The more I think about taking control back from big tech, I realize it comes down to rock solid confidence in my personal data continuity strategy. Something like:
1. On site hot - PC, with core data sync'd to/from portable devices. Always current.
2. On site cold - Secured local hard drive. Refreshed quarterly. Versioned.
3. Cloud encrypted hot - Core data sync'd within a few minutes, both PC and portable devices.
4. Cloud encrypted cold - Versioned online backup solution. Current within hours, days for major changes. Different vendor.
Anytime I generate data - Email, Contacts, Pictures, Electronic Health Records, Financial Transactions - I need to get a copy. The more automated, the better. Once I have control, the services used to access my data become flexible. I can stop thinking in terms of a tax provider, a todo list app, a calendar, etc. It's all views on my data.
For any specific need - abdicating to the cloud provider is superior. In aggregate - I'm no longer convinced. Trusted parties can play with the data, but I am better off controlling it. There's nothing brilliant about this. It's not much different than an old school filing cabinet and safety deposit box combo. I've just been conditioned to look outwards.
I don't think this will be a fast change, but it's the direction I'm headed.
I will be ceding media. The twist being - since I've accepted I'll never own media again, I am increasingly prioritizing library resources. Any licensed digital content is on a self distruct timer. May as well treat purchases as a last resort. There's no point in collecting digital content, only to be locked into or kicked off of a platform.
Even physical media like games is becoming irrational. Good luck playing without the digital updates. One PS5 game disc downloaded 100gigs.
I setup the Chromecast yesterday. It was a healthy reminder of what the big tech relationship CAN look like. Turning on dev options was trivial, at which point I could easily side load apps. A couple installs, and now one button raises an ad free view to all apps. I can even customize layout of the launcher. Casting from my phone just worked, which was not true of the Fire stick.
If I wanted to, I could mount the android device with adb and default to a customized launcher. Zero mucking with the hardware required. All for $21 delivered. At that price - Google's obviously still sucking down my data. But at least they are not actively hostile to me as a user. Screw Amazon's fire sticks, tv's and tablets. Absent media lock in, their experience loses. It's obviously inferior. I can only imagine what happens once the get away from Android as the base Fire TV OS.
What I Spend
Re: What I Spend
From what I've read, the status of such devices is still unclear - Microsoft may or may not push all security updates to them.jacob wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 1:39 pmYes, there are ostensibly ways around the "health check" to install win11 on unsupported devices. It's not like the PC is unhealthy as much as it doesn't support a particular kind of hardware encryption that underlies win11. Manually adding a "proceed on your own risk" entry to keyreg makes it possible to bypass the health check. It's almost like the real healthcare system that way
Re: What I Spend
So I actually bought proton ~6 months ago and I enjoy it.
It was ~250 bucks for 2 years. That's email, calendar, a VPN, password manager and "drive" which is something akin to ~500Gb dropbox.
A selling point for me was custom domains, and ONE TIME USE EMAILS. I have found it incredibly handy to generate emails specifically for new websites that end up in my main inbox (avocado.toast69@passmail.net for sketchy-website.co, which forwards to firstname@lastname.com, my main email). And it saves them in your password manager, so if you ever start getting spam to avocado.toast69@passmail, you can quickly lookup which website you used that with and know who was the weakest link in your chain.
It's probably not a "perfect" solution, but I'm at least slightly more comfortable with it. And at least being a paid service means our incentives are a bit more aligned.
Re: What I Spend
Good to hear positive experiences with Proton. They remain my front runner. Hesitance relates to developing a cohesive overall strategy, rather than making changes I might immediately redo. I also expect after Proton makes me dependent, prices will go up.
Mercifully, about twenty years ago, I had the foresight to buy a domain and own my email address. Back then - the provider supported wildcard email delivery. With a filter, the spam was bearable. I lost all those addresses switching vendors though.
Google Mail won me over with free support for my custom domain email. And they have been rock solid in terms of service quality. At least I get something good for the data. Since I control the domain, switching does remain realistic.
I'm thinking bigger picture now, about how I interact with the surveillance economy. I've queued up a reading list and am currently going through Privacy is Power. The cell phone is even more problematic than the email. Maybe my biggest offender.
And phone options are chaotic. Linux doesn't look ready for prime time. GrapheneOS recommends a $550 pixel 8. The light phone 2 hardware is 4 years old. Some of the "private" devices are $1-2k. Everything is a compromise.
For my current android phone, I'm trying a minimal launcher and ticked on grayscale. At least that helps mitigate behavior manipulation. I don't bank with the thing. There's no Meta or Amazon installed. Voice assistant is off. Permissions are locked down as tight as I can tolerate.
Ultimately, the problem with one device for everything, is it makes us easy to own. Giving up the ease is tough. Just today, I saved $6 at the pharmacy with a good Rx coupon, then texted my wife pictures of a couple products to choose between.
However - If parking lot cameras are going to log my license plate, does it really matter if my phone leaks the GPS coordinates? Credit card transactions show I was at the pharmacy anyway. And their security system can face track me - even if I bike, pay cash and stop carrying a MAC address around the store. Not to mention, I picked up an Rx. I bet that went to dozens of databases.
I'm hopeful the reading leads me to an expert with similar values. Then I can copy their privacy habits, instead of making my own apparently futile attempts. I don't want to make life hard for no benefit. I think fending off the behavior manipulation will be more realistic than stopping the tracking.
I remember scrambling to get in on the Gmail beta, back in the day. They really were 10 steps ahead of me. Probably still are.
Re: What I Spend
You can do it, but it'll be up to you how much extra hassle you want to deal with. The bible on this stuff is "Extreme Privacy:What It Takes To Disappear" by Michael Bazzell. It's updated regularly and includes tactics for tech use if you are going to use it.
I'd written out the above and pasted an Amazon link to the book before remembering what you're trying to do haha.
I'd written out the above and pasted an Amazon link to the book before remembering what you're trying to do haha.
Re: What I Spend
Looks interesting. I threw the title in my queue. Maybe I can get it through worldcat.
The non Amazon link, significantly harder to find:
https://inteltechniques.com/book7.html
More extreme than I'm thinking of, but understanding the bounds could be valuable.
The non Amazon link, significantly harder to find:
https://inteltechniques.com/book7.html
More extreme than I'm thinking of, but understanding the bounds could be valuable.
Re: What I Spend
The extreme privacy book is exactly what I wanted. Instead of belaboring principles, the author gets into the tactics. What the various phone options look like, for instance - down to the specific commands used for degoogling an android phone.
Synthesizing the 500 pages will take some time. I'm going to take the process slow. I expect I'll find unstated trade offs for each change, that the enthusiasts take for granted.
There's a lot of opportunity to improve my privacy position. Google's services may be secure, but the deeper I go, the more invasive they look. Google knows my entire life. That's lame. I dunno if I fire them completely, but I can do a lot better.
I'm resisting the temptation to impulsively throw money at the problem, before developing a cohesive strategy. I always love the excuse for a new gadget or software.
In the process of requesting the book, I learned to make worldcat orders entirely online. So I can get physical copies of most any book on a whim. Well worth the price of admission.
Borrowing the PS5 has been mixed. I binged final fantasy 16 in a week. It was cool to see the latest tech, but the games aren't any more fun. It was also a huge time suck.
The experience reveals a limitation of borrowing games from the library. A week or two isn't long enough to casually play AAA titles. The opportunity cost of binging a game is high and kills a lot of the fun.
Especially after accounting for the added overhead of learning complex controls. The Spiderman 2 tutorial made me rage quit. It was like 2 hours of context dependent button combinations. Maybe ok if I was going to play 10 hours a week for the next couple months. But to dip in over a week or two, it's just too much. Frustrating at best.
It's possible the library auto renews your game, but if not, the late fee is a buck per day. That makes the game a scarce and fleeting resource. It diminishes the enjoyment.
I'm still figuring out how to ramp gym time back up, since recovering from COVID. My Dad then had a cold at Christmas, which followed us home and hit my wife pretty hard. The sequential illnesses then fed into a bitter cold spell. And so my motivation has been at zero. Competing with the PS5 hasnt helped either.
With all the respiratory stuff floating around, I remain hesitant about exercising around others. The plan is to use a less busy gym during slow times. I'm hoping that turns into renewed enthusiasm at home.
I've reached a point where my retirement is constrained by newly uncovered bounds. While they took a couple years to expose, life doesn't feel dramatically different than when I was working.
Of course, combining the two sets of limits would be rough. I'm seeing four different medical professionals this week. It's a lot, even without work. If employed - I simply wouldn't be capable of the same health investments.
Money's been maybe the easiest part of all this. Nothing expensive about using the library, and I've been too busy for other spending. Even the medical care - I seem to be having luck with insurance. I spent two hours with an eye doctor and was asked to pay $20. No complaints.
Synthesizing the 500 pages will take some time. I'm going to take the process slow. I expect I'll find unstated trade offs for each change, that the enthusiasts take for granted.
There's a lot of opportunity to improve my privacy position. Google's services may be secure, but the deeper I go, the more invasive they look. Google knows my entire life. That's lame. I dunno if I fire them completely, but I can do a lot better.
I'm resisting the temptation to impulsively throw money at the problem, before developing a cohesive strategy. I always love the excuse for a new gadget or software.
In the process of requesting the book, I learned to make worldcat orders entirely online. So I can get physical copies of most any book on a whim. Well worth the price of admission.
Borrowing the PS5 has been mixed. I binged final fantasy 16 in a week. It was cool to see the latest tech, but the games aren't any more fun. It was also a huge time suck.
The experience reveals a limitation of borrowing games from the library. A week or two isn't long enough to casually play AAA titles. The opportunity cost of binging a game is high and kills a lot of the fun.
Especially after accounting for the added overhead of learning complex controls. The Spiderman 2 tutorial made me rage quit. It was like 2 hours of context dependent button combinations. Maybe ok if I was going to play 10 hours a week for the next couple months. But to dip in over a week or two, it's just too much. Frustrating at best.
It's possible the library auto renews your game, but if not, the late fee is a buck per day. That makes the game a scarce and fleeting resource. It diminishes the enjoyment.
I'm still figuring out how to ramp gym time back up, since recovering from COVID. My Dad then had a cold at Christmas, which followed us home and hit my wife pretty hard. The sequential illnesses then fed into a bitter cold spell. And so my motivation has been at zero. Competing with the PS5 hasnt helped either.
With all the respiratory stuff floating around, I remain hesitant about exercising around others. The plan is to use a less busy gym during slow times. I'm hoping that turns into renewed enthusiasm at home.
I've reached a point where my retirement is constrained by newly uncovered bounds. While they took a couple years to expose, life doesn't feel dramatically different than when I was working.
Of course, combining the two sets of limits would be rough. I'm seeing four different medical professionals this week. It's a lot, even without work. If employed - I simply wouldn't be capable of the same health investments.
Money's been maybe the easiest part of all this. Nothing expensive about using the library, and I've been too busy for other spending. Even the medical care - I seem to be having luck with insurance. I spent two hours with an eye doctor and was asked to pay $20. No complaints.
Re: What I Spend
Finished reading the extreme privacy book. Some take aways:
1. Living anonymously isn't practical. Beyond the effort, it's ridiculously fragile. One careless moment unravels everything.
2. The extent to which our data is cataloged and shared is disheartening. Keeping up with the brokers is beyond a full time job.
3. The data collection is so detailed, that describing reality sounds paranoid. When Google captured street view for my house, they harvested my wifi network. What? And other map vendors do the same???
4. Resisting it looks paranoid. Example - magnetic license plate fasteners, so you can de-ID your car before driving past neighborhood license plate camera(s). The same tech is coming to doorbell cams.
5. While I'm security conscious, there's zero chance my data has remained private.
6. The most I can hope for, is avoidance of actively hostile corporations (ie Amazon). And even that's going to hurt. After waiting 2 weeks to get shoes direct from a vendor, Zappos got me a different size in 2 days.
7. Funny enough - while I'm on the cusp of ending my Amazon relationship, the author builds his anonymous shopping strategy around them.
8. Realistically - the only way to keep data private, is to never create it. Everything digital is compromised.
Overall - I appreciate the author's candor. Other sources imply it might be enough to run Linux, degoogle and use a VPN. That's simply not true.
Necessary services like the doctor, or even the animal shelter, are already leaking your data.
I might adopt changes anyway, but only to avoid forced obsolescence and coercieve marketing. I want to favor businesses that treat me well.
Big brother won.
1. Living anonymously isn't practical. Beyond the effort, it's ridiculously fragile. One careless moment unravels everything.
2. The extent to which our data is cataloged and shared is disheartening. Keeping up with the brokers is beyond a full time job.
3. The data collection is so detailed, that describing reality sounds paranoid. When Google captured street view for my house, they harvested my wifi network. What? And other map vendors do the same???
4. Resisting it looks paranoid. Example - magnetic license plate fasteners, so you can de-ID your car before driving past neighborhood license plate camera(s). The same tech is coming to doorbell cams.
5. While I'm security conscious, there's zero chance my data has remained private.
6. The most I can hope for, is avoidance of actively hostile corporations (ie Amazon). And even that's going to hurt. After waiting 2 weeks to get shoes direct from a vendor, Zappos got me a different size in 2 days.
7. Funny enough - while I'm on the cusp of ending my Amazon relationship, the author builds his anonymous shopping strategy around them.
8. Realistically - the only way to keep data private, is to never create it. Everything digital is compromised.
Overall - I appreciate the author's candor. Other sources imply it might be enough to run Linux, degoogle and use a VPN. That's simply not true.
Necessary services like the doctor, or even the animal shelter, are already leaking your data.
I might adopt changes anyway, but only to avoid forced obsolescence and coercieve marketing. I want to favor businesses that treat me well.
Big brother won.
Re: What I Spend
I've been following this data privacy journey with interest. I do plan on reading the book. I've been wondering if you would come to the same conclusion as me, and you have.
I had the same dreams you have, of being able to decouple myself enough to gain some privacy back. But honestly, I just don't think it's possible. In reality, for me, that dream ended several years back with the data breach at Equifax. There's just no closing the door after that.
And as you touched upon, nearly every service out there requires some kind of digital footprint. And it's not a matter of if that data will leak, it's a matter of when - and the vast majority of the time, that "leak" will be legal, through the sharing or selling of your data. Also, none of this touches upon the gathering of data by the government that has occurred (legally? illegally? no one seems to care) in dozens of ways since 9/11...
So unfortunately I agree...Big Brother won.
Re: What I Spend
At this point, I think the goal is inoculation against individualized marketing. The behavioral manipulation will become scary effective. If it's not already there.
Re: What I Spend
Yeah, I agree. I am just in a pessimistic mood about it currently, and I just don't think it's ultimately possible... So I have to decide if it's even worth the effort.
Re: What I Spend
I moved my phone to LineageOS today, including Google Apps. I debated on using MicroG or even a pure vanilla LineageOS. However - it makes no sense while I'm deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem. I need to take back my mail, contacts, calendar, etc. first.
The process took about a day in total. It wipes the phone, so I had to deal with 4 years of accumulated data mess. Then maybe 2 hours to do the change. But then another 4h to reinstall all my apps, copy data over, adjust settings, etc. I under appreciated how time consuming that last step would be. The tutorials emphasize the value of a backup/restore, but I wanted to start fresh. I paid for it.
I'm going from Android 10 to 13, as well - so a lot has changed. The other side of increased privacy and security control, is dramatically more choice. Defaults do not favor ease of use. That's been very annoying at times. Mobile data was off by default. Location sharing with Google maps - also off by default. Sometimes the reason a feature doesn't work (ie no map or directions) isn't obvious.
For some reason, I cannot change my wallpaper to a black image. At the very last confirmation step "Unable to set wallpaper" raises. I don't care that much, but what the heck. I think it will be awhile for these small issues to shake out. If I'm still going strong in a month or two, I can declare the process a success.
Seeing the amount of change already present, I'm glad I didn't attempt a full degoogle. This clearly requires incremental improvement. I'm at least on a current version of Android. I gained a lot of control and transparency. I can run the Offer Up app again.
My overall sentiment is cautious but hopeful.
The process took about a day in total. It wipes the phone, so I had to deal with 4 years of accumulated data mess. Then maybe 2 hours to do the change. But then another 4h to reinstall all my apps, copy data over, adjust settings, etc. I under appreciated how time consuming that last step would be. The tutorials emphasize the value of a backup/restore, but I wanted to start fresh. I paid for it.
I'm going from Android 10 to 13, as well - so a lot has changed. The other side of increased privacy and security control, is dramatically more choice. Defaults do not favor ease of use. That's been very annoying at times. Mobile data was off by default. Location sharing with Google maps - also off by default. Sometimes the reason a feature doesn't work (ie no map or directions) isn't obvious.
For some reason, I cannot change my wallpaper to a black image. At the very last confirmation step "Unable to set wallpaper" raises. I don't care that much, but what the heck. I think it will be awhile for these small issues to shake out. If I'm still going strong in a month or two, I can declare the process a success.
Seeing the amount of change already present, I'm glad I didn't attempt a full degoogle. This clearly requires incremental improvement. I'm at least on a current version of Android. I gained a lot of control and transparency. I can run the Offer Up app again.
My overall sentiment is cautious but hopeful.
Re: What I Spend
I started poking around the fdroid app store. A couple observations:
1. It reminds me of the internet from 20 years ago. Both good and bad.
2. The store is a very effective filter towards my anti big tech goals.
3. Their killer app is obviously piracy. Evangelizing about freedom, while using a special app to force free YouTube or Spotify premium, feels a little disingenuous.
I'm also appreciating how stellar the standard Google offering is. They really give something for your data.
1. It reminds me of the internet from 20 years ago. Both good and bad.
2. The store is a very effective filter towards my anti big tech goals.
3. Their killer app is obviously piracy. Evangelizing about freedom, while using a special app to force free YouTube or Spotify premium, feels a little disingenuous.
I'm also appreciating how stellar the standard Google offering is. They really give something for your data.
Re: What I Spend
The F-Droid store has a nice email client called K-9 Mail, and it has a KeePassDX which you can use to store passwords.
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suomalainen
- Posts: 988
- Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm
Re: What I Spend
@delay - I'll keep those apps in mind. Both are products I'm looking to change. I've chosen not to run a password manager on my phone and am considering removal of email.
Google sold me on the idea retaining all email, counting on search over organization. I now understand why.
I like idea of adopting a zero retention policy instead, archiving off any critical data. Dunno if I'll follow through.
@suo - I can't even imagine removing plastic. It's so deeply woven through the supply chain.
Google sold me on the idea retaining all email, counting on search over organization. I now understand why.
I like idea of adopting a zero retention policy instead, archiving off any critical data. Dunno if I'll follow through.
@suo - I can't even imagine removing plastic. It's so deeply woven through the supply chain.
Re: What I Spend
My Amazon account is gone, even the credit card:
I kid you not - after this, they tried to impose a 10 day waiting period. I had to cancel the request, manually delete my seller account, then resubmit the request. Only then could I end the relationship.
The credit card was my oldest active account, second oldest overall. Closing it only lowered my credit score by a point.
The problem I have not solved, is using Zappos for shoes. Technically a separate account, but clearly under the Amazon umbrella. With my foot problems, I'm trying a lot of shoes. Ordering direct from a vendor took 2 weeks. When the size was wrong, Zappos got a replacement here in 2 days. I have some time sensitivity, which makes giving that up very difficult.
Ultimately, I don't think absolutes are pragmatic. Especially as big tech continues to consolidate. Who knows what critical service they'll buy next.
I kid you not - after this, they tried to impose a 10 day waiting period. I had to cancel the request, manually delete my seller account, then resubmit the request. Only then could I end the relationship.
The credit card was my oldest active account, second oldest overall. Closing it only lowered my credit score by a point.
The problem I have not solved, is using Zappos for shoes. Technically a separate account, but clearly under the Amazon umbrella. With my foot problems, I'm trying a lot of shoes. Ordering direct from a vendor took 2 weeks. When the size was wrong, Zappos got a replacement here in 2 days. I have some time sensitivity, which makes giving that up very difficult.
Ultimately, I don't think absolutes are pragmatic. Especially as big tech continues to consolidate. Who knows what critical service they'll buy next.
Re: What I Spend
You can migrate all old email and contacts to a paid protonmail account and then have the ability to search it. The data is behind strong encryption, so no one including proton can see your data.
https://proton.me/support/switch-from-gmail-to-proton
Re: What I Spend
Wow, they do make it easy. Proton has been my first choice for awhile now. The unlimited plan is much better than my current solution.
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OutOfTheBlue
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2022 9:59 am
Re: What I Spend
May I suggest also trying FairEmail (email client) and Bitwarden (password manager).
I have used K9-Mail and KeePass in the past, but the above have won me over.
As an email provider, I am using Autistici.org (free, donation based) for years now, managed by an Italian anti-establishment collective. Probably not your cup of tea, but putting this out there. The Swiss "Kolab Now" and the German "Posteo" are strong paid privacy-minded options.