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Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

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Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#1

Post by deafpolygon »

As the title says, what do you do for online privacy? Obviously, most of us aren't on air-gapped servers and avoiding all forms of online interactions. To what extent do you go to protect your privacy online? What are some of the steps you currently take for privacy?

Let's not confuse anonymity vs privacy vs tin-foil hat level paranoid. I'm hoping to have some conversation going here on the various levels of privacy and steps folks at HN take to increase their privacy online. If you don't take steps -- then what are your reasonings why? (Beyond the staple excuse of "I have nothing to hide").

I understand defining your threat model, and I don't think most of us have a specific threat model more than being your average technophile would.

### Applications, Operating Systems

Do you run specific browsers, and why? Do you have specific applications that you use to protect your privacy? Do you engage in any kind of hardening?

Do you run any specific kind of operating system (say, Windows, Mac, etc) and why? Does it matter to you personally whether you are tracked?

### Online Storage

For example, do you store files on cloud storage as-is? If so, what kind of criteria do you have for that? Do you encrypt all files before they go anywhere? Does AES128 or AES256 encryption provide reasonable protections?

### Social Media

Do you avoid or block social media? If so or if not, why?

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#2

Post by kobaroko »

I'm not doing enough :( I'm not sure what I can do.

I have two browsers, Firefox and Chrome. On Firefox I run add blocker, on Chrome I don't run it. Why? My job requires sometimes to help marketing team and if you block adds you don't see the whole picture or our and competitors activity.

I don't encrypt files before upload. Why? I'm not sure how to do it and my biggest fear is what if my encryption key stops working. I got locked out my Windows because I run a system update and I didn't disable bit locker before that. So I had to go through recovery procedure.

I use Twitter and LinkedIn. I'm not very social on social media. I don't create content.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#3

Post by eimrine »

> If you don't take steps -- then what are your reasonings why? (Beyond the staple excuse of "I have nothing to hide").

I have nothing to hide except of when I run Tor browser.

> Do you run any specific kind of operating system (say, Windows, Mac, etc) and why? Does it matter to you personally whether you are tracked?

I quit Windows since 7 became outdated because modern Window's tracking bothers me, not because of somebody gets informed about something I do not want to be known but because it messes me with using my device (I have to decide when to update, when to reboot and when to change some settings, not a vendor). Debian may have some pesky settings which make OS leaking some data about me, but at least it doesn't bother me when I am trying to use my computer.

> For example, do you store files on cloud storage as-is?

No, because upload is always easy and download is always hard. A lot of HDDs works great for me.

> Do you avoid or block social media? If so or if not, why?

I do not find any of these interesting except of Youtube. And I try avoid using it too much because torrents have better video and not video content.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#4

Post by rhn_mk1 »

I don't have accounts at any major online businesses, except Visa. Can't really avoid that one easily.

My browsers block connections to trackers and 3rd party cookies. Sometimes scripts too, for good measure, and some selected stuff from user.js (https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js). Separate profiles for each service just to make really sure important stuff doesn't get affected by casual browsing, and vice versa.

No google- or apple- owned phone. Phoning home from the PC is also at minimum - just Firefox does it and the package manager.

It's not total privacy because for some interactions you want to share your details, like payment info, but what I get is that I know where I pierce the boundary.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#5

Post by laserbeam »

Not much and I don't plan to do much.

It's easy to think "I have nothing to hide", but that's not what I mean. A better analogy is risk analysis/attack surface area you expect. The privacy requirements of someone doing investigative journalism are wildly different from a regular joe who only needs to worry about targeted ads.

I'm generally in that bucket, where my only real privacy concern is ads, and I'm ok with tailored ads... Especially since ad blockers remove over 95% of them anyway. And since I rarely buy stuff.

I take significant steps for security (yubikeys, password managers etc.), and mental health (regular social media breaks and such). But "privacy" is too vague a word without a risk assessment.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#6

Post by fhd2 »

I mostly minimize using products from the big tech companies - I found I don't need their stuff nearly as much as I thought. There's a lot of incidental tracking going on there that's hard if not impossible to tackle.

I use ad/tracking blockers, but having worked in this space, they don't/can't exactly offer complete privacy.

Beyond that, I think about the biggest risks and try to tackle them: It's for example pretty easy to send someone a link and as soon as they click on it you know roughly where they live. Any information about where you typically hang out, what you do and what your kids look like stays off social media - it's pretty easy to be stalked with just a hand full of these signals, if someone really wants to.

I don't feel I have much to hide, like others here, but you never know when someone decides to have a personal vendetta against you or something. Can't make it impossible to be stalked, but I can make it difficult enough for people to not bother. I think about it the same way as I think about securing my residence, really.

Some concrete stuff I use:

- Personal NAS and server for files/photos (Syncthing works great for me)

- Ad/tracking blocker (it's usually a matter of the lists, so just one extension)

- Firefox (I have some background with Mozilla so I personally trust them more than anyone)

- Caution / VPN for weird links

- No Gmail (I like FastMail, but there's a lot)

- No Amazon, e commerce is enough of a commodity

- Not using social media actively, not posting personal stuff

- Linux (PopOS and Ubuntu)

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#8

Post by theshrike79 »

I just use what they taught us old timers at school.

Don't put your real name or face on the Internet. Don't tell specifics of your life to strangers on the Internet.

That's about it.

Oh, and I always say "ask app not to track" when iOS asks :)

I also use different nicknames for different contexts so my personal and semi-professional accounts can't be trivially linked.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#9

Post by zeronine »

linux distro with full disk encryption, unique password for every site (self managed), nextcloud provider + cryptomator for cloud storage, opensnitch or similar for firewall, agressive ad/tracker blocking at dns and browser level, lineageos for mobile devices, preference foss software, pirate all media, mullivad vpn sometimes

Re: Ask HN: What do you do for online privacy?

#10

Post by nullcipher »

Apps - I selfhost most of my stuff. Very similar to https://axbom.com/indieweb/

OS - Ubuntu everywhere

Online Storage - This is part of my selfhosting stack. My server is in my house (but accessible from internet), no need for at rest encryption.

Social Media - Not much apart from some reddit and HN. Never got into other things.

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