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Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#31

Post by steponlego »

lukeasch21 wrote: post #25
steponlego wrote: post #9

Different account names for everything. I never use my real name and usually browse over Tor or with a VPN. If I watch a video it’s after I liberated it with yt-dlp. Reset my home Internet connection to get a different IP daily. I long ago deleted all my posts to Reddit and Facebook. I also ditched my gmail I had for over 20 years, I don’t trust those weasels.

Minor nitpick, but why are you adamant that you've had your Gmail for "over 20 years"? Gmail was made public in 2004.

Did it exist before 2004? I bet you know!

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#32

Post by rodolphoarruda »

I manage it by not getting into any political discussions online. I live in a country which government oppression is so strong now that whatever you say online can potentially put you in a short list for public prosecution. So it's not worth it. Living in silence is a blessing that I actually enjoy.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#33

Post by AtlasBarfed »

The biggest impediment to personal security is probably linkedin, followed by facebook.

Facebook you can reasonably hide. Linkedin still seems to have some expectation of openness by companies... but I haven't interviewed in a while. My linked in no longer has my name. Is that a big deal with companies?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#34

Post by AtlasBarfed »

lukeasch21 wrote: post #25
steponlego wrote: post #9

Different account names for everything. I never use my real name and usually browse over Tor or with a VPN. If I watch a video it’s after I liberated it with yt-dlp. Reset my home Internet connection to get a different IP daily. I long ago deleted all my posts to Reddit and Facebook. I also ditched my gmail I had for over 20 years, I don’t trust those weasels.

Minor nitpick, but why are you adamant that you've had your Gmail for "over 20 years"? Gmail was made public in 2004.

Gmail was invitation only for a solid, what, year or two?

But if you were remotely in IT, you could get an invite. I did, and I was peanuts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#35

Post by scarface74 »

steponlego wrote: post #18
mfcl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the CIA after you?

Snowden leaks proved they’re after everybody.

And if you fly, drive, use credit cards, use cellphones, etc the government already knows enough about you.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#37

Post by bm3719 »

ffgh wrote: post #21
bm3719 wrote: post #6

Keep as much local as possible. Do anything involving money or your personal info inside a dedicated VM running a secure OS, or use QubesOS. Use a dumb phone instead of a smart phone. Keep your passwords in a local encrypted text file. If you need a password or other data on the road, SSH into your home machine from your laptop (which has an encrypted disk). Go back to using fake nick names instead of your real name…

I'm in the process of trying to de-Google my life. Apart from being forced to use Google at my workplace I want nothing to do with them other than google searches. I have 4 Gmails though, a few personal and a few for etc sites. I was thinking about setting up a forwarder for all to 1 email account. Any recommendations for a dumb phone? I know Google and Android phones go hand in hand.

Currently using a Kyocera DuraXE. It's great and still has a very inconvenient to use subset of the functionality you might miss from a smart phone. I bought it because I needed hotspot tethering for work. However, I've recently read that the Light Phone II has that feature and is even dumber of a phone, so might switch over to that.

Previously I was getting by fine with a pre-paid LG flip phone and buying around $100/yr of minutes/service from TracFone.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#39

Post by derwiki »

dzek69 wrote: post #16

Removing comments from exising conversations if they don't contain sensitive data is rude IMO. Somebody may want to read the conversation in the future and now they will experience missing comments

What’s the bar for “sensitive”? Anything that reveals something about yourself? This reply reveals that I’m more interested in privacy than many. Should or shouldn’t I be able to delete it?

I’ll concede that it may be rude, but given the trade-offs, I’m ok with being rude in this respect.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

#40

Post by scarface74 »

zamnos wrote: post #5

As if https://xkcd.com/979/ wasn't bad enough, people are deleting posts and submissions now? Am I old and getting out of touch, or are kids these days not just not thinking through things before they post?

Exactly. My earliest still available posts on the internet are from 1994 on Usenet. You can still find them.

I can confidently say that nothing I’ve ever posted on the internet would be ruinous to my career or personal life.

My spending time on *.advocacy in the 90s would be more embarrassing in a teenage high school picture type of way.

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