Privacy

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Protect your privacy in the digital world

Welcome! This is a community for all those who are interested in protecting their privacy.

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PS: Don't be a smartass and try to game the system, we'll know if you're breaking the rules when we see it!

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No tankies/alt-right fascists
Stay on topic
Don't promote proprietary software
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Simple guide towards mail privacy (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 hour ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

4 comments fedilink

It's hard to make the full switch towards a more private life, but switching your mail already fixes a big underlying issue: that being, Google or other companies having access to all your emails. So, I'll cover the basics of making your online mailing more private.

Switching Mail Providers:

Your email is a big part of your online footprint and helps you keep track of your online identity. So, in order to keep that to yourself, I encourage leaving services like:

"Gmail" or "Outlook",

for others like:

"ProtonMail" or "Tutanota".

This is already a big step towards keeping all your emails private and safe. Both of these are free and respect your privacy on their free tier, but expand in features with paid plans. This takes time, as you have to switch your email on most accounts to this new email.

For the best privacy, you should delete most accounts and create new ones with this new email or with aliases. Some people, like myself, prefer to have multiple emails over aliases. For example:

"[email protected]" -> For banking and finance
"[email protected]" -> For social media
"[email protected]" -> For casual and responsible internet use
"[email protected]" -> For crappy websites or similar uses

(Self-hosting your own mail domain is possible, but it’s a harder process, and custom domains are not always accepted or reliable.)

(You should keep your old email for a year or so to make sure no important service was left behind locked to that email. Once that's done, you can delete the account.)

Tips:

If you can, you should try expanding your protocol with this:

Adding 2FA to any online website, especially email. I use "Authy" for this.
Switching your browser to something like "Librewolf".
Switching to a password manager like "Proton Pass" or "1Password".
Encourage your close family to do the same once you're comfortable with the process.
Switch social media to private alternatives.

This is about it for me, quick posts from class, feel free to add into this topic bellow.

ICE is swiftly expanding its sprawling surveillance apparatus. (prismreports.org)

submitted 12 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

5 comments fedilink

Using Tails When Your World Doesn't Feel Safe Anymore (www.privacyguides.org)

submitted 22 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

4 comments fedilink

Amazon sued for snarfing sensitive data via advertising SDK (www.theregister.com)

submitted 22 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

0 comments fedilink

[Android] Are there any reputable privacy friendly phone number apps? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink

Hi my fellow Lemmings and friends!

I need to get a second number, and I would prefer not to use Google Voice. I have an Android phone and it needs to be a USA (+1) number.

What are the reputable, privacy friendly apps for this? It would be amazing if it was free but I will not hold my breath on that.

😸

Time to Delete? The Most Invasive Apps List Includes Some of Your Favorites (www.pcmag.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

37 comments fedilink

It's time to stop using SMS, here's why! (www.privacyguides.org)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

38 comments fedilink

its 10pm (lemmy.today)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

Signal | A Synchronized Start for Linked Devices (signal.org)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/30920964

With Signal on Desktop and iPad, you can link your primary Android or iOS account with another device, letting you check and respond to messages in both places or conduct video meetings and calls from the comfort of a bigger screen.

Philadelphia's $800K police drone program highlights the challenge of balancing public safety and #privacy. Criminologists explain how lessons from stop-and-frisk can guide responsible drone use in (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

2 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://newsie.social/users/TheConversationUS/statuses/113909551624831355

Philadelphia's $800K police drone program highlights the challenge of balancing public safety and #privacy. Criminologists explain how lessons from stop-and-frisk can guide responsible drone use in law enforcement. https://buff.ly/4anJYJ7

Regarding Deepseek (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink

So, I was reading the privacy notice and the terms of use and I did read some sketchy stuff about it (data used in advertising, getting keystroke). How bad is it? Is it like chatgpt or worse? Anything I can do about it?

Privacy Roundup: Week 4 of Year 2025 (avoidthehack.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

0 comments fedilink

Brazil bans Sam Altman’s World from paying Brazilians for their iris scans. (www.theverge.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

0 comments fedilink

Alternative Mobile Front-ends: A list of privacy-respecting front-ends to popular online services, including social media, streaming and information services. All of the options here are mobile apps (github.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink

crypt.fyi - Secure Secret Sharing with Zero-Knowledge End-to-End Encryption (crypt.fyi)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

21 comments fedilink

From an author:

I wanted to share crypt.fyi - a free, open-source tool I built for securely sharing sensitive data/files. It uses client-side encryption and zero-knowledge architecture.

Key features:

- Zero-knowledge architecture
- End-to-end encryption using AES-256-GCM (actively investigating post-quantum encryption options)
- Self-hostable
- Suite of configurations (password, burn after read, max read count, ip/cidr-allow list, webhooks)
- Strict rate-limiting
- Strict CSP to mitigate supply chain attacks
- Web, cli, and chrome-extension clients
- Fully open source (Github)

The problems I aimed to solve: Many people share sensitive info (passwords, keys, etc.) through email, Slack, or SMS - which often leaves plaintext copies in multiple places. Existing solutions either require accounts, aren't open source, or have security/privacy/ui/ux/feature/config gaps/limitations.

crypt.fyi is built with privacy-first principles:

- No logging of sensitive data
- No analytics or tracking
- Separation of web and api servers
- All encryption/decryption happens client-side using shared cross-platform cryptography primitives from noble cryptography
- TLS encryption for all traffic
- Encrypted data is automatically destroyed after being read with strong guarantees around once-only reads

The entire codebase is open source and available for review. I'd love to get feedback from the privacy community on how to make it even better!

103

UnitedHealth updates data breach impact to 190 million people, nearly doubling previous estimate (www.techspot.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink