Privacy is a legend

Swedish privacy!

So, recently, a person in the US was arrested for stalking people.

The evidence was some data from google, a work computer and from a VPN provider.

Let's take a quick look at that VPN provider. It (PureVPN) says on their privacy policy page that they do NOT store logs.

Guess from what VPN provider the FBI got those logs? Yes, PureVPN!

Althouh I'm happy they got this creep off the street, it still means that PureVPN has been lying to its entire customer base.

I personally hope that their reputation will be destroyed now because this should never happen.

A screenshot I took from their privacy policy page is attached below.

Keep your eyes open when choosing a VPN provider!

Had a conversation with someone a little while ago. I opened my email app (TutaNota) and he asked what the hell that email thingy was. Explained the encrypted/privacy reasons.

"Why would you encrypt everything?"

Because I have stuff to hide. Do you?

"Nahh I just use outlook, I have nothing to hide".

Told him to email me all his usernames/passwords, bank statements, porn preferences, emails, messages etc etc.

"But that's private data!".

Exactly.

"But I thought you meant like crime/illegal stuffs etc"

Nope. I just asked if you had anything to hide, you interpreted that as having anything non-lawfully to hide. I never even asked anything in relation to non-lawful stuff.

Because, having something to hide doesn't mean it's criminal/illegal, it means you'd like to keep that stuff private.

Started talking about Pi-Hole (still trying to install this fucker by the way) today with a collegue.

He had it installed and showed me around a little.

CW: Alright give me an example then I'll show you wildcard blocking.
Me: google.com 😅
CW: *enters and saves it. then tries to load anything related to google.com*

*no google.com domains load, all give a blocked error*

Me: Works great!
CW: Yup.
...
...
...
...
Me: Uhm so you aren't like surprised that I went with google.com as example and that I'd genuinely would block it?!
CW: No, why would I be?
Me: Well, most people consider me paranoid/crazy the second they find out I don't want to use google/google's services.
CW: well that's fucking retarded. why would anyone redicule you for not using something you don't want to use. You'll have your reasons.
Me: So if I'd say i do it for privacy reasons, you wouldn't find that redicilous?
CW: No, why would I? Not using google (and for that matter facebook etc) for privacy reasons is very logical really.

FUCKING. THANK. YOU.

Website: We care about your privacy and don't sell your information to third parties.

*inspects Privacy Badger*
*notices a truckload of Google/facebook trackers/ad thingies*

Yeah why don't you go fuck yourself.

Hello guys. So after I posted the rant about me blocking Google and Facebook through my hosts file, some people commented with the idea of creating a gitlab page with more privacy tips etc.

Well, that is turning into a project (actual website) that I initially started alone but @ewpratten joined the 'team' as frontender!

He'll be doing the front end and I'll be doing the backend :).

I think this will be my first ever (active) collab so I'm pretty excited =D.

*steps into the coffee shop

"WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY!!!"

The best privacy policy update meme

Those massive privacy leaks we call error reports...

Clearly Mozilla is the villain here for prioritising privacy and personal freedom over censorship, control, and surveillance. Oh, our parental controls don't work! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN! wtf

RIP Privacy

So, as everyone knows on here by now (or, a lot of ranters), I am a fervid privacy person.

Appearantly a new surveillance law in my country is about to extend mass surveillance/hacking a lot. So here a rundown of what they are about to be allowed to do (stuff that is not okay imo and this is the reason I am so pro-privacy):

- Mass Data Gathering: The intelligence agency over here (lets call it IA from now) can pretty much record everything send through the country.

- Extra Protection: If they want to conduct surveillance on journalists/lawyers, they have to go through extra channels first at least.

- Data/survaillance sharing: The IA is allowed to share their raw/filtered data with foreign intelligence agencies without limits. Also, they're allowed to conduct surveillance based on foreign requests.

- Secret DNA database: A secret DNA database will be created which can store the DNA profiles of any person who has commited any kind of crime. These profiles are allowed to be stored for a maximum of 30 years. This database is allowed to be shared with any foreign intelligence agency.

- Hacking: Unlimited power to hack any device deemed neccesary to hack in relation to crime. From computers to smartphones and so on. Also, it's allowed to use zero-days without reporting them to the vendor (we have seen what can go wrong with that through the ShadowBrokers scandal).

- Automatic Database Collection: They are allowed to directly tap into any database they see required (banks, healthcare, messaging services and so on). Practically this can lead to backdoors being build in because if you don't cooperate, you can go to prison. (mother of god I am not using anything closed source anymore if possible).

So yeah, this is pretty much the reason why I am so privacy consious. This country is fucked.

So the new mass surveillance law will be going into effect from the 1st of January.

Of course, since I'm very keen on my security/privacy, I'm going to implement some precautions.

- A few vps's connecting to tor, i2p and VPN provider so that I can always use a secure connection.

- Setup anti tracker/ads/etc etc shit on the VPS's. Probably through DnsMasq and the hosts file.

- Use Tor browser by default. I've tried this for a while now and damn, the tor network has become way faster than only even a year ago! Some pages literally only take a few seconds to load.

- Wipe my laptop, encrypt the harddrive and at least put QubesOS on it together with probably a few other systems.

- Ungoogle my new phone, use it with VPN by default.

- Get rid of all non encrypted communication services. I think that only leaves me with a few account removals because I haven't chatted unencrypted for nearly a fucking year now.

If anyone has any more ideas, please share!

*in a chat with a fellow devRanter who is aiming more and more towards privacy things*
*hmmm shall i tell him about my Firefox privacy addons... *
*nahh let's not get too intrusive*

3 minutes later

Him: hey bro, what Firefox addons do you have?

😄😊😂

*Email*
"We updated our Privacy Policy"
"We updated our Privacy Policy"
.
.

*opens devRant*
**Rants on Privacy Policy**

-_-

I don't use Google/Facebook for privacy reasons (and their sub-services etc). Haven't used them for ages but noticed that google still loads a lot of domains like analytics etc. This goes for facebook as well.

I now blocked a lot of google/facebook domains through my hosts file.

It's funny to see the amount of DNS requests to those fb/google connected domains nearly go to zero and also the fact that I literally can't load google/facebook anymore!

Overheard an Apple store guy helping a customer who had unknowingly encrypted his phone:

Apple Guy: Do you work for the government?
Customer: Na.
Apple Guy: Well, don't bother encrypting your phone.
Me: WTF! Wow....

Just a quick update (been a little) on the privacy website!

Although both the frontend and the backend need quite some work, I managed, with the help of some other guys, to get everything (only for the IM section yet for now) loaded from the database instead of hardcoded! Yes, that also means that the tiny icon colors are either red or green based on database values :).

Going to keep working on this tomorrow in the hopes I can also get some other subjects ready.

Thanks!

Which asshole designer and stupid website owners decide to embed 110 trackers on a single page!!
I mean sure some ads add their own trackers....but THIS is beyond shit
R.I.P Privacy

Was programming on the privacy site REST api.

Needed a break and started searching for a good movie or documentary.

Found a documentary about big data/mass surveillance.

I now have loads of motivation for programming on this again as this showed me the importance of secure services/software.

Twitter: We use your tweets to analyze your preferences and target ads for you..

Facebook & Whatsapp: We monitor your posts, locations, private chats and target ads for you..

Google: We spy your mails, sms, location, pretty much all your activity and tailor ads for you..

All of them combined: No one can beat us in breaching privacy and bombarding you with ads..

Amazon: Hold my beer 🍺

Alright, I just wanna start off by saying that I'm a huge privacy guy. I hate all kinds of data collection companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon and all that. Yet I'm forced to have a Google account for certain reasons.

But the thing that I want to say is that I often talk to people to express my concerns about privacy. And most people agree and say that "yeah sure that's some scary shit" but don't actually do much about it.

And the thing is. If you just browse through all of the options in your Google account. You can turn off and remove almost all data collection/ad serving and identification options entirely.

And yet purple complain about that Google sees what you buy and shit. Turn everything off. Get and adblocker and get noscript. The single best browser add-on out there. It's almost that easy to get at least acceptable amounts of Internet privacy.

Please, don't ever ignore the significance of in Internet privacy. And the potential issue of net neutrality. Don't be ignorant. Don't be the client.

!(short rant)

Look I understand online privacy is a concern and we should really be very much aware about what data we are giving to whom. But when does it turn from being aware to just being paranoid and a maniac about it.? I mean okay, I know facebook has access to your data including your whatsapp chat (presumably), google listens to your conversations and snoops on your mail and shit, amazon advertises that you must have their spy system (read alexa) install in your homes and numerous other cases. But in the end it really boils down to "everyone wants your data but who do you trust your data with?"

For me, facebook and the so-called social media sites are a strict no-no but I use whatsapp as my primary chating application. I like to use google for my searches because yaa it gives me more accurate search results as compared to ddg because it has my search history. I use gmail as my primary as well as work email because it is convinient and an adv here and there doesnt bother me. Their spam filters, the easy accessibility options, the storage they offer everything is much more convinient for me. I use linux for my work related stuff (obviously) but I play my games on windows. Alexa and such type of products are again a big no-no for me but I regularly shop from amazon and unless I am searching for some weird ass shit (which if you want to, do it in some incognito mode) I am fine with coming across some advs about things I searched for. Sometimes it reminds me of things I need to buy which I might have put off and later on forgot. I have an amazon prime account because prime video has some good shows in there. My primary web browser is chrome because I simply love its developer tools and I now have gotten used to it. So unless chrome is very much hogging on my ram, in which case I switch over to firefox for some of my tabs, I am okay with using chrome. I have a motorola phone with stock android which means all google apps pre-installed. I use hangouts, google keep, google map(cannot live without it now), heck even google photos, but I also deny certain accesses to apps which I find fishy like if you are a game, you should not have access to my gps. I live in India where we have aadhar cards(like the social securtiy number in the USA) where the government has our fingerprints and all our data because every damn thing now needs to be linked with your aadhar otherwise your service will be terminated. Like your mobile number, your investment policies, your income tax, heck even your marraige certificates need to be linked with your aadhar card. Here, I dont have any option but to give in because somehow "its in the interest of the nation". Not surprisingly, this thing recently came to light where you can get your hands on anyone's aadhar details including their fingerprints for just ₹50($1). Fuck that shit.

tl;dr
There are and should be always exceptions when it comes to privacy because when you give the other person your data, it sometimes makes your life much easier. On the other hand, people/services asking for your data with the sole purpose of infilterating into your private life and not providing any usefulness should just be boycotted. It all boils down to till what extent you wish to share your data(ranging from literally installing a spying device in your house to them knowing that I want to understand how spring security works) and how much do you trust the service with your data. Example being, I just shared most of my private data in this rant with a group of unknown people and I am okay with it, because I know I can trust dev rant with my posts(unlike facebook).

“Essential cookies”...

So I said I'd rant this yesterday but a long night of server management came in the way!

Yesterday @trogus mentioned in a comment that he thinks everyone deserves a place where they feel like home and this is that place for me along with some sub-places which derived from here.

So in this linux/foss chat yesterday I was trying to get into an IRC chatroom (all people there (or at least a lot) are also like minded on privacy/security). I don't want to use email signup if not absolutely neccesary (don't judge me, everyone there own thing) and I found out very late (after 20 minutes of instructions from a fellow devRanter) that this thing required email signup. I didn't wanna do that so I said that and started typing a whole essay of why I'd rather not do that and what my reasons are (privacy partly) but then the guy said: "haha you got it man".

For one second I forgot that I don't have to explain myself over there on stuff regarding privacy that a lot of people would find paranoid. Man, that feels like being home :).

My coworker requested I add a bunch of tracking to our product.

I've previously tried explaining to him (and honestly the rest of the company) about privacy issues stemming from tracking, such as by their beloved Venmo. Venmo tracks absolutely fking everything you give it access to, from location data to your entire facebook, twitter, foursquare, etc. feeds, and sells ALL of it to third parties. It's scary. but! this guy simply does not understand, and/or does not care, and marches right on into all the surveillance, loudly singing the song of convenience to all who'll listen. (Nobody else in the company cared, either. :/)

ugh.

Anyway, I'm conflicted.

I have to install some tracking, but I can probably come up with an excuse to cut most of it out and gimp their surveillance. It'll still be useful to us, but it'll limit the amount of data the tracking company can sell to third parties.

but they'll push this guy pretty hard on it, and he's as technically-inclined as a smudged glass of warm, stale beer. "Better for your conversion!" they'll say. "How much tracking do you want?" he'll reply. "@ashkin, why can't you do this right now? What else do you need to make this happen?" he'll firmly inquire. and so I'll be forced to make it happen...

ergh

So the country I live in is going to get a huge mass surveillance law. Currently we're trying to force a referendum because this is highly (privacy) intrusive. We can still sign them for a little bit and a friend of mine hadn't done that yet. His reasoning was that it I isn't binding anyways.

We've got this John Oliver equivilant in the Netherlands who did a piece about this.

I put it on for my friend saying that I just wanted him to watch it. If he wouldn't change his mind afterwards, I wouldn't pressure him or anything.

We watched it.

Afterwards he looked at me with eyes like 😵😧😷😲😮😫.

"they'll REALLY be able to do this shit!?!"
"where can I sign this fucking thing to get this referendum going?"

So I asked him why he suddenly was all for it.

"I'm not much of a privacy guy but this shit just crossed a fucking line".

He's going to sign it as fast as possible 😁

Hello devRanters! A new update on the privacy website as I've had time to work on that last weekend.

For the picture: everything except for the images (although the URI's are in the database) is coming directly from the DB!

Also got a thingy working which can show one app on a single page including it's pro's/cons etc that you see on the main page but also (still have to write that part though and no screenshots yet as I've only done the backend!) sources (links to proof etc), a description and a guide on how to use that app/service!

I'm finally getting somewhere :)

Trend of the day:
1. Facebook is really compromising user privacy, will delete my account!
2. Post about deleting Fb account to twitter, instagram, etc
3. "Ok google, what is privacy?"
4. Find a random app in play store and allow access regardless

So now I'm working on my first collab with a fellow devRanter on a privacy website thingy! Excited and want to start working on it right away.

BUT OH NO I'VE GOTTA GO TO WORK IN 15 MINUTES TO STAND BEHIND A TABLE PACKING MOTHERFUCKING BOXES ALL DAY, YEAH NO THAT SOUNDS FUCKING COCKSUCKING EXCITING. (okay I can pay rant but still).

I need a hug 😞

I just wanted to share a quote that I think is completely magnificent.

"Saying that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

- Edward Snowden

- devRant TOR rant! -

There is a recent post that just basically says 'fuck TOR' and it catches unfortunate amount of attention in the wrong way and many people seem to aggree with that, so it's about time I rant about a rant!

First of all, TOR never promised encryption. It's just used as an anonymizer tool which will get your request through its nodes and to the original destination it's supposed to arrive at.

Let's assume you're logging in over an unencrypted connection over TOR and your login information was stolen because of a bad exit node. Is your privacy now under threat? Even then, no! Unless of course you had decided to use your personal information for that login data!

And what does that even have to do with the US government having funded this project even if it's 100%? Are we all conspiracy theorists now?

Let's please stop the spread of bs and fear mongering so that we can talk about actual threats and attack vectors on the TOR network. Because we really don't have any other reliable means to stop a widely implemented censorship.

Programming on the privacy website together with 404response, this is awesome!

It's great to have someone who's good at frontend while you suck balls at it so that I can fully focus on the backend :D. (ewpratten if you still want to you can join 404response, he can explain you everything he's doing and how you can help)

Although I do give some privacy related advice here and there on here, I'm planning on hiring a server dedicated to devRant regarding privacy/tiny simple tools.

I've got the folloing in mind:

- Host the privacy website
- Put a pi-hole server on it for everyone to use
- Own IP lookup API which would display it in a few data formats.

Any other ideas?

!!privacy
!!political

I had a discussion with a coworker earlier.

I owed him for lunch the other day, and he suggested I pay him back either with cash (which I didn't have), Venmo, or just by him lunch the next time (which I ended up doing).

I asked about Venmo, and he said it was like paypal, but always free. that sounded a bit off -- because how are they in business if it's always free? -- so I looked it up, and paid special attention to their privacy policy.

The short of it: they make money by selling your information. That's worth far more than charging users a small fee when sending $5 every few weeks. Sort of what I expected when I heard "always free," but what surprised me is just how much they collect. (In retrospect, I really shouldn't have been surprised at all...)

Here's an incomplete list:
* full name, physical address, email, DoB, SSN (or other government IDs, depending on country)
* Complete contact list (phone numbers, names, photos)
* Browser/device fingerprint
* (optional) Your entire Facebook feed and history
* (optional) all of your Facebook friends' contact info
* Your Twitter feed
* Your FourSquare activity
(The above four ostensibly for "fraud prevention")
* GPS data
* Usage info about the actual service
* Other users' usage info (e.g. mentioning you)
* Financial info (the only thing not shared with third parties)

Like, scary?

And, of course, they share all of this with their parent company, PayPal. (The privacy policy does not specify what PayPal does with it, nor does it provide any links that might describe it, e.g. PayPal's "info-shared-by-third-parties" privacy policy)

So I won't be using Venmo. ever.

I mentioned all of this to my coworker, and he just doesn't understand. at all. He even asks "So what are they going do with that, send me ads? like they already do?"

I told him why I think it's scary. Everything from them freely selling all of your info, to someone being able to look through your entire online life's history, to being able to masquerade around as you, to even reproducing your voice (e.g. voice clips collected by google assistant), to grouping people by political affiliations.

He didn't have much to say about any of them, and actually thought the voice thing was really cool. (All I could think of was would happen if the "news" had that ability....) All of his other responses were "that doesn't bother me at all" and/or "using all of these services is so convenient."

but what really got me was his reaction to the last one.

I said, "If you're part of the NRA, for example, you'd be grouped with Republicans. If they sell all of this information, which they do, and they don't really care who buys it or what they do with it... someone could look through the data and very very easily target those political groups."

His response? "I don't have to worry about that. I'm a Democrat, and have always voted Democrat. I'll tell anyone that."

Like.
That's basically saying every non-democrat is someone you should be wary of and keep an eye on. That's saying Democrats are the norm and everyone else is deviant and/or wrong.

and I couldn't say anything after this because... no matter what I said, it would start a political conflict, and would likely end with me being fired (since the owner is also a democrat, and they're very buddy-buddy). "What if they target democrats?" -> "They already do!" or "What if democrats use it against others?" -> "They deserve it for being violent and racist, but we never would" (except, you know, that IRS/tea-party incident for example...)

But like, this is coming from someone who firmly believes conservatives are responsible for all of the violence and looting and rioting and mass shootings in the country. ... even when every single instance has been by committed by democrats. every. single. one.

Just...
jfl;askjfasflkj.

He doesn't understand the need for privacy, and his world view is just... he actually thinks everyone with different beliefs is wrong and dangerous.

I don't even know how to deal with people like this. and with how prevalent this mindset is... coupled with the aforementioned privacy concerns... it's honestly *terrifying.*

Hey devRanters! A tiny update regarding the privacy tips etc site.

So as ewpratten doesn't have much time right now, I'm doing frontend as well for now.

Since some people also offered to contribute content, which I did not expect, I am also writing an invite/registration (based on invites) as we speak. So, this way, I can invite anyone (based on email address) into the CMS so that they can contribute content as well!

Regarding frontend, I'm introducing a system with icons. Icons? Yes, icons, let me explain:

Every application/service will get a couple of default filtering thingies. (not like clicking something and it'll filter anything out, yet) It'll enable users to see what an application does or does not. What the FUCK do you mean? Alright, so, as example, lets say open source. next to each application (read application/service) listed, there will be an open source icon. If the application is open source, this icon will be green, otherwise it will be red.

This will allow for a quick way of filtering stuff out.

For example, if you're only looking for open source stuff, you can quickly filter stuff out where the open source icon is red!

This will apply to things as open sourceness, metadata saving, usage of good crypto technology and so on. So you'll be able to quickly filter out the stuff you want to use (by eyes) through those filters!

Please let me know what you think and if you have ideas, I'll be glad to hear them!

Just wanted to say a 'thank you' to all people who bear with my privacy stuffs! I know quite some people who installed messaging apps, signed up to privacy services and so on, solely because --> I <-- want to communicate in private and I realise (I've always realized that though) that that can be tough sometimes.

Also a thank you to those people for not requiring me to get data fed into the big companies :).

Thanks!

I am trying to understand something for a while. devRant is full of privacy advocates and to be honest, part of it is almost taken by a group of people that call other people random swear words people because they are using a particular product of a company.

I will raise some points and will try to discuss them with other people in comments.

I will stick with Google. Since it looks like it's the most hated one. A company that has built one of the most intelligent infrastructure, the most popular mobile operating system and of course, the best search engine currently available.

The problem everyone sees is the privacy. Google tracks the search history to give users a better experience and show relevant ads. You might not need this "better experience". In case you don't know, you can turn off personalized search any time to make sure Google doesn't track. Same goes with Google Chrome, you can turn off all the data it is sending to servers in settings. You can simply not sign in if you don't anything to be synchronised.

An argument is Google should be opt-in rather than opt-out. But the general users are not tech-savvy. And yes, going to settings and turning on personalised search is a lot of work for a huge amount of people. Trust me, I worked in IT before. If they find other search engine giving them a good experience without changing anything in the settings, they will just simply move to that engine.

What interests me most if how people back DuckDuckGo. First of all, not all parts of DDG is not open source (it's fucking not, you can argue all day). Parts of it is closed because of licensing issues.

That is perfectly fine to privacy community. But it's not when Chrome is closed source for almost the same reason. I mean when you're using DDG, you are supporting a US-based company that has privacy all over its face and using closed source application on their server. Have you not learned anything from history?

You might be wondering about my obsession with Google. It hurts me when I see a giant company whose popular software is open source is bashed like this. Google has made huge contributions to open source communities. Chromium, Android, Kubernetes, Angular, GoLang, TensorFlow etc.

And PRISM, how do you know that DDG is not part of it? it's US-based after all.

I just saw an article that used a video with a title "TNW - Aral Balkan - Free Is A Lie | The Next Web" while asking us to switch to DDG. Ummm....DDG is also free right?

Maybe we should raise concerns with the US gov first rather than Google.

Hai devRant! Working on the privacy app and want opinions on the page for details on specific apps (as in, applications so web/app/mobile or even embedded?!).

Yeah I know that the aligning is deffo not perfect but hey, gotta start somewhere :). Detail: everything you see here (the content and actually also the icon path) is rendered from the database already.

Tips/opinions?

Gotta say, I find it awesome that I can connect with some devRanters through encrypted channels.

It's awesome to talk to devRanters with the same mindset through channels that offer a very high level of security/privacy.

Thanks!

Hello again devRanters! This is linuxxx again. A quick update regarding the privacy site!

Right now we're up to the following:

Ewpratten
- Converting what we have right now on frontend to Bootstrap.
- Working on a page with a description as to what this is going to be exactly.

linuxxx (me)
- Converted the static stuff we used before to a simple MVC based PHP web application.
- Created a DB scheme for the custom CMS I am going to write for this.
- Starting to work on the custom CMS right now!

We'll update as soon as we've got a well working description/introduction page :)

We won't be creating rants every day/new tiny feature/change or anything but as this is our first productive night, it seemed like a nice idea to update what we already got done/started on :).

Stay tuned!

I find it so infuriating when someone uploads a lot of data containing other people's data as well without asking those people if that's alright with them. (Contact information, address book, etc).

That you don't care about that/privacy is your choice, even your goddamn right but then please don't take other peoples right to privacy/their own choice away in the fucking process.

What an irony...

devRant is truly amazing, a social network where I don't have to give up on privacy by giving out my number to confirm that I am legit when I'd use something as a VPN to protect my identity (unlike twitter facebook and google)

Thanks for giving a fuck about privacy and not giving a fuck about my data

Removed my Facebook account about Month ago. Sister was pretty sad because I'm the one person she can tag in everything. Asked me why I deleted it and I told her it was because of privacy concerns. "Then why don't you make an end to end encrypted social network?". I'd actually consider this...

So today I learned i can pay my property taxes online. The way you pay is:

1. Enter address (street #, I live in an apt)
2. It will show all matches **including the owners full name**
3. If you click view, it shows the full account history...

I want to be PROGRAMMING on the freaking privacy site already, not having to search for icons, download them in the right color/format etc.

Fucking hell. (although finding good/fitting icons is a funny challenge though :P)

For anyone that was too lazy to read all of @linuxxx's post. Here is a short summary. we are working together to create an informational website about online (and possibly offline) privacy. If this interests you, keep an eye out for updates from either me or @linuxxx

Omg, when does the Stupid stop? New Zealand just passed a law that empowers immigration officials to compel travellers to unlock their devices. Otherwise, you pay a hefty fine. They are also allowed to copy the data and do God knows what with.

The horrible invasion of privacy aside, it also brings with it some legal hurdles. What if you are making a presentation or report to an investor or someone you have a fiduciary obligation with. You are carrying IP bound by several NDA's and other funding red tape that would end your life if it got out. Are you in breach if the data gets copied by the gov officials? Worse yet you have zero control over what they do afterwards.

I don't think any of this inspires investor confidence.

Government needs to stop touching things!

Ooh my f**king god! These privacy emails are getting out of hand now!!!!! I blame Europe for spoiling my inbox.

Sorry for being late, stuffs came inbetween!

I have done a few privacy rants/posts before but why not another one. @tahnik did one a few days ago so I thought I'd do a new one myself based on his rant.

So, online privacy. Some people say it's entirely dead, that's bullshit. It's up to an individual, though, how far they want to go as for protecting it.

I personally want to retain as much control over my data as possible (this seems to be a weird thing these days for unknown reasons...). That's why I spend quite some time/effort to take precautions, read myself into how to protect my data more and so on.

'Everyone should have the choice of what services they use' - fully agreed, no doubt about that.

I just find one thing problematic. Some services/companies handle data in a way or have certain business models which takes the control which some people want/have over their data away when you communicate with someone using that service.

Some people (like me) don't want anything to do with google but even when I want to email my best fucking friend, I lose the control over that email data since he uses gmail.

So, when someone chooses to use gmail and I *HAVE* to email them, my choice is gone.

TO BE VERY CLEAR: I'm not blaming that on the users, I'm blaming that on the company/service.

Then for example, google analytics. It's a very good/powerful when you're solely looking at its functions.
I just don't want to be part of their data collection as I don't want to get any data into the google engine.

There's a solution for that: installing an addon in order to opt out.

I'm sorry, WHAT?! --> I <-- have to install an addon in order to opt out of something that is happening on my own motherfucking computer?! What the actual fuck, I don't call that a fucking solution. I'll use Privacy Badger + hosts files to block that instead.

Google vs 'privacy' friendly search engines - I don't trust DDG completely because their backend is closed/not available to the public but I'd rather use them then a search engine which is known to be integrated into PRISM/other surveillance engines by default.

I don't mind the existence of certain services, as long as they don't integrated you with data hungry companies/mass surveillance without you even using their services.

Now lets see how fast the comment section explodes!

Not to say anyone here is right or wrong about this, but I just do t get the whole privacy paranoia. Yes, I get that our rights are being violated. Yes I know I need to be aware and concerned.

People use specials rims, VPN software, etc... The bottom line is every keystroke, SMS, voice call, search text, historical reference... every piece of digital communication is recorded (At least in the US).

The sad reality is I can be as angry as I want, but unless I forego using tech or leaving the house, there is nothing I can do about it.

I await your comments, both positive and negative.

Currently working on the privacy site CMS REST API.

For the curious ones, building a custom thingy on top of the Slim framework.

As for the ones wondering about security, I'm thinking out a content filtering (as in, security/database compatibility) right now.

Once data enters the API, it will first go through the filtering system which will check filter based on data type, string length and so on and so on.

If that all checks out, it will be send into the data handling library which basically performs all database interactions.

If everything goes like I want it to go (very highly unlikely), I'll have some of the api actions done by tonight.

But I've got the whole weekend reserved for the privacy site!

Alright so the security blog is coming up soon (as in, days probably) and I'm working hard together with 404response on the privacy site.

I do want to gain some insight into visitor numbers and so on but OF COURSE, commercial/closed source options are a no-go for me!

I am thinking about maybe using Piwik with all the privacy options enabled Also self hosted obviously. What do you guys/gals think?

Well, thats's one way to be GDPR compliant, I guess?...

Just managed to setup a tiny/simple privacy-friendly analytics system.

You basically call an api from your backend with the api key and all the headers you received from the browser (php and Apache or nginx in my case) and the analytics api gets useful stuff out of that data without sacrificing privacy.

I get a little bit more insight into my websites usage and the client isn't sacrificing identifiable information!

I've been wanting to make this fucker for fucking months.

"We store all this information about you to make your experience better".
👌100% transparency. 👌

Another one.

*runs into underground bunker*

wew i'm safe!

*door creeks open*

someone whispers: "Psst, we've updated our privacy policy"

Hello! A tiny update on the privacy site thingy. (linuxxx here yas).

I've finished the preview page (description of what will be on the site really) and slowly preparing for deployment.
In the mean time, since @ewpratten is very busy at the moment, I'm giving the frontend part a shot myself! Working on the general layout/presentation right now and I will show a preview as soon as I have anything solid enough to show :).

Also working on the custom CMS which is going well!

I am kind of hestitant to publish the preview page because I am not a frontender and I know that I'll get all criticism on here so please, please go easy on me! Also, just in general, if you find any kind of flaws in the web app or wherever, please report them to me! As for frontend, I won't fix anything because I've got bigger priorities (like creating the actual site itself xD) but general feedback would be appreciated :). And as I said, I'm a backender so don't judge me too hard on the frontend!

Alright now let's gather some courage to actually publish this thing 😅

Happy data privacy day!

Someone says "privacy"
I'm like "sorry what was that?"
😂

VPN? What do you think guys?

Internet privacy isn't actually about privacy. It's about choosing which company/person you are going to give all your data too..

I just had to print out some bills for a colleague.
Nothing too bad you say?

Well.. She doesn't seem to care about security or privacy at all.
I opened the website of her email provider at my computer and moved away from the keyboard, so she could log in.
But instead she told me her email and password... In an office with some other colleagues... Multiple times and wrote it onto a piece of paper that the later left on my table.
After that I should look through her inbox to find the bills.
(Yup, I know a lot more about her now)
After finding and printing out her bills, she just thanked me and walked out of the office, because hey, why should I log out of her account?

It's nice that she trusts me... But that was a bit too much...

My Privacy vs Security poster won the Best Poster award at a National Level conference! :D

So a friend of mine saw that I used DuckDuckGo.

Friend: "why do you use ddg? it has bad results! "
Me:"because I care about privacy,google collects a ton of shit when you search."
Friend:"yeah I don't care I just want to game..."
Me: 😱🤷‍♂️😶

Most people think like that sadly...

> Open private browsing on Firefox on my Debian laptop
> Find ML Google course and decided to start learning in advance (AI and ML are topics for next semester)
**Phone notifications: YouTube suggests Machine Learning recipes #1 from Google**
> Not even logged in on laptop
> Not even chrome
> Not even history enabled
> Not fucking even windows
😒😒😒
The lack of privacy is fucking infuriating!
....
> Added video to watched latter
I now hate myself for bitting

Twitter: gib data plz
Me: What's in it for me?
Twitter: ... Balloon pictures?

Fuck off

Wanted to get the privacy site cms REST API ready for programming again but hadn't put it on gitlab yet.

After some nervous searching I found it again 😅

This weekend I hope to get very far :)

Fucking phone company just sent me a notification, CCing all other business customers they have in Sydney. I am going to sign all those customers to a porn newsletter, and then advise them about the privacy breach.

Guy using VPN:
why would anybody use tor unless he hides something?

Me (using Tor):
why would anyone use VPN unless he hides something?

In my opinion there is no difference in using Tor than in using VPN, it's all about privacy. I would consider Tor as an free alternative for your everyday privacy needs, if you can't afford VPN, or am I wrong?

Since I started caring about privacy so much my mom thinks that I have something to hide.

Hell yeah I have.

My biggest hurdle:
Having to install Windows because some old application only runs on Windows.
No, i do not want to sign in.
I AM SURE

Installer: How about signing in?

Edit: Now it asks me about privacy options. As if i even had a choice..

🤔🤔

All these 'We updated our privacy policy" mails remind me on how many (unnecessary) sites I am actually registered on...

This rant goes to my best friend.

Fuck you!

You do not fucking argue with people for doing what they like! So what if I want to use linux? What fucking problem does that make? Am I now a hacker fanboy for wanting to use a terminal instead of fucking pointing and clicking on shit like a monkey? Am I not allowed to want my privacy and free open-source? What? I shouldn't browse internet without getting my personal info stolen? Oh, they're tracking criminals? Then why don't you install a camera in your fucking living room so you can help them out? And don't fucking get me started on why I don't want to use Windows 10.

Fuck fucking fuck fuck. I know he's a good friend but this fucking shit gets my blood boiling.

So we send a quote out to a client to update his website to make it compliant with the new privacy guidelines: SSL encryption, removing external libraries, removing Facebook Plug-ins, all that stuff. We didn't get a response.

On Monday, he called in a panic. "The website does not work, fix immediately!"

I check out the server, what do I see? An SSL cert installed the Friday before... Client decided to do it himself, on a Friday, without testing. He broke something, but cannot tell me exactly what he did.

And somehow he thinks all that is my fault :D

So here's the story about a big Fuck up by a TRAI chief in India

He posted an open challenge on twitter:
"Here's my 12 digit Aadhar card (social security no for Indians) number. Show me if you can do any harm to me. "

And Twitter obliged, a French hacker aliased @fs0c131y (Elliot Alderson) took the challenge and he started posting his phone number, email, and other personal stuff on twitter.

Still the official thinks he's safe and no harm has been done to him! He openly says, "Even if you get my bank account no what can you do?"

"I have nothing to hide."

I admit, I did utter these disgraceful words once. But I now take privacy seriously.

What is really sad and potentially dangerous is the fact that younger people do not give a fuck about privacy. Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram - these people use these apps and do not pay ANY attention to what might be the consequences of their actions.

The more data they own, the more they own you. We should start a privacy basics course in high school. Things could get out of hand in the future, as if they already aren't.

So apparently my university is doing a privacy promotion event... if only I had the time to go..

With the recent mark zuckerberg hearing, a ton of websites have actually changed their privacy policies and terms of service, to be much more transparent, so it did have a good impact, but the thought that it took that, to implement those changes is infuriating

I've been reading a lots of posts about the "Age of No Privacy" and how our most personal information is spread and abused.
Well, obviously those complaining didn't have the displeasure of being born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family.
I had a small medical procedure, and my entire family (spread across 4 continents) became aware of it, created a WhatsApp group to discuss it (with message traffic that would shame any war room), and then my younger cousins asked that we post photos.
Of what?! My fucking colon? How about I stream the whole process live on Facebook, you crazy little shits?!
My point is - we violate the privacy of our close friends and loved ones daily, giving very little thought to what sort of information should or should not be forwarded. I'm not opposing to the battle against great evils, but maybe we should start by not committing small evils daily.

Discussed my Internet privacy campaign - Google-free, encryption where possible, didn't even mention VPNs - with 2 people and they've both asked, "why, what are you hiding?"

Update on my quest for encryption!

For the (large number) people that don't know, I want to use encryption for (almost) everything / actually give a shit about internet privacy... And I want it done by 2018.

So.. here is my progress so far:

I have signal
I now have an @tuta.io email.
I have a complex, long password.
I am using blankslate.io instead of Google docs (except for school)
I run important stuff through Tor or a VPN or both
I have a firewall running on Android.

Any more suggestions on what to do or things to change??

(@linuxxx)

Keeping your Webcam ON would help us preserve your privacy.
Thanks for Cooperating :)

LinkedIn description "Privacy enthusiast"

What the fuck is privacy?

-Facebook (2004-present)

Privacy

This rant has been one that I've been wanting to rant about for a while now. Me being drunk as fuck right now (mind, stay awake!) doesn't really help, but meh.
At least Wanblows was able to install its "features" properly... Except it wasn't, being the featureful ShitOS it is.

I want to rant about privacy. Not about "nothing to hide, nothing to fear". That's been ranted about plenty by the MIcroshaft-loving folks as well as the privacy-aware opposition. Rather, I'd like to rant about the privacy-concious.

I am a privacy-concious-person, with his current status quo being that he doesn't yet know a privacy-concious solution to every data-intrusive "common solution" out there. So I tend to value privacy next to De Lijn while sharing location data to Google with Google Maps. Point is, I do not know privacy-concious solutions to everything out there yet. So I use the convenient over the privacy-aware.
(after review while drunk I was unable to make sense of this)

In the privacy-aware circles I tend to see that it seems to be black and white. You share your data with Google, yet you oppose data collection by local institutes? WRONG!!! YOU MUST BE A TINFOIL HAT!!!
No, seriously I don't want to share my data with Google. Just that they're the only realtime navigation platform with decent UI out there that I know of right now.

Privacy isn't all black and white here. I block any intrusion that I'm able to, anything else I abide to, while awaiting a good alternative that does respect my privacy which I would gladly use instead. That does not imply that "I have nothing to hide". I do, and I have a lot to hide.

So that makes up the black and white nature of privacy, which is a fallacy. Another one is the whole idea of "I have nothing to hide" to begin with.

If you have nothing to hide, would you be comfortable with sharing your location data (IP address, habits, common trends, etc) with me? To share your information with me, to have your contacts share your info with me, without your consent? Of course you wouldn't. But that's what's happening right now.

To register for Facebook's hacker cup.

Fuck you 1:
I need a Facebook account

Fuck you 2:
I need to enter my address and phone number mandatorily. Because they'll send me a t shirt if I win one. It's not like anyone would not win a t shirt or not want one right? So fucking slurp away at all their privacy data any way.

Here's my address for you facebook

No 666, fuck you street, privacypolis, fuckington offville.

Wow! Google's update in its privacy policy is impressive. Still too lazy to read it though. I trust Google. LOL

Introducing. Snapchat privacy invasion. You can see where your added friends are if they do not disable it (enable ghost mode).
Good job :)

Pulled this from a web site's privacy policy. Remember, just because there's a switch doesn't mean anyone has to abide to that rule.

Browser “Do Not Track” Signals:  Most browsers contain a “do-not-track” setting.  In general, when a “do-not-track” setting is active, the user’s browser notifies other websites that the user does not want their personal information and online behavior to be tracked and used, for example, for behavioral advertising.  As required by recent Shine the Light law amendments we are required to inform you that, as is the case with most websites, we do not honor or alter our behavior when a user to one of our Websites has activated the “do-not-track” setting on his/her browser.

Wow, this is so on point.
Credits: SMBC

my mum just sent me a picture of her and my long time no see cousin from US over WhatsApp. Short time after that, Facebook sent me a friend proposal of a girl from US I don't know - obviously it was my cousins girlfriend because she had a profile picture with him. My cousin doesn't have Facebook.

WTF?!

so what Facebook did must have been some face analysis of the picture my mum sent me over WhatsApp and compared my cousins face with profile pictures from friends of my friends to send me the proposal I got.

this is so fucking scary! I immediately thought of @linuxxx security blog and how my usage of such software affects the privacy of others besides me being transparent as fuck.

Definitely have to rethink my software choices and app/online behaviour!

Last week I sent a pic of Nestle Crunch chocolate to my friend in Whatsapp. Today he told me that he got an ad in Instagram for Nestle Crunch!! Holy crap!
We were trying to figure out how did it happen because we never discussed about the chocolate other than that image. Then I realized that Whatsapp and Instagram was owned by the same fucking company - Facebook!!!

I've stopped using Facebook, Instagram for a very long time and I have ad blockers on every electronic device I touch. So I never understood the gravity of people losing shit over privacy, until today. This indeed is creepy and it hit me real hard. I'm now reading all rants with "privacy" tags and methods to harden my devices to repel from those buggers.

Fuck GoDaddy man... Paid extra for the privacy feature thinking I wouldn't get harassed by phone. Think again! Got tons of calls from India in two days. What a rip off...

I guess they're selling our info or something...

What service do you guys use? I want to move my domains, any recommendation?

'I have nothing to hide'

in the last 20 hours i have heard this lie three times from three different people.
I just don't understand them. Everytime the topic privacy comes up (a lot of the times it isn't even me who starts talking about it) they I say this.

Would you want someone following you at all times, looking through your window, recording everything you say and writing all the information he gets about you into a notebook, potentially selling this information to others?
I really hope that you don't want this.

Privacy is a human right and it should stay that!

Privacy is a part of freedom and while freedom may be pretty difficult to define, privacy should always be a part of it.

On the bright side, with all these privacy update emails, it has given me a chance to unsubscribe from all the shitty newsletters that I subscribed loooong back and to delete unwanted spam accounts that I don't use anymore.

Thanks GDPR!

Fuck I hate bloated app permissions but I guess todo lists that know who you most likely to chat to when taking a dump is what we get for demanding everything for free. I get why Snapchat wants so much, I just find it fucking ironic that this is from a company that founded itself on the concept of privacy 🤦‍♂️

I wont take privacy laws seriously as long as my pizza delivery service needs a fucken phone number as mandatory field.

Me half a year ago: I want to work at Google one day.

Me now: I want to get more privacy and to get rid of all Google / non private services.

Right now I am trying to switch to signal but it's hard to convince my friends, which also use Instagram Facebook and Snapchat to use signal because they don't give a fuck about privacy and can't be bothered to install an app which taks less time to setup than a fucking Facebook account.

Woohoo finally got a real VPN!

I'm conducting a workshop in my Uni's tech fest
"Intro to deepweb and internet privacy"
And I made this poster.. I'm decent with Photoshop

People who are cribbing about privacy e-mail bombardment because of GDPR, why did you sign up on so many porn sites?

I feel I should open a github repo, for people to contribute privacy policy parts into, have say folders like "google analytics" and then whenever people encounter those in the wild, add examples there, so people could fetch together a full privacy policy for free, as all those new cashgrab websites are just fucking insane. But I am not really sure, if that would find any contributors tbh sadly.

P.S: I seem to have developed now a third sense, when the devrant post cooldown is down, so I can rant more lol, because whenever I feel like posting the thought or rant, the cooldown is just about to expire

Oh come on... Does even ecosia need to craft their truth. First party trackers aren't that better than third-party...
At least there is only one url to block. Easy.

!rant

tl;dr at the bottom

This might not be a popular opinion, so please, if you throw things at me, limit yourselves only to tomatoes and other soft projectiles. Thank you!

So this being said, i must say ut: i actually like how facebook use this data overall. While i am completly against privacy violation, that data is given up by ourselves with a choice to do it, so we can't hand them for it. However, i think the fact that we got ads for what our interests are is quite awesome! For example because of this i found webcomics and artists i curently hold really high in my praises and this might not have been the case if FB had another business model.

This being said, i just think people should focus on problems more important than how social media manages to earn some bucks, and while is our choise to be part of that we can't simply call ourselves "products". History holds many stories about civilization that gaved no choice if you wanted or not to be a product so we could be at least glad it is not the case anymore.

Anyway, if you read all the way down here, tnaks for your time!

TL;DR: Facebook is no holy church but it actually not so bad, we can find things we get to love or actually needed in the first place in their targeted adds system. At least we have a choice to be part of this or not!

So the US Congress decided that the online privacy of it's citizens do not matter. What steps do you guys take to maintain your privacy ? I can't even convince my friends to stop using fb messenger and move onto Signal.

Hello No!!!

Thats good enough to know that personal data is collected.

Privacy....

About a month ago I had looked up SMS gateway services.

I had checked out twilio few times then.

Today this happened. Coincidence? I think not.

@dfox @trogus Hi, I was just wondering how to find the privacy policy? If I am missing it, sorry!

My question is about who owns the rants. It doesn't matter either way, I am just curious.

Today I had to give the privacy speech to my family as to why I don't want to use WhatsApp (where my family has a group discussion). It was pretty difficult in the beginning because they used a lot of the "You shouldn't care if you have nothing to hide." rethoric.

But in the end most of them understood my point of view, and I even got my aunt to install Signal to try it out. I have hope that some day all of our family discussions will be completely private.

I don't understand privacy advocators.

Am I the only one who wouldn't give up practicality in exchange for "potentially more secure"?

I don't understand so much what the deal is with people who avoid Facebook, or don't trust Google or Microsoft, just in the basis of "privacy" or "security".

Websites tracking you to serve ads? Well, it's pointless because I very rarely buy something from the internet or let myself be influenced, ads are waste of time, just use an adblocker.

I can pretty much upload my whole life or documents on Google drive, even if I made it public no one would really care or read it all. It's like that GitHub project you uploaded but never documented, so no one cares. I usually use alternative software not because of "privacy" but because it has features other software doesn't have.

In reality you realize people aren't that interested in your life more than their own life.

Recently I flashed Android 9 (Pie) on my Nexus, but to this day I still haven't logged into Google from it. One reason is because I don't know my password and I didn't git clone my password store yet (where it's contained). Another reason is because I want to reclaim my privacy and not be a data battery for a Matrix of convenience that feeds itself with my personal information. Eh, it sorta works out I guess. Yalp is an amazing alternative to the Play Store, and even offers its own shadow accounts to use along with Google Play.

One problem though, while I've noticed that I could log in with my own account to get all my premium apps (couple hundred euros worth, so not easy to just discard) it apparently violates Google Play's ToS to do so from a third-party app. So I'm a bit hesitant to do that. Do you know of any viable alternative way to preserve my privacy yet install, keep and have validated those premium apps? I could download them from e.g. BlueStacks and export the apk's, but that'd be tedious and wouldn't be able to get those apps validated on my phone unless I log into Google there as well (which kinda defeats the purpose). Any suggestions?

I'm really loving Facebook's new design standards they fit so well their latest marketing and rebranding pipe dream to be viewed as a company that respects privacy.

They don't have to protect your info if you can't submit it 😂

So enlighten me here. Am I the only one that doesn't lose his absolute shit when it comes to privacy?
I know that some companies are collecting data, and to a certain extent, I'm fine with it as long as the trade-off is good.
I like that Google is "learning" who I am and what I like, cause now, I only see news and articles relevant to my interests, and search predictions are much better. Same with targeted Ads. On an off chance that I'm not using Adblock I like seeing products that I might like, which I otherwise probably wouldn't even know existed.
Except for Microsoft. I have no idea why, but that's where I draw the line.

Say what now

Hmm, I find it highly peculiar that I let a friend borrow my pc to watch stranger things on Netflix, with her account.

I signed her into the guest account, she picked Google Chrome (not signed in).

Now my Facebook feed and YouTube adds are all about stranger things..

I get the ip gets logged & mapped.. But srsly.

Start to read the book from Jaron Lanier "Who owns the Future". And suddenly realize that the company which offering us "free services" is trying to build a superior model of machine learning and read all of our behaviour.

Thus, i start to logout my facebook, twitter, instagram and all of my social media. But, i'm not the lucky one who could fight this "selling data practices", because I still use devices with "Android OS". My privacy stolen & sold is inevitable. What a Digital Life!

Okay so today I opened a link to buy a screen for my Raspberry pi on my phone(Chrome browser) and was simultaneously using FB on my Laptop in mozilla.

And that very moment I had ads on FB to but that screen.

Now I know it's nothing new, but at the moment of realization it just felt so creepy.

Privacy literally doesn't exist anymore!

Watch a privacy video. See how Google use all your datas. Switch on DuckDuckGo. Feel private. Can't find how to go home drunk. Switch to google.

If you need 10TB of User data to make a marketing strategy, you might be in the wrong business. When I was young we used our imagination to make good marketing ;-P

So this guy (lecturer in some other uni) has his files and notes set up, so it throws stuff into your google drive when you click on them and shares them with you. Now, I wouldn't mind that except for the sneakiness of his way to find out other people's emails, and the fact that now he knows my burner email address.

What is it about privacy that cannot register with some people? if your shit is "public" then you shouldn't try to find out who accessed it. it's like asking a background check for selling tomatoes. FFS.

Fuck this shit! Roommate just barged in at 3:30AM, his gf in tow. They went to bed like I am not here and he is snoring like a chainsaw. I never understood how can she sleep next to him while he snores like that. I have earplugs and active noise cancelling headphones on. I can still hear that motherfucker loud and clear. How the fuck is she not awake?!

But more importantly, 50% of this fucking room is mine, what makes him think he can just have his girlfriend over while I am here is beyond me. Like, sure, if I am not here go ahead but when I am here I would like some privacy, I guess the plank wall that I made in the middle of the room is not an obvious enough clue that I want privacy and I don't want to be disturbed :-/

Can't wait to have enough proof of his bullshit to get the block manager to throw him out.

Edit: To add to the snoring problem: I had a girlfriend who would snore, less than my roommate but still loud enough that I was awake the whole night when I went to sleep at her place... I HATE SNORING ... And when I went home for some holidays and my brother snored even for a second I kicked him off of his bed (because why not, he is an asshole to me like 99% of the time - and so am I to him :D //sibling love//)

starting to use everything on Incognito, with a VPN, and (thinking) of switching to TOR.
a heck of a privacy that will be, but the cost of the Speed(Bandwidth) will be terrible.

I’m not an Apple fan boy but I do use their products and respect their business ethos.

I was please when I saw this as part of my software update today.

Before the haters start hating, if you use a google device or use Facebook then you already don’t have a leg to stand on.

My app's privacy policy!

I made a New Year's Resolution to take more of an interest in my Internet privacy. Feel like it's something I should have done a long time ago. I've stopped using Google search (DuckDuckGo instead), moved away from my Gmail account (Tutanota instead) and stopped using Chrome (Firefox/Firefox Focus instead). I've had my Gmail account since they first announced it and you could only sign up if someone invited you. It felt good to delete 7000 emails and what I estimate must have been 13-14 years of Google/YouTube searches. Currently experimenting with VPNs, considering paying for ProtonVPN soon.

Wtf! I was talking to my SO over the phone about House, the TV series, and now all of a sudden my Instagram explore tab contains photos from House!!

!rant

Don't you just hate ignorance of others? I sure do. Don't you just hate when you try to tell someone something, but the person on the receiving end is like "Well, it's not my job, so I cannot relate, so I am not going to listen to you at all."

Now, let's talk about a little thing called PRIVACY. Whenever people ask me "Why do you not use Google Chrome, but you use firefox instead?" I always answer "Because it does not compromise your online privacy as much." But, those idiots never listen. The same goes with me being in favor of Unix-like systems such as MacOS and Linux. But they for some idiotic reason do not care for online privacy. They go for the "convenience". I know Google uses the data it collects to "help" you find better results. But the problem is is that you do not get a say in the choice that the algorithm chooses. Also, I know Google might say "Oh, we never look at your files and your information," and it is indeed true that most of the time when you try to research about the cons of Google using Google, only the pros of Google will pop up. Now, if I go onto DuckDuckGo or Bing or even Yahoo!, the results are going to be quite different. I have been using Gmail since about 2011. I have not switched because mainly of Youtube and because I have been using it for so long. True I have two other accounts, which are AOL and Hotmail, but I barely use them, and when I will be 100% concerned about my privacy, I am probably going to switch to AOL.

You might think that it is hypocritical of me to use Gmail, but have you ever tried switching from an email address that you have been using for years? It is hard. So I do the next good thing, and encrypt my emails whenever possible (GOD BLESS PGP). I know Google says that it itself encrypts the Emails itself, but, how can I trust such an advertisement monopoly? I mean, the encryption means nothing if they have the secret key, if needed, they'll just decrypt my email and read the fucking thing. That's why I have my own set of Public and Private keys, and I recommend you too encrypt your Emails, especially any sensitive data that you ever send. I am also buying a web camera cover, because I really do not trust the folks at the NSA and the CIA and all other 3 letter government agencies. But people always tell me "But how can I be significant to the government, I have nothing to hide," which is a fucking lie, EVERYONE HAS GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE.There cannot be freedom of speech if the government constantly sees what you're saying. I wish there were more people in the world like Snowden :/

F*cking morons complaining of privacy yet busy posting practically everything from pictures to finger prints and weird f*cking full details on social networks and some weird online places and platforms...😑🤕😤😤😤 (best safety, never go online)

To everyone freaking out about how bad Microsoft buying GitHub would be for "privacy". I want you to know that GitHub already uses Google and Facebook analytics on their site.

Shit, they're after me!

I want to switch to an encrypted email service. My question, what if the service provider suddenly decides to close down the email service.

I feel like it's too risky to move all my emails to them.

Been using Snapchat for a while.
But yesterday I uninstalled it. Since morning, while using YouTube, I've been getting advertisements to install Snapchat. Where is the privacy?

I start shaking and getting nervous when there is something I really, really want to say.

Today in school we started talking about Amazon Alexa and privacy.
This topic concerns me a lot and I started talking in front of the whole class about Google and things they do to spy on you. After about 30 seconds of me talking I started shaking because there was so much I wanted to say and with so much enthusiasm and also a bit of anger.

Just funny to see how a lot of campanies send emails because of their changed privacy policies.

Some explain it to you and are quite pleasing (e.g. Tapatalk), but most are quite neutal about it and add sugarcoated reasons for updating their policies (besides that they're forced by law).

Quite funny to watch how every coorp explains the same thing in their way.

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Maybe we can make this post into a collection of funny, weird or otherwise remarkable mails regarding this policy update.

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Image: Some of those mails and the content of the Tapatalk one:

maybe, that's a minor update to your policy, but it's a major update to my privacy. No, thanks.

"We value your privacy, that's why we want you to agree to all of these tracking cookies."

Fucking GDPR, is getting on my nerves now, can't go anywhere without encountering a cookie wall.

Wohoo, new signal update :D

Now signal has in my opinion everything you need for a messenger and isn't bloated with useless shit like status, etc.

When your boss wants to use the client's infos about it's clients without anyone's permission, and doesn't understand why it's against basic privacy laws

Is Signal the best messenger for privacy and security loving people?

God is always watching you!

Excuse me, but isn't that a violation of my privacy? Or is God, the NSA? Or is NSA, the God?

!Rant
The new bill passed the house for ISP to be able to sell data. This get me ticked off. I already ausme that ISP did it under the table. Doesn't make it right. Now it legal for them to breach our privacy. At what leave do i need to run my own internet just to feel safe. VPN can sell the data, ISP can sell data about you. I spend my life teaching how to protect people online and now I can't even say they are safe at home from someone with wrong intention. A quote​ comes to mind.
"Dear lord I need to see some change, because the man in the mirror is wearing a mask"
I shouldn't have to feel every time. I boot my PC, that I need to remind my self that what I'm doing now is being sold so someone can lable me. When will the common man learn to protect their privacy online; And where is the line in the sand?

It not all bad, this event has given me the itch to code. Just to spin some heads I'm going to make a script to make random Google query across the widest array of topics, so my profile is full of contradiction.

The few who read this have a nice day!

Ugh, all these mails about updated privacy policies really annoy me.

Luckily it'll be over soon.

ARGH!
Since that privacy cookie policy change thingy, every goddamn site pops up the dialog asking about it.

I just want to fucking read the page, quickly; get off my screeeeeeen!

There should be a standard to add something that lets the browser tell the page if you accept cookies or not, and which options to use; or at least make all the sites use a specific attribute for the elements of the div, so it can be automated (I know this is a dream).

I really like how there is something new everyday that you can do to protect your privacy even more 😄

So I went to take a look at Mozilla's "privacy not included" guide.
That's some good comedy right there, fucking rubber ducks that spy on you.
Jesus fucking christ

Salespeople telling clients "Your site doesn't need a privacy policy/cookie policy since you don't actually sell anything on your site."

Wrong wrong wrong WRONGITY WRONG WROOONNGGGG!!!!!

Client to PM to me: "Well Jim said we don't need those on this site."

Me: "Well Jim is misinformed, since we use Google analytics, Facebook Pixel, and contact forms, you need to have both a privacy and cookie policy."

PM to client: "We'll find you a template you can use to get started, it'll cover most of what you need."

Me to PM: "we will do no such thing, we can send them a few links explaining why they need these, but they should consult a legal professional and cover their asses for their own business practices. I can provide any technical details they may need like what data the cookies collect if necessary."

PM to me: "well I'll just find something for them then."

*In my head* please just go crawl in a hole and die.

Am I the only one who genuinely appreciates all the updated privacy policies and opt-in notices I'm getting? The GDPR seems like an unequivocally good thing, to me.

being a sheep over the last years I just recently started to overthink my software choices in terms of privacy. but hell it's far from easy!
just now I realize how dependent I am from all of these services. I mean no problem ditching Facebook for example, it's not essential to me. but what about WhatsApp and GoogleDrive? I'm using these services on a daily basis...
any advices on what software or providers to use alternatively? especially browser, messaging app, email provider and cloud service?
please keep in mind that although I am willing to bring sacrifices I by no means want to neither could live like Richard Stallman. so an argument like "sell your MacBook because macOS is spyware" is not that helpful to me - more like what can I do to increase my privacy within the boundaries given to me. I have to find some sort of compromise. so curious about your advices, stories and opinions right now!

Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" is a song that really defines my reason for caring for my privacy. The song was written before the PRISM controversy, but it perfectly describes the longing for privacy I have. Any people who love privacy should listen to that song.