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?

I figure the title is good enough, but, I just want to upload/make a spreadsheet in an .ods format so others can view it. Not edit it, not have to sign in to view, but still has sorting options or whatnot. And in the .ods format.

I'm seeing a few options online, but it seems more that they offer viewing but not sorting (which is a huge aspect of spreadsheets), or no importing, or doesn't support .ods.

So I can keep searching and I'm sure something is out there, but does anyone already use a site for these requests?

So I kind of want to get out of the Gmail ecosystem, and have been eyeing Proton as a good replacement, but I can't help but to think that nearly all of Proton's selling points and marketing points are all smoke and mirrors.

And I don't know, maybe I'm looking at this entirely the wrong way, I am just really struggling to see the appeal of Proton.

First, I'll start with my "threat model".

In general I want to be more anonymous online and slip under the radar better.

I'm not planning on doing anything clandestine, but with the direction the US is going, I'd rather not be an easy target if I want to be active in activism spaces if you catch my drift.

And I'm also interested in staying off of databrokers radars, or obfuscate myself to prevent coherent tracking.

With that being said, it seems that even with a proton email if someone wanted to find my identity they could, data brokers or governments alike, even if I pay for my subscription with cash.

And not that I'm really worried about that, but to me that negates like the entirety of Proton's marketing gimmick.

And I'm failing to see what functional benefit Proton has when it comes to privacy outside of just being "aesthetically private".

Here are some of my concerns, please feel free to correct me if I'm completely offbase with any of the logic below, but this is just my initial thoughts, and I'd love to hear some feedback and/or be corrected or provided more context.

1. Why does the encryption of the message body matter if the envelope and address are is still exposed? If a government or data broker can get the sender/receiver info, timestamps, and my IP, they have a map of my life. Isn't the "private content" just a distraction from the real leak? Like other than not having my emails used to train AI or data being sold to data brokers, I can't find a functional improvement or benefit to my daily life to use Proton outside of thinking "Yeah, fuck The Man" every time I log in. Like I am more worried about governments and data brokers knowing who I'm sending/receiving things from than I am about the content of those messages being exposed since I'm not going to be monologuing evil plans over email, and I really don't care if the databroker tracking me knows that I bought a case of liquid death root beer 4 times in one month since they get that information from Amazon or whatever website anyways.

2. Everyone talks about "Swiss protection," but isn't that just a speed bump? If the U.S. government goes to Switzerland with an MLAT request, Proton has to comply. And even if I've payed with cash, they can still be compelled to log the IP logins and hand over the alias emails and primary mailbox used by that account and the metadata. So if I sign up for something using an alias, they can take that alias and file an MLAT request with Switzerland to get my main email, the metadata for my entire inbox(just not the body content) and the other aliases tied to that account, and then do a search for any services using those emails to find my identity. They could technically use an alias email I've made, send an information request to Switzerland/Proton, get back a list of aliases and email metadata, find that I used an alias to sign up to a pizza delivery service, then subpoena that pizza delivery service for my name, phone number, and address, at that point what's the point? Is the point just to make it harder for them? I'm not planning on doing anything that could get them to want to subpoena my emails ANYWAYS, but what's the point of making it harder for them outside of again, just thinking to myself "haha fuck you" every time I send an email?

3. Even if I use an alias, if the site I use the alias on gets tied to my online data/identity, then my privacy is broken, right? Like lets say I want to sign up for a new site called godotshaders.com, I use a proton alias to sign up. This site then collects that data, my IP, my cookie data, browser user agent string data, and that I'm logged into some account with my other non-proton email, etc, that gets tied to my browsing data they're collecting, and suddenly they've linked that alias email to my advertising profile and other browsing. Rinse & repeat. Now all the aliases are tied to me. I don't see how these emails help with online advertising tracking.

4. I have tons of accounts I use, my bitwarden login count sits at around 850 logins, but I probably only regularly use a small fraction of those. But if I end up changing my email on a lot of those accounts to the proton email, even a proton alias, all that does for data brokers is potentially tie every one of those new alias emails to me. And at that point there is no difference in my data broker information just that I have 850 different alias emails. But my data is still tied to those accounts. So AGAIN, what's the point of this? Do I need to sign up for everything from scratch in order to maybe have privacy?