Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 4 years ago
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I am looking for a laptop (or a tablet with attachable keyboard) that does not come with or allows for physically removing/disabling/destroying of all wireless connectivity hardware. Something cheap, around 200€ would be nice. I would only use this device for word processing, file management, and creating backups on LUKS encrypted drives. Should be able to run gnu-linux.

The closest thing I was able to find was the pinebook by pine64.org, which has killswitches for wifi and bluetooth. Sadly, these are controlled through software and not through a hardware switch.

Does anyone know of a cheap device with hardware killswitches, or a device that allows removing/destroying wifi and bluetooth components on the motherboard (without breaking)?

EDIT 1:

I am looking to buy a new device, not used, and with good enough performance to run a modern desktop environment such as gnome, kde, or cinnamon.

EDIT 2:

Following the advice of some commenters here, I have looked for models that I like, and tried to find a image/video of the motherboard. So far, every motherboard that I could get an image/video of, had the wifi/bluetooth chip soldered onto the motherboard. If anyone knows a brand that offers cheap laptop with modular mainboards, please let me know.

EDIT 3:

Some people here suggested buying an old ThinkPad. I checked for newer models made by the same company ("Lenovo"), and according to their hardware manual, the "IdeaPad" model also allows removing the wifi card, just like the ThinkPad did.

Here is a link to the manual for anyone who is interested (see page 43): https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles_pub/ideapad_1_hmm.pdf

This solution will work well for my use case and budget. Thanks you all for the advice.

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I am currently doing a deep dive into whether or not Chromium is more secure than Firefox, and I will make a very long and comprehensive Lemmy post outlining my findings with specific sources. I expected this to take a few days, maybe a week, but after finding out many of the claims for both sides give no real sources, I expect this to take a month or longer. I will be reaching out to multiple first-party sources (Mozilla, GrapheneOS, etc.) to get their detailed statements on the matter. I want to provide something that actually covers the full picture of the issue with up to date sources, to hopefully put this to rest for anyone who doesn't want to do the research.

I'm making this post in case anyone wants to provide any extra resources they have about the issue. Do not fight about this issue in the comments, save that until after I am able to release my work. I'm tired of the constant back and forth about this with little to no direct sources. This means that my other project, Open Source Everything, will be put on pause. The FAQ section of that very project is what sparked this, because I realized the issue was far more complex than I outlined in there. (Don't trust the information in the FAQ just yet: it is still in the works.)

As always, don't just give blind support to this just because I am making promises, but if you feel your support is needed then by all means go for it.

If any of you want me to turn this post into an update log, let me know and I will.

DISCLAIMER: These update logs are NOT meant to be taken as a source. I am generalizing a lot of things here for simplicity and brevity, so do not try to pick it apart. Anything I say here is likely a summary of something that will be talked about in fine detail in the article, and so it may contain mistakes.

Update 1

I need to stop posting before bed, since I end up not being able to respond to drama quickly and it grows out of proportion. Anyways, I want to answer a few questions that keep popping up (maybe I'm obsessed with writing FAQs, I don't know) and then talk about my research process.

Google Chrome is NOT the same as Chromium

This is something I already have a draft to write about in my article, because a lot of people mess up the distinction. Google Chrome is Google's proprietary "en-Googled" browser. That browser obviously has numerous privacy issues. What I am referring to in the article is what Google Chrome was built off of: Chromium. Chromium is open source (or source available, or something like that. Please stop trying to remind me of the difference, "open source" gets the point across). Many browsers such as Brave were built on top of Chromium. Many users in the privacy community use Chromium-based browsers. Chromium is mainly maintained by Google, but I will not be focusing on that since I am taking a look at the actual software and not any future problems that may arise.

I'm summarizing things here, but I will go in depth in a section of my article about this, since a lot of people are still stuck on the mindset that Google is always evil. It is true that Google is bad with privacy, but they are good when it comes to security. They have to be, given that Chromium-based browsers and Android are the most used in their respective fields. Any privacy issues can be nullified with some projects like ungoogled-chromium or GrapheneOS which remove any privacy invasive Google components. Anything Google tries to sneak in doesn't get past those projects, like a safety net, because they take very close inspection of the code.

Security vs. Privacy

Security and privacy are two distinct topics with some overlap. As I mentioned above, any privacy issues can be dealt with by using some variants of the software. Because of this, my article will focus primarily on how secure these browsers are. I do understand that security and privacy can go hand in hand: Without security there is little privacy, and without privacy there is little security. However, that is all out of the scope of what I am researching here. The reason a lot of projects such as GrapheneOS recommend against Firefox browsers (especially on Android) is because they claim Firefox has weak site isolation. That is the main point of research for my article. If I can prove that those claims are true, I can demonstrate why it is such an issue. If I can prove that those claims are false, I can try to see if Firefox is more private than Chromium, and is therefor a better option. There will be other related ideas that will crop up that will be covered in the article, that I will research about. The broad hypothesis is "Chromium is more secure than Firefox" and it is my job to find out why people say that and investigate it.

Also, many users talked about ad blocking and the recent removal of Manifest V2, which killed a lot of Chromium ad blockers. This is not the focus of the article, but let me remind you that using a browser such as Brave lets you block ads entirely. Brave is the only other browser recommended by the GrapheneOS project for its security, besides Vanadium. Yes, Brave has some bloat that can infringe on privacy, but those can be disabled. Don't forget that Brave is open source, so you are free to make a fork of it and remove whatever you'd like. The point is this: Both Chromium and Firefox both still have ad blocking, so this is a non-issue.

Who am I?

@dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml

https://lemmy.ml/post/21367269/14283651

first off, I have serious doubts that any one dude - or even a group of those for that matter - can ascertain the security of such a complex system; a browser is essentially an operating system, with all the layers and complexities that entails.

even if you're somewhat successful in such an endeavor, I don't really care if it potentially is. chromium comes from those shitmakers and I'm not willingly using anything they had their nasty fingers in. they threw one shovel of shit too many on the heap and they are now forever on my ignore list. if that means that I don't get to access certain domains, sites, and/or apps - so be it, I'll make do without.

@echolalia@lemmy.ml

https://lemmy.ml/post/21367269/14283932

Are you a single person or a group of people? Do you have any credentials that you'd like to share that might give some context to your research?

Where is the quote in your bio from?

I could leave some cryptic retrospective answer here, and I would love to, but as fun as that would be it may cause more harm than good. I am an independent, singular person. If I were in your shoes, I too would doubt that any one person could research the intricacies of the matter. However, I don't need to look over every piece of code to make a conclusion. The main focus of the article, as I said, is site isolation. This is what most people reference when they talk about Chromium being "more secure" than Firefox. I already addressed the other argument about Chromium being "evil," as there are other projects that aim to remove some of the damage that has been done. Readers of my article will need to let down their precedent of Chromium being as bad as Google, and realize that Google is bad for privacy but good for security.

If by "credentials" you mean actual identification, no. Even if I told you exactly who I was, you still would have no idea who I am. However, I can give you some of my background: I am advanced in the privacy field, proof of this can be seen with my other project. I used to work as a penetration tester for a low ranking government branch, focusing on network and website security. I am fluent in Python and C++, so I can understand a lot of the code that has been written. I hope that gives you context into who I am and what I do. I guess I could also mention I like to keep high standards, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I want the article to be nothing short of extremely thorough and comprehensive.

The quote in my bio “Unjust laws only burden the just, as the lawless will not heed them.” is my own (hence why I put "- 8232" there). I have other quotes, but that one is my favorite.

How is the research going?

I didn't quite know where to start, but eventually I settled for this: I have three notes. One is for questions I have (e.g. "What is site isolation?") that I put answers under as I find them. This means I will never be trying to fill in the gaps without sources in the article. I'll have a well informed knowledge of everything. The next note is for all the sources about the issue, categorized into "Primary," "Secondary," and "Unverified" (when there is no source listed for the claim). The last notebook is people. This one contains people and groups who know about the issue that I may get statements or help from for the article. That is all I have right now, because I needed some sleep. I plan to add a "To-Do" note, some various drafts, and a list of documents about the issue. I'll keep this updated.

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submitted 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by geography082@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
 
 

When the iPhone 15 came out, I felt the pressure to upgrade, so I bought the standard model with 128 GB. I'm now experiencing the limitations of their ecosystem, which closed as dolls ass. I'm looking to sell my iPhone 15 and buy two Android phones for myself and my wife. If I could get some extra cash out of it, that would be a nice bonus. I'm not concerned with the fancy cameras or features. I just want something I can manipulate to be private and also install whatever I want, use the common apps everyone uses with no issues, stream movies and TV shows. My main concern is that most phonew from well-known brands, their Android OS are almost as disappointing as Apple products. I think it would be better to get a phone with hardware that is well-suited to a custom Android OS that is well-maintained and known for being reliable, and with a focus on privacy and not bloated. Thank you in advance for your help.

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is surfshark's 'nexus' thing any good? do other vpn providers have a similar thing that gives you new ip for every link/webpage you click?

at the end of this video guy talks about it https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=uSGVk2KVokQ

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it is a concern to me because there is no plan to do security audit despite people asked about ti in the past.

https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/8392

https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/4968

Not in their roadmap

https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/918

people had concerns about the company:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rustdesk/comments/11nu94y/is_rustdesk_a_scam/

As HN: RustDesk Installs Chinese Root Certificates

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39256493

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i was talking with my brother about removing your phone number form social media accounts but on some websites when you remove the phone number it stays in the history logs on your account (instagram)

is this legal for a website to keep your number in the logs when you deleted it from the account?

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hi i have been looking for a extension that replaces the yt embeds with privacy friendly front ends do they exist i couldnt any its all redirect?

Edit: libredirect has it 🤦‍♂️

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Is it ok? Is there something else you recommend instead? I tried nextcloud talk and it was pretty bad. Jitsi was ok but self hosting it looked complicated. FOSS only, of course.

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Netguard "blocks" the internet on selected app making it not able to access the internet. But it uses VPN to do it? Can the VPN see every requests made by the blocked apps?

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LinkedIn will be using information shared on the platform to train AI models. Make sure you opt out in the settings (should you believe that the opt-out option is legit).

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As in, would they be able to access your server?

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Once the onion network is established, I would like to run yt-dlp, however, I am hit by the error message saying no connection is established.. same goes to other software I use.

how can i dothat?

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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Charger8232@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
 
 

TL;DR: I accidentally deleted the old repository with 107 stars, and have moved the project to GitLab because GitHub requires a paid account to recover deleted repositories. I take full responsibility for this, it was an extremely stupid mistake on my part. I deeply apologize for the inconvenience. I understand if this damages the trust in the project.

I appreciate all the support you all have given towards the project, it truly means a lot to me! For those of you who bookmarked the repo, please update it to the new GitLab page which will now be actively maintained.

If you don't know what Open Source Everything is, see my original post. It's my own curated list of open source software.

Update: GitHub was able to restore the repository! Special thanks to Seve from GitHub Support for bending the rules a bit. GitLab will still be the primary place where the repository is hosted.

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I wanna make more of myaccounts in the internet secure with two factor. I don't know much about it, but found out about Fido 2 and so. The security key my webbrowser shows often is the one from Yubico (BTW, I would like to get one that works with Linux, with USB and for phone with NFC) I got concerned when I noticed that Yubico is from USA, (??) Because I think NSA and thibgs like five eyes and so. Is there actually a risk that the for example is made an backdoor in the key?

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Automatic calendar synchronisation with no server and no cloud?

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First time this happens to me. With a German protonvpn server.

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I'm wanting to run my own SimpleX chat server and set up a Monero node as well.

Can this be done on the same machine? I was considering getting a mini PC to do this so it wouldn't be too much of an issue with it being always on.

Or should I take a different approach and set up both separately on two different machines like a raspberry pi or something?

As I'm sure you can tell I don't have a lot of experience with self hosting anything but want to get into it to help strengthen the networks of these communities I care about.

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Mozilla Firefox itself and all Mozilla Firefox forks should be updated accordingly once a new build is released.

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nsfwyoutube.com works, but invidious doesnt, good replacement?

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