TL;DR (too long; don't read) version: Digital privacy/security is easier than I thought, let's pool resources, here's what I mean by data, our needs are all different so our recipes will probably all be different, here's a YouTube
video that might help, more resources to follow.
*Please take note that I am not an expert. My purpose is to share what I've found helpful, give an example of some things I'm doing and might do in the future, and open up a space where other permies can share what they do and have found helpful. My recipe is for me, and likely won't fit your individual needs. Please, please do your own research for your own needs.
Digital privacy protection isn't a new concept to this forum, but I haven't been able to find a
thread dedicated to this subject. I stumbled onto the topic several weeks ago while preparing for my switch to Linux from Windows (something I'm preparing to do sometime this year). I thought beefing up online privacy was complicated and hard and expensive, but I was surprised to find it doesn't have to be any of those things. It's so approachable that I wanted to share what I've been learning with all of you. I think there's value in having a space where we pool our resources and
experience with this topic.
To put it in familiar terms, I think I've found two privacy scales. One is
“how secure my data is from any interested party”, and the other is
“how deeply I understand all the technologies that impact how available my data is.”
Based on what I've learned, it seems a person can get pretty high on scale A without having to move the same amount on scale B. This is good, because on the “techie or normie” spectrum, I'm much closer to normie with a light sprinkle of techie knowledge.* I'm not afraid to tinker a bit (see uBlock Origin in the resource post below), but I don't want to spend a lot of time on it (past the initial setup), and I don't want to have to learn much about why/how it works in order to use it.
What I'm thinking of as “data” for the purposes of this thread: any identifying information shared via the internet.
It helps me to divide it into 3 broad kinds, for starters:
all the old-school analog bits that have been around for decades (name, DOB, physical address, phone #, SSN, account #s, email address, etc)all the inadvertent bits of data debris I create when I use the internet or anything connected to it (topics I'm interested in, social media I follow, brands I buy, genres I watch/listen to, location of my connection to the web, browsing habits, etc.)all the intentional, on-purpose bits I share that reveal something about me (groups I join, social media posts/comments I write, pages/posts/products I like/thumbs up, location sharing with family/friends, pictures I post, etc.)
Like so many other things in life, everyone's needs in this area are probably different. Taking some time to figure out what your individual privacy goals are might help you pick and choose the best-fitting methods. It's called making a “threat model”. I don't have experience with this, as I didn't discover the concept until after I'd already started making changes.To wrap up, I'll embed a video from Techlore (about 12 minutes long) which walks you through making a threat model in a simple, approachable way.
I'll follow this post up with links to resources I've found helpful, and things I've done or am considering doing in the future.