly harvesting this data? I see that they even have me and my families' information. I want to find the source of how they're doing this so that they stop gathering information on me. There are plenty of these sites. Having to send emails or do whatever to get my information taken off all these websites is going to be really annoying

I continue to make small steps to improving my privacy, such as deleting my information off popular database search engines(I know well that this doesn't delete it from the DBs themselves, but I assume this step does stop most people when they see 0 results on whatever they're using), and deleting my old online accounts off websites, use fake personal info instead of real info on websites, never use the same alias or email address once its leaked in a DB, having multiple alt emails that have nothing of value on them. have mullvad installed(which i dont entirely use safely, i use it on websites that i dont feel entirely safe with them using when i make online accounts but i dont do anything thats illegal so i have nothin to worry about), and so on

What about websites where you can apply for jobs at? (E.G popular American supermarket Walmart) Am I at risk if I were to share them my personal information to apply for careers?

[apogio]

First of all, well done for your decision to take your privacy seriously.
You must already know that there is no full privacy on the internet.
Unfortunately, privacy is almost impossible to be achieved, but on the other hand, it is astonishingly easy to be lost.

1. Use VPNs or TOR as much as you can.
2. Use a public locker as a mailing reception point, so you don't have to share your address with anyone on the internet.
3. All the big-tech companies collect ALL your data. That's a fact. Use them wisely - or don't use them at all, if possible.
4. Use more open-source products instead of the "famous" ones. There is a catch here though, since you must be careful. Open-source doesn't necessarily mean better, but it certainly sets the stage for a more private experience.
5. Pay with bitcoin or monero, whenever you can.
6. If you need to use a card (which is mostly the case), then you could use prepaid cards, or digital cards that get "deleted and regenerated with new details" after each payment.
7. I don't like cloud storage for any personal info. I have external hard drives for this purpose. Google or Microsoft don't need to know anything about my vacations, so there is no need to store my photos.
8. Use Linux. I know, difficult for most people, but it is surprisingly easy if you try.
9. There is no reason to use a real photo as an avatar in any website. Just use a funny avatar picture.
10. Don't share the nicknames you use, don't let anyone connect your real name with your nicknames. And YES, use multiple nicknames, not only one.
11. Don't talk to anyone about your belongings, just keep a low profile.
12. Use strong passwords! I mean STRONG. (myStr0ngP4ssw0rd is not a strong password)
13. Government is not your friend. Keep this as a knowledge, but don't do any illegal actions just because you don't like the government. Once again, low profile.
14. Your communication apps should be encrypted. It's best to use PGP encryption, but for a more realistic suggestion, just make sure the apps encrypt your communications. Pidgin used to be a good communication software, but now there is plenty out there.
15. Your phone includes super sensitive information. Keep it safe, or remove the information. Don't share your phone with people you don't trust.

[Findingnemo]

People lost their privacy when they started using Google, Facebook and etc which all offer services for free then how do they make money if they provide everything for free and it takes millions of dollars to keep things operational.

AFAIK, you can't have complete privacy if you want to be on the internet, cause you always need an ISP who knows everything and to some extent, TOR can provide you anonymity but it's not the same way like Chrome works.

I don't even know where to start and I am not really an expert though but I know these tech companies knew about ourselves more than us which means they keep collecting everything and who know what else they planned to do with apart from selling for ad companies.

[348Judah]

I continue to make small steps to improving my privacy, such as deleting my information off popular database search engines(I know well that this doesn't delete it from the DBs themselves, but I assume this step does stop most people when they see 0 results on whatever they're using), and deleting my old online accounts off websites, use fake personal info instead of real info on websites, never use the same alias or email address once its leaked in a DB, having multiple alt emails that have nothing of value on them. have mullvad installed(which i dont entirely use safely, i use it on websites that i dont feel entirely safe with them using when i make online accounts but i dont do anything thats illegal so i have nothin to worry about), and so on

What about websites where you can apply for jobs at? (E.G popular American supermarket Walmart) Am I at risk if I were to share them my personal information to apply for careers?

The best way to stay safe from the likes of these is by avoiding any centralized platform which take in our own information and store on their central server, even if we succeeded in deleted from our own end, what about the ones on their own system, can we permanently delete them, obviously no, then when it comes to privacy, almost all of us have once been in this same category before the emergence of a decentralized network comes in place, such as we have in bitcoin, we all have in one point or the other been under some of the centralized organizations and their platforms and lost our privacy the very first time we start using them, but the worst is for us to engage on the same the second time.

[RockBell]

People lost their privacy when they started using Google, Facebook and etc which all offer services for free then how do they make money if they provide everything for free and it takes millions of dollars to keep things operational.

AFAIK, you can't have complete privacy if you want to be on the internet, cause you always need an ISP who knows everything and to some extent, TOR can provide you anonymity but it's not the same way like Chrome works.

I don't even know where to start and I am not really an expert though but I know these tech companies knew about ourselves more than us which means they keep collecting everything and who know what else they planned to do with apart from selling for ad companies.

Only few people even value privacy now and people that actually value their privacy are anonymous and they are not on any social platforms. Because they don't want their identity to be exposed, I have been wondering the same that how do all this social medias make their money. And they have staffs and other things they spend their money on like maintenence and many more. And they still pay some people. The whole thing is just a mystery.

The internet exposes you in person because is either we are on social media or we are using browsers that exposes everything and if you look at it tor is a very good option when considering privacy. A lot of this apps are used to spy on  us most of them know to much about us just because everything we do always involve the internet and we are always accepting their stupid terms and conditions their are countries that they are regulated on how they use the internet. Just because they want to keep the secret of their country safe they feel most of the social media apps might be use to spy on their country they banned most of the social media apps.

[Hatchy]

 Ones your data gets expose to the Internet, it remains there forever. You might think that by just deleting them, you have actually removed them and protected your privacy, but nahh. The internet to me is just like a time machine there's always a way to go back and restore data. Just like @ apogio said, there isn't anything like total privacy on the internet. You just have to minimize how much of your personal data you put out there. Our phones, laptops gadgets and many other smart devices records so many informations that we are not aware of.  They don't need your permission all the time to access them. The only way you can archive full privacy is to let go of Internet. Or we just go back to the stone age where nothing works automatically.

[Mr.right85]

You must already know that there is no full privacy on the internet.
Unfortunately, privacy is almost impossible to be achieved, but on the other hand, it is astonishingly easy to be lost.

The underlined portion to this statement comes with some deep meaning I tell you. It’s shocking how much that could be reviled when the need arises, especially with the authorities having to pull few strings either using legal means or going through the back door, you just might be surprised at what they would find.
Even then, it doesn’t stop you from doing the most you can to safeguard your privacy. It’s all that matters in the cryptospace and one can not lose sight of how important privacy and security actually is since, everything is on the web.

[BlackBoss_]

Privacy guides
Why privacy matters?
Protect your privacy

Recommended books on privacy for reading.
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/wiki/recommended_reading/

[Findingnemo]

Only few people even value privacy now and people that actually value their privacy are anonymous and they are not on any social platforms. Because they don't want their identity to be exposed, I have been wondering the same that how do all this social medias make their money. And they have staffs and other things they spend their money on like maintenence and many more. And they still pay some people. The whole thing is just a mystery.

The internet exposes you in person because is either we are on social media or we are using browsers that exposes everything and if you look at it tor is a very good option when considering privacy. A lot of this apps are used to spy on  us most of them know to much about us just because everything we do always involve the internet and we are always accepting their stupid terms and conditions their are countries that they are regulated on how they use the internet. Just because they want to keep the secret of their country safe they feel most of the social media apps might be use to spy on their country they banned most of the social media apps.

I don't think it is even possible for someone to be disconnected from internet and social media in this 2024 cause we need internet for everything so the best possible thing we can practically follow is not to give out our identity to everyone on the internet cause it can be used for lot of other things that can get us harm in the future.

And now AI is a big headache all we need just an image and voice to mimic a person digitally forever, so far it's still in development age but it just matter of time to be mastered.

[PrivacyG]

A lot of people believe having Privacy is something you should only care if you are a public person.  Even then, you would still be confronted with the 'but why have Privacy if you have nothing to hide?' argument.

I am honestly glad you read what Leo had to say, and I really miss him and his wisdom.  The thing is, you never know when you need Privacy the most.  And by the time you need it, you either make sure you can have it or you may never actually get to have it at all.  Privacy nowadays is very hard to maintain, particularly digitally.  You are leaving traces every where, and most of the traces go to either the same Party or to Third Parties who collect information and sell it in between themselves, which to me is still just one big Party owning all the information.

Now you have to pick what kind of information you do not care about leaving from you directly to such a Party who collects your tracks.  Do you care if they know you are a Bitcoin user?  Do you care if they know what groceries you buy?  Et cetera.  Once you determine the kind of information you do NOT want to leave your identity toward the public or data centers, take action.

But it is a lot more difficult than it seems too, the more paranoid you become or the higher the power this Party owns.

For example, you could easily hide from DuckDuckGo.  Just use a VPN or preferably Tor, especially with no Java Script enabled and there you are.  Hiding from such small entities is easy as hell in my opinion.  But if you want to hide from a much more powerful entity, such as the CIA, then things become way more difficult.  In fact, I truly believe it is almost impossible to hide from them.  This is because a lot of variables come into play.  You could do your best and do every thing to perfection but then the CIA gets to correlate things you would never even think of.

Things as silly as, you are browsing Bitcoin Talk and a local blackout happens.  Obviously, you run out of electricity and, implicitly, all of a sudden your Internet connection is out.  This can be an easy correlation between your digital identity and possible real identities, reducing the search area to your local neighborhood.  From there on, it is probably easy to find out who you are.  Errors can happen of course, but you pretty much need to be a genius and perfectly time every single thing to avoid being 'caught'.

The information you already left on the Internet is in my sole opinion there forever and will never be forgotten.  You can start deleting accounts so other simple people like me will not find information about you by simply searching your Usernames or Full Name on a Browser, but most of this information has more than likely already been crawled and processed by bots and stored some where.

Like I said, Privacy is more of a journey than any thing.  You need to realize what you are looking for precisely, and go from there.  In my opinion, there is nothing wrong in being paranoid to the extreme either if this comforts you.  You never know really.  Life is so much colorful without the Social Media anyway, so there is that.

[ABCbits]

Does anyone know of some good browsers?

For general or daily usage, Firefox with add-ons called uBlock Origin are good choice.

It made me start wondering. Another thing im wondering about is how websites can store information of the people who live in countries, such as the USA and I do remember seeing one for Canada before. Theres plenty of these websites. How are they exactly harvesting this data? I see that they even have me and my families' information. I want to find the source of how they're doing this so that they stop gathering information on me. There are plenty of these sites. Having to send emails or do whatever to get my information taken off all these websites is going to be really annoying

Hard to say for sure. But it's possible one of people you know share such data publicly on social media or give permission to application which access all data on their phone (e.g. their contact).

12. Use strong passwords! I mean STRONG. (myStr0ngP4ssw0rd is not a strong password)

Relevant XKCD comic.


Source: https://xkcd.com/936/

[Porfirii]

I'm thinking about buying a good e-reader where I can not only read books comfortably but also work making notes on it. "Kindle Scribe" is definitely the quintesence of a no-go for privacy (I don't want Amazon to know what I read, my writing which could be considered biometric data, etc.) and I was thinking about a much more privacy-friendly "Pocketbook". But, for the price, I could almost get an iPad instead.

So the question is, to what extent can we trust Apple? I could use the iPad always disconnected but, is it really necessary if I configure correctly the privacy settings? and, even if I had to turn off Wi-Fi forever, is it enough?

The mozilla foundation gives them a good mark in terms of privacy, but I wonder whether this is only "in comparison" with other products like, again, Amazon's.

[Ojima-ojo]

Privacy is an undebatable subject as far as online and offline is concerned and since we are in the era of black net where everything is sold on the dark market, makes us worried about the security of our privacy and how much of our information have been exposed to the internet, and in the hand of scammers, this all need to be considered before using any site or platforms.


Before one give out his personal information, they need to do a diligence search to see how authentic the site is in other not to fall to the have of identity stealing platforms.

[Upgrade00]

Does anyone know of some good browsers?

I use duckduckgo along with an ad blocker and it works fine for me. I have Global Privacy Control enabled which blocks trackers and have location disabled.

What about websites where you can apply for jobs at? (E.G popular American supermarket Walmart) Am I at risk if I were to share them my personal information to apply for careers?

I wouldn't say you're at obvious risk, at some point one has to submit private information to a website or institution. But regardless of how safe or reputable a website is, one private information is shared with them you should consider them public and as much as possible minimize how much info you share. There are many privacy inclined alternatives to popular platforms if you'll look for them.

[Coyster]

What about websites where you can apply for jobs at? (E.G popular American supermarket Walmart) Am I at risk if I were to share them my personal information to apply for careers?

To the best of my knowledge, when applying for a job, you are not going to be asked to submit sensitive information, it should be things ranging from your name, email address, phone number, CV, etc. You can create one email address for such purpose and only use it for that, so you know what to expect with every incoming email in that mailbox. You cannot avoid applying for jobs and giving out the necessary info for that, so you should also learn some of the modus operandi of scammers, such as to avoid clicking on random links, as well as being in the know when something is too good to be true, etc.

Does anyone know of some good browsers?

Firefox and DuckDuckGo are better alternatives to Chrome, particularly in terms of privacy. Brave browser started off as a privacy oriented browser, but they are none of that right now, so it is no longer an option for anyone looking for good privacy browsers.

[AVE5]

I'm not going to recommend you to any browser because the internet can be sophisticated but I'll only say that you should avoid linking your official contacts such as emails and phone numbers to subscribe to your other internet accounts which might not be so official or confidential to you. Exposing your backup or verification contacts can actually risk your Privacies to be vulnerable which either browser providers or hackers could get it compromised.
Also use different and authenticated passwords for your securities. The more concern you should care about is keeping reputable securities activite and stay concious that your online Privacies is always an attraction to people beyond your thoughts so that your thought of staying anonymous or unpenetrated shouldn't only be a view on your browsers.

[hd49728]

I'm not going to recommend you to any browser

There are many Internet browsers to choose but I don't choose Brave browser that is built and managed by a team don't keep up their promises on privacy of users.

Brave browser years ago started as a browser with slogan aims at privacy for users but later their team launched BRAVE token and users can earn the token by using Brave browser. The condition to claim the token is KYC, that is absolutely bad for their reputation. They self-broke their promises on product features and development previously.

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032158891-What-is-KYC-and-how-does-it-fit-into-Brave-Rewards

Privacy tools with some browsers. They have Brave browser but I dislike this one.
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
https://awesome-privacy.xyz/essentials/browsers

[ABCbits]

I'm thinking about buying a good e-reader where I can not only read books comfortably but also work making notes on it. "Kindle Scribe" is definitely the quintesence of a no-go for privacy (I don't want Amazon to know what I read, my writing which could be considered biometric data, etc.) and I was thinking about a much more privacy-friendly "Pocketbook". But, for the price, I could almost get an iPad instead.

So the question is, to what extent can we trust Apple? I could use the iPad always disconnected but, is it really necessary if I configure correctly the privacy settings? and, even if I had to turn off Wi-Fi forever, is it enough?

The mozilla foundation gives them a good mark in terms of privacy, but I wonder whether this is only "in comparison" with other products like, again, Amazon's.

If you trust review from Mozilla foundation, iPad is good enough. On https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/apple-ipad/, it doesn't show serious privacy warning.

What about websites where you can apply for jobs at? (E.G popular American supermarket Walmart) Am I at risk if I were to share them my personal information to apply for careers?

To the best of my knowledge, when applying for a job, you are not going to be asked to submit sensitive information, it should be things ranging from your name, email address, phone number, CV, etc. You can create one email address for such purpose and only use it for that, so you know what to expect with every incoming email in that mailbox. You cannot avoid applying for jobs and giving out the necessary info for that, so you should also learn some of the modus operandi of scammers, such as to avoid clicking on random links, as well as being in the know when something is too good to be true, etc.

Most people have only one phone number though. And unlike email address, there aren't many service which offer burner/additional phone number. Even worse, such service only avaialble to people on certain country.

[bestof2005]

I tried replying to everyone but I lost my energy mid way.

Somehow this thread has earned more merit than my main ever had even though I tried for 6+ months, just wow. I was speechless first logging into my account and seeing that.

I absolutely apologize for not meriting everyone, I thought I could but I realized I couldnt because I used too much on posts I found alot of value in reading and learning. Seriously i fucked up right there. I am grateful for all the replies and advice and everything here

Im grateful really, I've learned ALOT from this thread and I've taken forward to some of the suggestions provided.

Can anyone help me with stuff regarding credit cards? I know privacy.com is one of them but they require my SSN like what

[Wiwo]

I tried replying to everyone but I lost my energy mid way.

Somehow this thread has earned more merit than my main ever had even though I tried for 6+ months, just wow. I was speechless first logging into my account and seeing that.

I apologize for not meriting everyone, I thought I could but I realized I couldnt because I used too much on posts I found alot of value in reading and learning.

Im grateful really, I've learned ALOT from this thread and I've taken forward to some of the suggestions provided.

Can anyone help me with stuff regarding credit cards? I know privacy.com is one of them but they require my SSN like what

Once again good to see that you are finding and figuring out more ways to enhance your privacy which is one thing most and all bitcoin users are fighting to protect, although many have lost they privacy over centralised service usage, but the avoidance of that will do more good in the future as the government is constantly looking for ways to take privacy away from the people.

Between that also worth mentioning that privacy is a right and not a privilege so you are the only one responsible for your privacy, that is why you need to be mindful where you share your data's online.