Hey all,

I've been using adblockers since the very early days they were available as Firefox Plugins, but the recent report on LG Smart TVs listening in, gathering device info, and sending it home has motivated me to do something at the level of my router.

I've got a Smart TV that's never been connected to the internet, but I want to cover all my bases. Same with my car, potentially, and the washing machine. I want to stop this crap at the source.

I've tried looking at the Pi-hole documentation but I'm confused already. I'm on MacOS and pretty comfortable using Terminal, and a Netgear Nitehawk AX2400 router.

Is it as simple as purchasing a Raspberry Pi device and then I'm good to go, or are there other things I need to buy before I jump in?

I'm sorry if this sounds stupid. I'm jealous of everyone on Tildes saying how their Pi-hole mostly protects them, and I'm so angry at this endless stream of data mining and sending it back to corporations I haven't consented to.

I'm in a position to make decisions about our B2B product and the accompaning marketing site. This is a startup, so now's the time to set precedents before there's momentum and any sort of vendor lock-in. The only context I think is relevant is that my product is for medium sized manufacturing companies. Anyone visiting our site is doing it because they would be interested in it for their business.

I bring this up here because I know many people are privacy conscious and I want to nudge my company that direction. So I have two related but slightly different topics:.

1. for our marketing site where people come to learn about the product and try to get in touch with us - What kind of "tracking" is appropriate to you? Hubspot is one of the industry defaults that was recommended we use. However I noticed that Firefox and privacy badger block it by default. If I were to try to build it myself, it wouldn't be third party, so I don't think anything would block it (I'm aware of people that block all JS, but I'm not gonna worry about that group for my purposes.) How do you all feel about first party usage tracking for B2B?
2. Similar question here but for when people log into our product. We're looking at using posthog for this.

Any thoughts are appreciated, thanks.

I'm asking "I" in the sense that I'd personally like an answer to this question, but really this is more about using VPNs in general.

Currently, I just use the server with the lowest latency because that gives me the least friction.

However, thinking about the GDPR in the EU, or California's data privacy protections: should I be strategically choosing a server based on those? Is there any benefit to having my traffic routed through a jurisdiction like that, or does that not really matter?

EDIT: To further clarify: will all the different websites out there log less data or treat my data differently if they believe my traffic is coming from the EU/California?

I'm curious as I'd be possibly interested in a solution that works for me. I'd be looking at devices (mainly a robot vacuum cleaner) that are able to operate without a mandatory internet connection that send over data to a datacenter to collect your information without your explicit knowledge (nearly everyone just clicks 'accept' when reading the ToS after purchase).

I got a pixel 9a recently and am debating whether to install graphene OS on it. My main motivations are wanting to avoid AI bloat, potentially improve battery, and reduce tracking. Though, I'd rather not have to spend time continuously troubleshoot my phone for stuff that doesn't work properly. Also, graphene OS is considered quite secure, but is there a plausible risk I need to worry about of the project losing support and eventually becoming less secure than stock Android? If any of you run graphene OS, what are your long-term experiences with it?

With all of the identity verification laws in the pipeline, data breaches, and government overreach (mandated monitoring in new cars in the US), what steps can the average person take to secure their anonymity and data and device privacy?

I’m a tech-savvy person but nowhere near the level of a great many. It seems like in the face of overwhelming odds, making small changes is only a drop in the bucket. I have all the data encryption settings enabled on my phone, but I use services like Dropbox and rely on it heavily. I’ve always thought that if the product is free, you’re the product…but I pay for Dropbox, so they shouldn’t use my data for training AI (but they likely are). Setting up a personal cloud seems like a daunting task, as is getting involved in any of the small projects that people have going (decentralized networks, mesh…things, P2P, etc). I’ve focused more on securing my home networks recently so my Ubiquiti devices are restricted in what they can access, but I haven’t actually pen-tested my network yet. I have PopOS! installed on my home desktop because I got tired of Windows’ invasive…everything, but ultimately I don’t know what I’m doing.

There’s probably a great many people out there that feel like it’s hopeless to try to do anything because it won’t matter as there’s such a heavy push to invade, restrict, and monetize our digital lives. What can the average person do to take control of our devices and data?