Privacy Tools

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Resources
October 6, 2021

(I have no affiliation or financial incentives from any of these companies)

This page will list resources that I personally have found useful and would recommend. It will take considerable time to go through them. In Michael Bazzell's words: "Privacy is a marathon, not a sprint" so step by step is the key.

Having developed some iPhone apps back in the day I realised that as a programmer I could ask a user for access to their contacts. Since most users just click yes to everything I suddenly ended up with a lot of other peoples personal information. Information that a less discerning programmer could abuse. The alarming thing was how easy it was for me as a non expert coder to do this. Think of what the engineers at Google, Apple and other large entities can do? Think of all the apps that have access to data like your contact list, calendar, messages and files. This small example made me think more about privacy online. Thankfully I soon found the gold standard that was Michael Bazzell and his books on privacy. He was a former US Government investigator for almost 20 years specialising in online surveillance. His ethics and intentions are good and he is a great teacher. That started my journey so thank you Michael. His books take you from basics to advanced and are well worth the effort. Please find links to the books below.

This list also includes links to Bitcoin resources which are part of financial privacy and independance from banks. Bearing in mind the only financial privacy you have now is paying in cash, Bitcoin provides another option. It is important to note that Bitcoin is actually very open, to be private on the network takes some skill, but you can still make censorship resistant transactions to help those that need it for example.

An easy approach is to start with the listed podcasts...

Good luck learning....enjoy the journey.

Private Messaging

Use apps that enforce end to end encryption. Try to avoid WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and SMS. Signal has a lot of people on it which makes it the most useable but the big downside is that you have to provide a phone number. You can however try to use a VoiP number.

https://Signal.org Signal has the most users.
https://getsession.org/ Excellent option that ticks most of the boxes, no phone number needed.
https://matrix.org/ Federated option that is growing rapidly.
https://briarproject.org/ Probably the best messaging app out there but not too many people on it yet. The best feature i think is that you can send messages offline, either using bluetooth or adhoc Wi-Fi or USB transfer.

Private Email

Try to use these services, they encrypt your emails whilst at rest on the server/cloud and best of all if the person you are emailing has an account with them then your emails are encrypted with zero effort by you.

Protonmail Private Encrypted Email based in Switzerland, some degree of judicial protection.
Tutanota Private Encrypted Email based in Germany, some degree of judicial protection.
Ctemplar Private Encrypted Email based in Iceland, a country that respects privacy the most, good judicial protection.

Self Hosting

Start9 Labs: This is a great company that allows you to setup your own server at home. Very easily done with a great user interface. You can self host a file system (like having your own dropbox), password manager, Mastadon server, private messenger service, Bitcoin tools and much more. It is brilliant and hopefully a taste of things to come. Their road map is impressive.
Njala: Privacy orientated webservers and VPN's. Run by a great engineer.
Yunohost: This is almost a one click install of a server that can run services typically found on the 'Cloud'. It allows a newbie to selfhost Nextcloud, chat servers, collaberation tools, search engines and much much more.
Nextcloud: This is the go to set up for calendar, contacts, filesync and way more.
Diverter: Read these guides to help you on your way. A huge fan.
NGUVU: Brilliant guides on how to setup your home firewall using Pfsense.

Operating Systems for Laptop and Desktop

Qubes (Using Whonix) Simply the best. Takes some time to learn but use it if you can.
TAILS A brilliant OS that you can run off a USB stick on almost any computer. Full functionality, anonimity and ease of use.
PureOS An easy to use privacy focussed Linux distribution, a good stepping stone to Qubes and TAILS.
PopOS An easy to use privacy focussed Linux distribution, a good stepping stone to Qubes and TAILS.

Operating Systems for Phones

GraphenOS
CalyxOS (Very much a second choice, go with GraphenOS if you can but if you need some Google services to work CalyxOS can work till you can upgrade to GrapheneOS.)
Apple iOS if you can not use the above two options. Out of the box, with zero effort, Apple might be more secure and is definaltely more private than Android.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Password Managers

KeepassXC is number 1 as it is offline and therefore does not use a cloud service. If your need to use a cloud service then Bitwarden is excellent. 1Password is included as I used it for 5 years and it served me well.

File Encryption

Use this tool to encrypt your files if you have to send them accross the internet, store them on a cloud or to keep your local backups safe.

Veracrypt

Data Deletion Companies

JustDeleteMe. This brillaint company has been going for ten years. For a fee they can work at deleting yoru online data. A great way to get started on this time consuming process. Seth's OptOut podcast has a great interview with the CEO, found here.

Metadata Stripping

These tools can be used to remove metadata from files before sending them. This is especially important when sending say a photo to a cloud service which will get scanned or email which is rarely protected unless you are both emailing on Ctemplar, Tutanota or Protonmail for example. Good articles on the subject found here, and here.

Hardware Keys

Ranked in order:-

OnlyKey This is number one in my opion. Have a look at the comparison to Yubikey on their website for why. It does many differet things and has a great web portal to extend the capabilities of this fantastic product.
Nitrokey A super German companies that originally made the Librem Key. They also seel other privacy hardware like laptops. Superb resource, highly recomended.
Yubikey The most well known hardware key, very good, but not as good as OnlyKey imo.