Digital privacy!

What is this?

Glad you asked! Basically I made this site because I'm tierd of my peers and people my age group not understanding, basic tech stuff and never researching for themselves and expecting themselves to be hand fed! 

 

This is bad for a variety of reasons! As you get in the work force you are required to put in an effort, no one will do your work for you! You have to work, troubleshoot and try! Then ask for assistance if you need help, help ≠ a person doing everything for you. Dunno a term someone said? Google. Well since this is a digital privacy blog, of course I wouldn't recommend Google search. You basically have a mini computer! Start using it properly! 

 

Digital privacy!

"Huh? I have nothing to hi-" Nuh uh ah!, Yes you do value privacy, you don't let a stranger snoop into your text messages and what you're doing on your screen would you? You would tell them to mind their buisness. Okay now what am I going to tell you? Simple. Good alternatives to Instagram etc! As our generation (gen z) unfortunately uses these platforms, sometimes you would have to use them to talk to your friends! 

 

What do you do? Tell them to text your number instead or convince them to switch!  Yeah sms isn't ideal as much anymore but hey! Better than using discord! Am I right or Am I right lads? 

 

This blog is explanation etc, im not doing the work for you! Its you that has to put in the work, what im doing is giving you resources and ideas. 

 

Okay buckle up everyone! Now a great tool is openpgp/gnupgp! What is that? Basically open source protocol of PGP (pretty good privacy) encrypts your messages etc whatever! Now, this depends wether the sender or receiver is doing their jobs properly in this scenario! 

 

Pgp was so good that the FBI came to the author's door! Busted down his damn house! Now basically to use it you open the app get your pgp key send it to the one you wanna chat and said person has to put the key inside their pgp app on their end! And then you have to manually decrypt each message each time. "Thats exhausting!" Yeah it is! So, anything out there that can do the work for you? Hmmmmm, probably! Protonmail and tuta can! Tuta doesn't use pgp, however but protonmail does. "But they're paid" Yeah, sucks when you're a broke teen but atleast you get 500MB to 1G and for sending emails and receiving? That's more than enough unless you're uploading files to the person you're speaking with. Remember emails are not like discord! You seriously think discord is how folks talked back then? 

 

NOPE.

 

So how did they talk? Oh! Through the phone, dial up or something and then..EMAILS. Yeah when emails came out not many sended letters as much as they used to! Wanna know more? Look up! Or ask your parents or older siblings, even better if they're 90s or 80s kids. They would know what's up! And yeah, internet relay chat (IRC) was one of em.

 

Social media alternatives to meta etc

Whoo wee! Meta?! Seriously you guys like using WhatsApp etc?! Oh, well guess what? Meta ceo aka Mark Zuckerberg etc doesn't give a damn about your or your data! Infact, they collect it! Do you not know how much data Google, apple, Microsoft etc collect from you?! More than you can count actually, do I need to remind you about Edward Snowden and the government wiretapping incident? Dunno who that is? Look him up! Okay, you've looked him up, now you understand why YOU should care about digital privacy.

 

Now one big misconception I gotta address ahem, free and open source doesnt necessary mean safe and Proprietary doesnt mean malicious or malware, that's not how that works. Malware is a peice of software that is designed with malicious intent to steal your accounts etc, that's what malware is. Now, why do I recommend openpgp then? Because it has credibility, trusted etc! Thats what matters here, is said software trusted? And if you'd ask me I wouldn't recommend Proprietary software for sensitive data etc that's a no go. Basically malware infects your system for example the I love you virus etc. Now, I am aware that viruses do a bit of different things from malware but overall the purpose is the same, infect your computer/devices. 

 

Okay! The alternatives to meta stuff.

 

DO NOT USE MASTODON FOR SENSITIVE INFORMATION, USE IT AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO TWITTER AND THE LIKE. 

 

Mastodon! What is it? Its apart of the fediverse! Its decentralized meaning you can be on any server/instance and still interact with your friends, think how Gmail and outlook can still email each other.  For example I use sakurajima.moe and if you're on urusai.social you can still chat with me and bonus to that is sakurajima and urusai are sister servers! So you can still interact with eachother etc without issues much.

 

 

(For sensitive info, matrix is what you want to use.)  

 

Matrix! Now what is it? Basically encrypted messaging and open source and also you absolutely don't have to use matrix.org server, you can use envs.net or nope.chat (I use this) btw despite nope.chat being in german you can still register etc despite not knowing any!

 

FEDI HERE IS LISTED AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS LIKE META ETC, IT IS NOT FOR SENDING SENSITIVE INFORMATION. ALL CAPS LISTED TO MAKE THIS CLEAR.

 

Others (these are meant for sharing sensitive information) 

 

Biar, Signal etc. 

Btw, Signal asks for number, you can use Google voice number and username so you don't have to give your number out to people. Using your real number if ya want is fine for regeneration.

 

Resources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/

https://techlore.tech/resources/

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/

 

Closing note and threat modeling!

Yeah, sorry if I explained things incorrectly here, I did the best I could as a teen explaining to other teens who dunno much of this stuff in the first place! And also this is kind of my first time explaining things and sharing my thoughts instead of keeping it to myself.  

 

Threat modeling is basically modeling what is your "threat" to your privacy! for example if its your parents being snoopy! Act accordingly, like make signal do disappearing messages. Ahem, check here for a better explanation 

 

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/threat-modeling/