jitsi conference room server, or matrix chat server.
you could run an Oxen node for the Session onion messenger, or a relay for the SimpleX messenger. these are especially important things we need to reduce decentralized messenger dependence.
Thank you! uMatrix is a browser extension that makes it very easy to block any third party requests a website makes by category. For example, if example.com loads fonts from Google that is considered a third party request. Or if it tries to set a Facebook cookie. uMatrix shows a table (or a matrix) of all the request addresses and categories and you can click on them to block/allow them.
It doesn’t need to be maintained if it still works on the latest update of the browser. Also, uBlock is not a full replacement, if there will be a full replacement that is maintained, I’ll gladly switch
I think that’s a good setup. If you must have Facebook Messenger, my advice would be to maybe use a work profile for apps that track you. Compartmentalization is the key word here. Apps like Shelter make it really easy. I have to use WhatsApp and that is an app that is in the “unsafe” profile, aka work profile.
I have a question about the work profile: would it make sense to isolate the PlayStore too, as it‘s google? Because this is the main painpoint for me, as I cannot move to a custom rom with my phone currently
If you dont root that will Not be possible. Playstore is a key Feature of most Android Roms that ship with the phones. I run grapheneos. There i have Google Services disabled im my core Profile and have a separate Profile with Gplay. I know, that due to imei and other factors Google could easily track me possible but that’s Not my worry
Good rules of measure is to do public searches on yourself. See what’s in public databases, but to answer your question depends on who/what you consider big tech? And track
By track I mean collect information about me, my browsing habits, my interests. By big tech I really mean any company, but mostly the FANG ones. Could you provide some good resources on how to do these public searches? I assume you don’t just mean to look up my full name on Google.
Piped for desktop would be a better option for youtube imo, but really depends on which “Big tech company” you’re trying to hide from and what information do you want to share with them. For example, Google probably has your ip tied to your gmail account, which has whatever information you used, since you didn’t use a vpn when first creating it. Also unless you disabled the bloatware via adb that came with your xiaomi device some other third party company may also have your ip and whatever info you inputted into those apps, if at all. Again just depends on what you want so your setup might be fine.
Edit: if wanting to protect from google then your mobile device is the biggest issue. Getting an always on vpn is a must (look at proton or mullvad), remove your personal account and create a burner with fake info and use something like aurora store with that burner account should help a lot. Would be really inconvenient if you still use your personal gmail account so maybe before doing anything start migrating to a different email provider
Edit 2: if protecting from meta then facebook messenger is the biggest issue. Getting an always on vpn that comes bundled with protection from trackers/ads (mullvad and proton i think does this) maybe your best choice unless you want to recreate your account and lose all of your contacts/messages which would be really inconvenient. So just treat facebook messenger like a public forum and dont give up too much info. If its possible maybe use a hardened browser, like mull +ublock, instead to use facebook messenger again if thats possible
My goal is to reduce the information collected about me (increase my privacy) as much as possible and at the same time keep as much of my convenience as possible. I’m not sure how much of an effect this has, but I never used any of the Xiaomi bloatware apps, because when you first open any of them you have to agree to their terms & conditions and when I tap disagree the apps just close (even the calculator, for example). Piped sounds like an interesting thing I should look into, I keep seeing it being mentioned everywhere. But I would assume that if there is a way to login to my account to get all my subscriptions and recommendations the privacy aspect will still be heavily compromised.
Havent personally created an account with piped since I like to limit accounts where ever possible but I believe you create an account with the piped instance that you choose so you dont login to your google account at all. You’ll have to do a google takeout iirc inorder to get a copy of your youtube subscription which you can then import.
I think the only option going with VoIP: I just made a quick search for VoIP services that accept XMR and found this: cryptwerk.com/companies/voip/xmr/
I don’t know any of these services so DYOR but I think you should be able to find something pretty solid (depending on your threat model of course). Overall I don’t know if going non KYC is even possible. However if you should find a way would you mind sharing your experience with us?
If in the states, fake info plus a prepaid carrier should work, right? Havent brought a sim in a bit but you should be able to just buy one in a drugstore with cash or has that changed
Edit: should go without saying but I would also opt for a carrier that offers totp as a 2fa method
In A LOT of places this is not legal. At least where I live, you can get a “gray” sim registered to another person, but idk how much you can rely on one. And you have to search around for them.
Edit: also knew a guy who was using jmp.chat for a number.
Yeah, but many European countries have moved to require registration of prepaid cards “to stop criminals” or something like that. So you can still usually buy them with cash and whatever, but you won’t be able to activate or use it until you confirm your identity.
Firefoxes strict settings are okay but not perfect, have a look at librewolf for an easy solution, or my Arkenfox softening tool to modify arkenfox to be easy to use.
Did you debloat your xiaomi phone already? May help with some things, but of course not much, but
do you have google play services enabled?
what keyboard do you use
what mobile browser
Facebook messenger is cancer as its unencrypted afaik, so they read everything. Poor you.
An adblocking dns is good, do you have android tracking blocklists, to make xiaomi phones usable? But to be fair, samsung is way worse
Try shelter and isolate all these bad apps and disable them when not needed
I hadn’t thought about the keyboard! I use SwiftKey (which I now realise is a terrible choice) from way back before I started caring about my privacy. Do you have any good recommendations? The main thing I need is the three word suggestions to have dictionaries for multiple languages. I use Firefox on mobile as well, with pretty much the same settings and uBlock. I’m not sure what you mean by having Google Play services enabled, as I did say I use the store. Is there a way to use it and have the services disabled? Won’t that mess with banking apps? Also not sure what you mean by android tracking blocklists, but I think my dns blocks ads and tracking. I also don’t get any ads in system apps like settings for example. Tbh, I am a little afraid of debloating as I tried that ages ago on a Sony M5 and after uninstalling the apps, my phone started running insanely hot and slow. I had to put it right next to the air conditioner to be able to use it, reinstalled all the apps and the problem went away :D
NextDNS has presets to block OS tracking, this is different from just Ads. Any DNS with variable blocklists can use these. There is a windows one, but not sure about Xiaomi.
You dont need google services to use Aurorastore. It works currently.
Also try creating a shelter profile and then disabling the play services using adb in the main one with
Google play services spy on everything with privileged permissions (all) as they are system apps. On GrapheneOS you can install them as regular user apps, and they still work.
I recommend Mull from F-droid instead of firefox. Try adding my custom addon collection:
Its default settings are not perfect, you can theme it OLED black which is nice, it has an internal clipboard with the action bar for “mark all” “copy” “crop” “paste” “delete last entry” “show history” and even cursors. Its brilliant for privacy as its internal clipboard cant be seen by apps if you disable “sync to system”
It doesnt have autocomplete and after a quick rise and development its very rarely developed anymore. But I dont miss anything, just autocomplete and maybe Sayboars Speech to text would be nice addons
Been using it for over a year now. The clients were a bit ropey for awhile but they’re great now.
As for trust, only you can really answer that, but they tick all the right boxes for me - I can pay in a way that preserves my privacy, everythings open source and E2EE, they have good policies.
i looked over their linked.in profiles, COO and CEO seem to know each other from their time in college. Both are newcomers; looks like a nice startup. Their advisor is a professor from their school, Norbert Pohlmann, who is also chairman of TeleTrusT. Seems pretty legit from my perspective.
Signal will force you into using an Android or iOS mobile device—no alternatives—and you couldn’t have 2 Android devices (like a tablet, e-reader). You are forced to have a SIM card which gives away part of your identity. Servers are centralized & closed-source (closed for 2 years, rewritten history)—so did the NSA force in a backdoor? …We may never know. On Android, by default notifications are sent thru Google Service’s Firebase (fork Molly supports UnifiedPush now tho). The ToS is questionable with “don’t break the law” language.
Your ideal chat would be free software, P2P or federated+self-hostable servers, E2EE, & the only required personal info you share is your account ID (no phone or email).
You’d think Matrix fits the bill, but its high system requirements (especially storage) & majority Matrix.org mean defacto centralization around an org that controls the spec, the largest server, reference server, & most popular client.
What you are looking for is good ol’ XMPP with OMEMO or PGP set to required in all clients. Its server options run on a toaster, has years of smart engineering & open governance guiding the project, & being extensible by nature, means it’s not purely limited to chat/conferencing. XMPP appears to be the common chat option on the dark web for a reason. You can use gateways to puppet accounts on these untrustworthy networks too (such as messlidger to puppet Facebook Messenger is needed, but also Signal, Telegram, etc.).
Alternatively, Briar & its ilk are gotos, but P2P has some downsides (brains your battery hard on Android).
XMPP sounds like a good idea, however, switching to Signal and convincing the 3 contacts I have there to switch as well wasn’t very easy and I don’t think I could pull it off again in the near future.
If they’re one-time use, how does that work with accounts that require that number to stay attached to your account and use it as two-factor authentication?
1000000088There’s this “resend” button on the site I guess but I don’t know, I’ve never tried. I usually just use a number for a one time verification.
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