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Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#51

Post by ivarv »

eclipxe wrote: post #30
ivarv wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that it is possible to infer / derive a lot of meaningful data about you from a relatively small sample size. From political leanings via social networks (personal associations are very strong data points) to samples of your personal writing style (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry )

And why is this bad?

It's bad in that it is difficult for an individual to track exactly what they have revealed about themselves. It is very easy for someone to unintentionally reveal more than they may have intended.

(this is in reference to OP stating that they only use social media for posting things they don't mind being public)

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#52

Post by rosser »

gnosis wrote: post #45
rosser wrote: post #32

Other: I use multiple browsers. Broadly, I have one browser logged into Google services, one logged into Facebook, and one in which I do everything else. I also use Ghostery, AdBlock, HTTPS Everywhere, and a cookie management extension that deletes all non-whitelisted cookies after an hour, as well as make liberal use of Incognito windows.

"and a cookie management extension that deletes all non-whitelisted cookies after an hour" Which extension is that? Sounds useful.

Vanilla Cookie Manager for Chrome.

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#53

Post by socillion »

geekam wrote: post #2

I use a VPN - https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ and I have been meaning to ask folks here if they have experience with the VPN service or is there anyone better out there. They claim that they do not log at all.

I just run an OpenVPN server on a VPS that I use for other stuff as well. It works well, but I really only use it to secure public wifi and to keep my ISP out of my traffic since they started ridiculous policies like 6strikes.

I always assumed that a VPN would significantly degrade connection speeds, but it's turned out to only be a change of 20ms or less.

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#54

Post by stablepeak »

sbashyal wrote: post #4

I created HNCharts to visualize Hacker News polls. The results for this poll can be viewed as a chart at http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=5793326

Nice site! The labels are a bit clumsy, though. Have you considered using alternative visualization, such as treemaps? I use plottit to navigate through reddit threads because it shows comments arranged by karma in a treemap.

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#55

Post by surespot »

We had our computers pretty well locked down but our mobile messages were still plain text so we wrote a whatsapp style mobile messenger over transparent end-to-end encryption. SURESPOT is free to use and open source, check out the source on GitHub, feedback is much appreciated. www.surespot.me

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

eclipxe wrote: post #30
ivarv wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that it is possible to infer / derive a lot of meaningful data about you from a relatively small sample size. From political leanings via social networks (personal associations are very strong data points) to samples of your personal writing style (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry )

And why is this bad?

[deleted]

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#57

Post by sbashyal »

ICWiener wrote: post #44
sbashyal wrote: post #4

I created HNCharts to visualize Hacker News polls. The results for this poll can be viewed as a chart at http://hnlike.com/hncharts/chart/?id=5793326

This is nice, but there is however a little display problem with long labels.

This happens when there are way too many options in the poll

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#58

Post by geekam »

gnosis wrote: post #19
daeken wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use them as well, but I find that I have a hard time trusting them. They haven't done anything to lose my trust, but nor have they done anything to gain it; they could just as easily be logging my every move, and I'd never know. But I can't really see a way around it, so I'll continue to do so and use end-to-end encryption when possible.

This is the exact same problem I have with DuckDuckGo. I still use them, but they could be logging everything, for all I know. It would be great if they were regularly and frequently audited by a third-party who has earned widespread trust and respect, like the EFF. Not that the EFF is in the audit business. But serious auditing of sites that claim to respect privacy is sorely needed.

Absolutely! I second the opinion of them being audited by EFF or similar reputed organization.

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#59

Post by geekam »

socillion wrote: post #53
geekam wrote: post #2

I use a VPN - https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ and I have been meaning to ask folks here if they have experience with the VPN service or is there anyone better out there. They claim that they do not log at all.

I just run an OpenVPN server on a VPS that I use for other stuff as well. It works well, but I really only use it to secure public wifi and to keep my ISP out of my traffic since they started ridiculous policies like 6strikes. I always assumed that a VPN would significantly degrade connection speeds, but it's turned out to only be a change of 20ms or less.

Where is your VPS hosted?

Re: Poll: How do you protect your privacy?

#60

Post by socillion »

geekam wrote: post #59
socillion wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just run an OpenVPN server on a VPS that I use for other stuff as well. It works well, but I really only use it to secure public wifi and to keep my ISP out of my traffic since they started ridiculous policies like 6strikes. I always assumed that a VPN would significantly degrade connection speeds, but it's turned out to only be a change of 20ms or less.

Where is your VPS hosted?

Linode currently, but that is likely to change. Their cheapest hosting is also extreme overkill if you're just using it for VPN.
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