This is an incredible resource and collection of information from what I can see initially. I'm going to give it a deeper read this weekend.

Thanks

this is wonderful! I'm collecting resources to teach just this topic at my local library in April, and I will be reading this carefully.

Would it be okay if I gave my classes a link to this awesome resource?

Very thorough guide. Will be sharing. Thankyou.

I think it's important to that you've split them up into manageable chunks. Not every single step is as easy as others for some people but it's great that breaking it down makes it seem like something anybody is capable of... rather than a massive and overwhelming undertaking.

that's a wrong issue to target imo. Data protection is mostly red herring and this is a long lost battle.

Real fight should be over who controls the information flow and fediverse fixes this much better than it fixes data privacy!

Thank you for this. My hacktober 2024 POC’d how aggressive unrestricted third party interference across cloud-sourced interdependencies can become.

End user’s compute and utilities exploited to hold their cloud data hostage while that same data is provided p2p as a content service - madness!

Literally watched tech giants revving their engines across my 8gbps hook up b4 my ability to countermeasure was trickled to 12 mbps.

Offense > Defense

Silence is defeat.

an excellently written well readable guide, thank you very much.
It is a great way to share with “less technical” people, because we must not leave them behind, but help them. And this is a good way to warm them up to the idea of reclaiming one’s own data.

Yes, it does not cover everything we internet nerds would like to talk about, but for most people, tech is just a tool to use, a means to an end, not something to spent a lot of time on (because it is often annoying).

Re VPNs: the article about VPNs repeats misleading privacy claims. Especially after explaining their actual purpose for secure networking. It also links an EFF article (ssd.eff.org/module/choosing-vp…) that explicitly highlights that:

"A VPN is not a tool for anonymity, and while it can protect your location from some companies, there are many other ways companies may track you, including GPS, web cookies , tracking pixels, or fingerprinting."

Far greater benefits can be achieved by HTTPS-only, script or ad blockers and encrypted DNS.

Anyhow, thanks for your hard work. I think this is a great learning resource and eye-opening for many people!

@Khrys ROFL you can skip around 😀

People here love their Alexa’s. It’s a cultural sign of being into tech and having an advanced home to have one. I have to gradually stage in the information and tips to the point where readers start to recognize more and more of their devices as working against them instead of for them. Which will make them more likely to leave or choose an alternative. ;)

Remember it’s not just a list of topics, it’s an educational programme aimed at everyday people who haven’t thought about tech like this before. And three weeks is still a short, short time.

@nazokiyoubinbou yes I can add that, but later on.

Remember I am staging people in, here. This isn’t a comprehensive list but an educational programme. I am aiming at people like my mom or my colleagues who don’t think about this stuff much and don’t know where to start. It starts out easy, then gets more intense as they build on what they learned.

@cygnusx11 @nazokiyoubinbou Excellent! That also means you are not the audience for this course 😀

The goal is to get people up to the level where they can consider your stack for their everyday computing. Please spread the news!

Thank you for doing this. 🙏

I usee Signal but unfortunaly I have to also use whatsapp as I live in Spain and that replaces the normal calls and sms. I used to use facebook up until 2016 for 8 years and felt it was going to go bad. I don’t use instagram nor x.

I would like to develop my coaching business without having to use those proprietary platforms..

Say, thanks for your effort putting this together. A very nice and tidy set to share.

One bit of feedback, regarding:
"Then spell your shipping address out creatively. Insert a part of the company's name as your middle name or initials. Misspell your last name, or your first. The post office is just looking at the address, not the addressee."

Results for this may vary between countries. Australia Post, for example, can be extremely pedantic if you have to collect a sign-for package from the post office.

I'm only through day 2 and I already love where this is headed! Thank you!

One little problem: there is an expired certificate on optoutproject.net (the www.optoutproject.net cert is fine.) I typed the address manually when shifting off my phone and got surprised by the warning.

Sensitive content Click to open/close

actively reading the thingy, very interesting but in this article linked in the posted article, one of the subheading says "turn off your adblocker", instead of "turn on your adblocker"
it confused me for a bit, but the rest seems much more detailed than what i used and it's nice to have all this in one spot!

How to: Shop Untraceably, Online

When I got pregnant in 2013 I started a dedicated Amazon account just for baby stuff. I set it up…

^{Janet Vertesi}

This is not to say that something being free means it must be "bad", or that something being at-cost means it must be "good". There are plenty of counterexamples to both of those.

But the basic question remains: How is whatever we are talking about paying for the costs of running it?

Because the money to pay for the costs must come from somewhere.

@cyberlyra @hwy2bell

Great writing! The last few years i have been conscious about my online life and have more or less been doing the things you've written about.

But this is a very good reminder to take it all the way.

Very interesting and this will be very useful.

I'm not sure I'd be recommending ProtonMail or Lastpass though given current and past events 😕