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I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

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Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#31

Post by pferde »

mirimir wrote: post #29
Yizahi wrote: post #23

It is impossible to hide from big corporate. People tried (1). There is no was to block all tracking unless you go full luddite and unless every single person you know or simply met randomly does so too. Otherwise big corps would just create tracking profiles for you based on activity of others. Small recent example - remember that russian spying app FaceApp (iirk) which made aged pics out of your photos? Even if you…

> Otherwise big corps would just create tracking profiles for you based on activity of others. Mirimir is totally trackable. And if you could (not likely) get data from Riseup and Keybase, you could find all his contacts. But even then, none of that is linked to me in meatspace. Nobody I know in meatspace knows about Mirimir. Hiding is not so hard if you just compartmentalize.

Sure, but that only works if you compartmentalize from the very beginning, which regular people never do.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#32

Post by pferde »

LilBytes wrote: post #30
mirimir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing VirtualBox and Whonix is pretty simple. And just one VPN in the host machine, just so your ISP and its friends don't see you using Tor. Arguably a lot simpler than TFA goes on about.

It's really, really not _that simple_. The majority wouldn't know what VirtualBox and Whonix is, and that's before we start discussing what the benefits of privacy even are. This is the disconnect we have with our peers who don't work in software/IT and why the right to privacy is being lost to jargon and technical expertise. Privacy now is only a right to those who know how to employ it.

Hasn't that always been the case throughout the history, though? Everyone always knew everything about everyone else in the village, or neighboring villages. Only the select few knew and cared enough to keep their affairs hidden.

Except that now the technology has packed the entire world into a single "global village".

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#33

Post by mirimir »

LilBytes wrote: post #30
mirimir wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Installing VirtualBox and Whonix is pretty simple. And just one VPN in the host machine, just so your ISP and its friends don't see you using Tor. Arguably a lot simpler than TFA goes on about.

It's really, really not _that simple_. The majority wouldn't know what VirtualBox and Whonix is, and that's before we start discussing what the benefits of privacy even are. This is the disconnect we have with our peers who don't work in software/IT and why the right to privacy is being lost to jargon and technical expertise. Privacy now is only a right to those who know how to employ it.

Well, TFA is loaded with "gadgets" that I've never heard of. It could just as easily pointed to VirtualBox and Whonix. Or even running VPNs in host and VM to give a simple VPN chain.

The AirVPN and IVPN clients for Windows are pretty much leak free. And dead simple. Buy account, download client, install, and run.

And for Whonix, it's just download and install VirtualBox. And then download Whonix, import into VirtualBox, and run.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#34

Post by ergl »

mirimir wrote: post #22

Huh? A "pile of privacy gadgets"? I do a pretty good job of hiding from everyone. And I don't use any "gadgets". Indeed, not using smartphones is a major boost to privacy. Otherwise, it's just multiple VMs, nested VPN chains, and Tor. All running on ~old i5 boxes that I bought used, for cash.

The irony of complaining about the author using gadgets to keep his privacy, and then going ahead and saying how you also use (software) gadgets to keep yours.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#35

Post by mirimir »

pferde wrote: post #31
mirimir wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise big corps would just create tracking profiles for you based on activity of others. Mirimir is totally trackable. And if you could (not likely) get data from Riseup and Keybase, you could find all his contacts. But even then, none of that is linked to me in meatspace. Nobody I know in meatspace knows about Mirimir. Hiding is not so hard if you just compartmentalize.

Sure, but that only works if you compartmentalize from the very beginning, which regular people never do.

Not at all. Only from the beginning of a particular persona. Mirimir is about eight years old.[0] But I had numerous personas before Mirimir. Some you could maybe track back to, if you worked at it, and knew where to look. But some are just too old, and unconnected.

I was lots sloppier, when I started going dark, in the late 90s. I even talked about it in meatspace. But gradually, I compartmentalized more and more.

Anyone can do that. Just gradually disappear as your meatspace identity. Or restrict it totally to career, and friends and family. Ideally, keeping those separate, so your friends don't hose your career.

And then create and develop an ~anonymous persona.[1] Or a few of them, one for each ~defined set of interests. And just don't talk about it in meatspace. Or mix stuff among personas.

0) https://www.wilderssecurity.com/members/mirimir.121604/

1) https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/online-privacy-through-o...

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#36

Post by Juan_Largearm »

brewdad wrote: post #13
thaumasiotes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this differ from the traditional hosts file that blocks requests to blacklisted hosts?

My understanding is that it accomplishes the same thing but for every device on your network rather than having to manage host files on each device. It also works for those where editing the host file isn't possible.

It's also good for systems with hard coded domains that ignore hosts files.

Windows will still connect to quite a few even if they are in the hosts file.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#37

Post by ignoramous »

speedplane wrote: post #25
mirimir wrote: post #22

Huh? A "pile of privacy gadgets"? I do a pretty good job of hiding from everyone. And I don't use any "gadgets". Indeed, not using smartphones is a major boost to privacy. Otherwise, it's just multiple VMs, nested VPN chains, and Tor. All running on ~old i5 boxes that I bought used, for cash.

> I do a pretty good job of hiding from everyone. ... it's just multiple VMs, nested VPN chains, and Tor. This condescension is so common and petty. It's like a real-estate broker laughing at someone for overpaying for a property, or a lawyer laughing that someone missed a court deadline they didn't know about. Experts of complex systems generally know how to get what they want out of those systems. Finding ways for…

> Experts of complex systems generally know how to get what they want out of those systems. Finding ways for non-experts to do the same should not be sneered at.

There's a product/market/founder fit in there somewhere.

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#38

Post by close04 »

ac29 wrote: post #17
owenwil wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only did he not mention PiHole (or the similar, but better, Adguard Home), he didn't seem to be aware that network adblocking is a thing—but who can blame him? It's not exactly trivial unless you're comfortable with a terminal. Is there any sort of commercialized solution for this? I'd love to see Adguard/Pihole devices available off the shelf; with a little marketing I think they could really appeal to a lot of…

Adguard can be used with any router: https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html#instruction Its not built in per se, but its arguably less complicated than replacing a router (or worse, putting one router behind another, as would be required for the many people who's cable/fiber/etc modem is all in one with their router).

I think what GP means is that someone needs to set up the PiHole/Adguard software on their own hardware (like a RPi). After it's up and running it's pretty trivial to set it up in your router.

Reading through Adguard's GitHub page I can't help not noticing some disingenuous feature comparison there. Like how PiHole doesn't support "Blocking phishing and malware domains" or "Parental control (blocking adult domains)". Although they both do it in the exact same way: blacklists [0]. Does it block YouTube ads?

I'd like better reports and stats on PiHole, not just top sites, top clients, etc. Adguard seems to do better here from the screenshots. But I'll take it with a grain of salt.

[0] https://imgur.com/Um7o4fU

Re: I Tried Hiding from Big Tech in a Pile of Privacy Gadgets

#39

Post by close04 »

bauerd wrote: post #24
duncan-donuts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s on a raspberry pi that is connected to your LAN. It is dns for the LAN and blocks any requests to hosts that are blacklisted

What if ads are hosted on the same origin as the content? I'd still need application adblocking then I guess

DNS based ad-blocking has limitations. YouTube does exactly this, with ads served from the same URL as the videos. It's a better than nothing solution that will cover 95% of the needs of the whole network. For the rest you can add a browser based adblocker, where possible. Or even firewall rules.
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