this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

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[–] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 196 points 6 days ago (2 children)

What's reddit? Is that like a new alternative to Lemmy? ;P

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 16 points 5 days ago (2 children)

how the hell did this get 51 upvotes

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 92 points 5 days ago

50 people clicked the up arrow below the comment.

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You're almost there in down votes. Good job 🤣

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[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 103 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (5 children)

I like how the original OP mention in passing that Reddit is bad for privacy.

Like, no shit? How can a privacy community be even remotedly healthy in such an environment?

It's like having a club for how to avoid the police within a prison, regulated by the guards.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 41 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Browsing reddit while using a VPN is verboten.

Good grief I despise that smug, winking snoo with a effing fedora that goes along with the error page.

[–] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 days ago

woah there pardner!

[–] Laser@feddit.org 8 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Better than me getting shadow banned from reddit for using one, I appealed back then

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[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 29 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Reddit was open source until 2017, and one of the founders was Aaron Schwartz. So it didn't look like that for a long time.

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I guess we all know it, since we are interested in Privacy and not clueless enough to be on Reddit (anymore?).

The degeneration from a "safe" place to what it is now is what makes it particoularly egregious a place to avoid for anybody serious about privacy...

[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

2017 was 7 year ago, Aaron died 11 years ago. There are a lot younger users who can't remember these things.

Let's see a 20 years old university student was 13 when the source was closed down, I think it's not easy to find a 13 years old who is familiar with such legal things.

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 6 points 5 days ago

No but it's much easier to find the 20 years old student interested in privacy that realyze right now that reddit is not open source...

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[–] notprogrammer@programming.dev 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

If you only talk about privacy on already private platforms, it will become a circlejerk in no time. You need to tell people who have no interest/experience in online privacy about it so you can further the cause. This is similar to why the FSF is on Twitter/X.

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[–] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

While I hate Reddit isn’t the fediverse basically horrible for privacy? It’s super easy to see everyone’s posts and IP addresses no? I thought anyone could basically download everything with very little effort and do whatever they want with it.

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[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 7 points 5 days ago

OP is the original OP. Probably. Reddit poster's name is the same as the Lemmy poster's name.

[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 60 points 5 days ago

My guess is, the people who care didn’t stick around. As s result, quality went down.

[–] DaseinPickle@leminal.space 51 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nerdy communities always seem to attract some very opinionated people, which is a turn off for people just trying to do better.

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 98 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 24 points 5 days ago (2 children)

As an older hobbyist, exactly.

I'm as guilty as anyone, but I promise I'm trying to be better.

[–] DrDystopia@lemy.lol 28 points 5 days ago

I'm trying to be better.

Unlike those dang noobs

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[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 22 points 6 days ago

It was a terrible sub for years much before the apicalypse. It was full of apple fanboys who believed every marketing bullshit.

[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 21 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Wait, what's wrong with Proton Mail?

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 47 points 5 days ago (8 children)

They gave meta information like IP to the government in Switzerland, where they are based, after the government forced them to with a court order. Not the encrypted mail, mind you, because they can’t do that, just the additional information they have on a user like email and IP.

Because of that, a lot of redditers on r/privacy think they spy on their users for the US government. It’s a stretch, yes, but you have to remember they take turns using the one brain they collectively have.

[–] AnAmericanPotato@programming.dev 21 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Not the encrypted mail, mind you, because they can’t do that

Just want to point out for anyone new that ProtonMail does not use E2EE for email headers. That means they CAN access your subject lines, to/from fields, and other email headers. That means they CAN be forced to hand it over to the government.

Source: https://proton.me/support/proton-mail-encryption-explained

Subject lines and recipient/sender email addresses are encrypted but not end-to-end encrypted.

Personally I am disappointed in a lot of Proton's wording about this. They frequently promise they can't access "your data" and "your messages" when they do, in fact, store potentially sensitive data in a format they CAN access.

[–] jherazob 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's email, that's the best you can get with email, if you want to have more privacy, DON'T USE EMAIL

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[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I agree, sounds a bit excessive. If that's correct, it doesn't sound like they're reading your data and at the end of the day they have to comply with things like warrants. Thanks for the clarification.

[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 11 points 5 days ago

It is all also very clearly stated in the information they must collect in order to provide their service. There should’ve been no surprises here, as you must assume that scenarios like these will happen eventually.

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[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 18 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] chloroken@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Literally the kind of elitist response the OP was lambasting.

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[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It does, but it's a step in the right direction.

I'm as guilty as anyone for allowing pursuit of perfection be the enemy of good.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 days ago

How is allowing crypto mining in your browser or hijacking affiliate links good for privacy?

[–] rijom@lemmy.ml 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What’s the background here? Do they censor stuff?

[–] DollarColonial@lemmy.ml 32 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Mention VPNs are forbidden due to spam and stuff, GrapheneOS mention forbidden because of drama

2nd part, community recommend too often just extrem stuff, not seeing that someone just moved away from Google or iOS or whatever big data service

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 34 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Mention VPNs are forbidden due to spam and stuff, GrapheneOS mention forbidden because of drama

Defeats the whole purpose of the subreddit, it’s like saying you’re not allowed to talk about yellow in a community about colours…

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 11 points 6 days ago

Now that's a rule I can get behind.

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[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh I remember r/privacy, this comment is spot on. You expect something like the Linux communities where it is okay what ever you prefer. But privacy-nerds sometimes goes the spying government/tech-firms rabbit-hole to deep.

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[–] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 days ago

We love lemmy ❤️

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Only reason I'd recommend signal to anyone is that its one of the few encrypted apps that doesnt have awful onboarding. A boomer can figure it out.

[–] xtrapoletariat 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What do you recommend?

If Signal was not simple, my family and friends would likely use Telegram or WhatsApp. Even switching to Signal required a number of (general) newspaper articles criticising the status quo. It's likely not optimal, but okayish and sharing opinions and holiday impressions feels a bit better.

Switching a service is a slow, difficult process and many contacts will not follow, given they would abandon other contacts among friends, family, parents at school, sports teams, ... (now, I'm here, using 4+ solutions).

If training or even curiosity for the technical process is required, very few people will follow. If it takes me (with strong IT background) more than 30 minutes to understand/implement, I may have a decent private solution, but I will feel quite lonely soon.

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

the other decent options are matrix and simplex chat, and mayyyybe session. matrix seems to have the most users and kick to it right now. out of those options. but yeah youre not gonna get the average tech illiterate person to get on a more complicated alternative to discord, essentially

[–] kekmacska@lemmy.zip 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

i can agree on a few stuff, and can't on some others. I just choose the most private options aviable that still serve the purpose i use them for. Like if you can find something on Google Play, Aurora, F-droid, obviously, it is better to download from f-droid, but if you have a bit more time, it is even better to download from source or even compile it yourself. But it always upsets me when people ask for privacy tips when using ios or windows, like are you joking or what? ditch those lol. And obviously, as a gamer, i wouldn't use purist linux oses, like PureOS, because it can have serious issues with games. But i won't buy nvidia if i want to game on linux, when i can get amd with open-source drivers on distros like Garuda. So i think a reasonable privacy can't hurt anyone, but moving on just the next little step or going into the extremes are both not good ideas

[–] DollarColonial@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I can't recommend downloading from sources to normal people, and the problem is no, one step after step is better, as you can't have a perfect solution for privacy btw, but moving from one service to one service lets say in one day, week or maybe even month is not realistic. Its like recommending a password manager, great, but then saying theres immediat need to change all password... Like, technically true, but realisticly, bank and mail firsts, then step by step some passwords, without forgeting new accounts should have now strong passwords.

As I said, ie my girlfriend knowing Im interested into privacy tell me that she just installed and created a protonmail account and she used Drive a bit, if I just say thats useless because there need compartimentalization and Proton gave IP to police, thats fckd up

The most private, the most secure option isn't for everyone, first to threat model, second to personnal daily life

A person interested can still have Gafam apps, for some needs, required, but can limit the settings.

If you are a gamer, you mostly still need Windows computer (Linux got better and better, depends on games tho), then you can choose to say fck, or you can use it with limiting the stuff you can (turning off maximum settings you can, OsU10, etc.). Thats the same with iOS.. Most people wont buy right now a new phone because of privacy, but maybe the next in few months or in 2 years ; doesnt mean during this period you can't choose apps to use, turning off iOS features, etc..

For some projects I needed TikTok, I wrote myself a guide, to use it as anonymous as possible, to TikTok and to people, instead of using it raw, defaults

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[–] DollarColonial@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 days ago

I also got DMs asking why it's removed or if I got banned, + someone asking and saying in topic it's the 3rd in short time.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 10 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Not like the communities here are any different ...

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 8 points 5 days ago

Literally just read Brave sucks above lol

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[–] Hellmo_Luciferrari@lemm.ee 7 points 5 days ago

I ditched reddit, and what's being described in this thread is largely part if why I left. I won't go back.

[–] OlPatchy2Eyes@slrpnk.net 6 points 5 days ago

Unsurprising behavior from a community where the coolest person is the one who can put on the biggest tin foil hat. I appreciate the privacy community here but I think the concept itself leads to users decrying anything as insecure just because it makes them feel more knowledgeable.

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