The Privacy Iceberg

This is original content. AI was not used anywhere except for the bottom right image, simply because I could not find one similar enough to what I needed. This took around 6 hours to make.

Transcription (for the visually impaired)

(I tried my best)

The background is an iceberg with 6 levels, denoting 6 different levels of privacy.

The tip of the iceberg is titled “The Brainwashed” with a quote beside it that says “I have nothing to hide”. The logos depicted in this section are:

The surface section of the iceberg is titled “As seen on TV” with a quote beside it that says “This video is sponsored by…”. The logos depicted in this section are:

An underwater section of the iceberg is titled “The Beginner” with a quote beside it that says “I don’t like hackers and spying”. The logos depicted in this section are:

A lower section of the iceberg is titled “The Privacy Enthusiast” with a quote beside it that says “I have nothing I want to show”. The logos depicted in this section are:

An even lower section of the iceberg is titled “The Privacy Activist” with a quote beside it that says “Privacy is a human right”. The logos depicted in this section are:

The lowest portion of the iceberg is titled “The Ghost”. There is a quote beside it that has been intentionally redacted. The images depicted in this section are:

  • A cancel sign over a mobile phone, symbolizing “no electronics”
  • An illustration of a log cabin, symbolizing “living in a log cabin in the woods”
  • A picture of gold bars, symbolizing “paying only in gold”
  • A picture of a death certificate, symbolizing “faking your own death”
  • An AI generated picture of a person wearing a black hoodie, a baseball cap, a face mask, and reflective sunglasses, symbolizing “hiding ones identity in public”

End of transcription.

  • mmhmm ( mmhmm@lemmy.ml ) 
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    2 years ago

    I was at the bike shop a few weeks back and a ghost walked in. He came in wearing a medical mask covered by a bandana, sunglasses, cap. They wore gloves, long sleaved pants and shirt.

    First question from staff, ‘this a robbery?’

    Ghost, ‘no, I just need 27 2.5 tubes, miss.’

    They get the tubes, he agrees. Staff asks if he has an account. Ghost says, “nope, why would I need one?” Staff says they do it for records, insurance claim assist, and discounts. Ghost goes with a John Doe, pays cash and peaces the fuck out.

    Total King, but dude was given up a lot. Half of us were drinking beers enjoying a warm evening in spring. I hope he has had some good rides.

    I can say with confidence thay he was a white male. In his 50s. About 5’10". 140 lbs-ish. If anyone wants to get any tips, good luck!

  • tisktisk ( tisktisk@piefed.social ) 
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    2 years ago

    TIL I’m a privacy activist–who can help me get to the ghost mode?
    (Do I even want to get there or is that limited to journalists who have entire states trying to unalive them?)

  • ISOmorph ( ISOmorph@feddit.org ) 
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    2 years ago

    Can you explain why you would think Steam is so bad? I would argue they’re pretty fair, especially with the option to buy steam cards for cash to not disclose your personal data. Does the client do some unsavory shit?

    • 9bananas ( 9bananas@feddit.org ) 
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      2 years ago

      afaik the client does collect a bunch if data, most (all, i think? but not a 100% on that) of which is opt-in.

      they do need stuff like IPs for internet related features.

      telemetry wise there’s the steam hardware survey, which is opt-in, and it asks every single time it attempts to collect your systems hardware and OS information. this could technically be identifying information, but since it’s opt-in it’s not a privacy violation and it’s entirely optional. (plus it’s super useful for all involved: users, devs, and steam. it’s kind of a win-win and straight up necessary info for devs to know which hardware they should optimize for)

      they might be putting it at the top because steam has native support for DRM?

      but that’s also weird, because DRM isn’t a privacy violation. it’s a shitty practice, barely does anything, barely works, and keeps breaking or hobbling otherwise perfectly good games, all of which is shitty, but it’s little to do with privacy. and the dev has to specifically opt-in and integrate it as a feature…unless they’re thinking of 3rd party DRM that can be waaay more intrusive, like Vanguard… THAT’S a privacy and security nightmare just waiting to blow up in people’s faces.

      otherwise…i haven’t really heard anything bad about steam privacy wise?

      doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be concerned about, but i feel like there’d been some news about it if there was…

  • I have no clue why telegram is often mentioned when it comes to “privacy focused messaging”. They don’t even have e2e encrypted group chats. Only 1:1 chats may be encrypted as an opt-in. Even WhatsApp is more secure than that, since they use signals encryption.

    Also the “we don’t give out even a byte of data to anyone” statements made by telegram have been thoroughly debunked as lies. When telegrams bottom line is in danger, they have and will give out your data.

    • well that section has a few not so effective services, like authy, and imo brave and adblock, to depict what people believe at that point. and telegram probably gets to be there because it’s not the usual big tech companies, and it seems fine, even if unencrypted.

      Only 1:1 chats may be encrypted as an opt-in.

      and only on the phone app

      • well that section has a few not so effective services, like authy, and imo brave and adblock, to depict what people believe at that point.

        Yes, this is the exact reason Telegram was put there. I even see Telegram recommended alongside Signal, despite the privacy risks.

      • or that some part of the encryption, like key handling is flawed. also, considering they have an RCE vulnerability every year, I wouldn’t be surprised if the encryption keys could just be stolen remotely.

        we also don’t know if facebook has implemented some kind of analytics for message content, sent files and media.

  • LeTak ( LeTak@lemm.ee ) 
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    2 years ago

    Tried the Privacy Activist and Enthusiast section. Was not really fun and you loose connection to most of your friends and family. Now I have a balanced setup with something out of each layer. Perfect balanced, as things should be

    • I have taken my own approach; there are things from each layer that I use. Some begrudgingly but others gladly.

      The problem I faced when starting this journey is it does cut out a lot of people. And it becomes isolsting. So I did reel back a bit.

      • Natanox ( Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
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        2 years ago

        It’s equally frustrating to talk to people who’re completely entrenched in the Enthusiast / Activist section. The utter disconnect when it comes to what’s viable for most people is annoying to deal with sometimes. Statements like “Everyone who is able to read can easily learn to use Arch Linux” or “Everyone can flash their phone” do give me headaches. Was there, did both, wouldn’t recommend to my less nerdy family.

        • Hellmo_luciferrari ( Hellmo_Luciferrari@lemm.ee ) 
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          2 years ago

          I can totally understand where you are coming from.

          I do hold the view that if you can read, you too can install GrapheneOS, or try Linux; but that doesn’t make it right for everyone. It’s a self imposed journey. I can’t expect everyone to make the same choices I do.

          That is where I will educate people as to why I chose what I chose; however I will not try to force someone down the same road.

          So totally understood.

          • LeTak ( LeTak@lemm.ee ) 
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            2 years ago

            Giving it a try is most of the time the first step. I tried GrapheneOS , used it until my device no longer received updates. Then Google Pixels got disappointing and iOS 14/15 got out with big privacy changes, so I switched the first time to Apple. I know, ironic , but it works for me. I remove most permissions from apps, use my own DNS block list enforced by MDM and if possible, self host my apps and services or use paid / open source ones. I am here on Lemmy instead of Reddit or Instagram…. I also tried Jollas SailfishOS v3 , it was ok, but this was back at the time very limited for social interactions, now with v5 it would have been better. Also good to know, at my place , Apple Pay is one of the most secure and private pay systems…. I hate that, this feels wrong.

            • I used to run LineageOS with a lot of my own tweaks to meet my privacy needs; however I reached a point I decided it didn’t fit my needs for security. So, I went back to GrapheneOS. Which, I am 1uite haply with. Ultimately, I dream of a fully operational Linux phone of sorts; but we aren’t there yet.

              I ditched reddit, and most centralized social media. I ditched many big tech services in place of self hosting my own. And even that is mostly locked down. Very little exposed to the web. Ad blocking, as well as my own underlying upstream DNS, with a fallback that isn’t Google or Cloudflare. Services being firewalled off. Reverse proxy setup limiting access via IP:Port while also including SSL certs for local only https.

              And this list goes on; it’s a constant journey. But the hard part is to still be social. Hahaha

            • TerHu ( TerHu@lemm.ee ) 
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              2 years ago

              i also hate the idea of giving up apple pay when testing graphene. i really hope to find a somewhat ok alternative, but from what i’ve heard it seems to be the best there is atm :(

        • net00 ( net00@lemm.ee ) 
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          2 years ago

          The FOSS circlejerk for lack of better term is very loud on Fediverse as a whole. It’s tiring when each time anyone mentions using Windows, or Apple there’s at least one fucker telling you to swap to linux lol…

          It’s very loud so I have thought at times to switch back to reddit, where it’s at least less pervasive.

  • utopiah ( utopiah@lemmy.ml ) 
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    2 years ago

    On browsers, as you put Chromium then also put Firefox or deMozillaed Firefox e.g. WaterFox.

    I’d put Brave back to the 2nd layer due to relying on Chromium and being heavily marketed while gathering data for its crypto scheme. I’d also put Firefox on the 2nd or 3rd layer.

          • utopiah ( utopiah@lemmy.ml ) 
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            2 years ago

            I’m not sure what’s that’s supposed to show as “there are built in settings for some of this stuff, it’s not complete and many settings are abstracted away from the user. Enter about:config” since it might be hierarchical, i.e. disabling a single telemetry toggle, either via Preferences or about:config might disable all the other ones. I haven’t looked specifically at that part of the code of Firefox but I’d trust more a Wireshark analysis than this since it doesn’t actually show (unless I missed that part, quite possible as it’s relatively long) that information does actually go back to Mozilla even while one has disabled all telemetry option.

            Fingerprinting is fair, in the sense that yes, if you do broadcast your userAgent and other public information you do narrow the potential search space and thus expose you as an individual more, yet has nothing to do with Mozilla.

            • hansolo ( hansolo@lemm.ee ) 
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              2 years ago

              But we’re taking about this in the context of this infographic. So we have to distill this down to:

              Should FF be with, or above, Brave?

              I assume we’re also taking about relatively low-barrier changes that most users can implement. So vanilla FF vs vanilla Brave, there’s a difference. Can we harden FF? Sure. Will 95%+ of people do that with Librewolf or 3 dozen other forks out there? Why bother when there’s nuance to be gained with other forks? So now vanilla FF stops being relevant.

              And to be clear, I don’t use Brave unless I absolutely have to. I don’t love it, but vs. normie Vanilla FF, there’s a slight edge.

  • jagged_circle ( jagged_circle@feddit.nl ) 
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    2 years ago

    I give workshops on privacy. I always tell them that if they get nothing else out of my presentation, its that they should use a password manager.

    Honestly I think keepass should be beginner. That comes first before everything else.

    Also I think Tor Browser should come before VPNs. Its free and easier to use than VPNs (for when you want to google something secret and don’t want to be tracked. Most beginners are selective like that)

    • edel ( edel@lemmy.ml ) 
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      2 years ago

      True. Apple would need a category on its own, but if i have to choose would place it on “As seen on TV”.

      It is fairly private and they quite give a fight about maintaining that status. There are no cases I am aware off they comply to open the system for authorities publicly and if so, they do not claim encryption anymore (as per UK.) Now… the key word is publicly; If I were a zealous top intelligence agency I would not force Apple to break an account for me so to obtain evidence on an individual so I can present it to a judge… for me Apple or Protonmail (or any other popular encrypted service really) would be far more valuable a place where I quietly could obtain intel on tens of thousands of targets and with that find other ways to find evidence if need be. It is a good sacrifice for the sustainability of the scheme.

      Of course, this is just a thought and no evidence has been brought up. Apple is a large company and some whistleblower could easily popup if that were the case… yet again, having the right tight team is easy to keep it undercover, specially in a closed sourced software. The fact that the US is eyeing so many encrypted SaaS but Apple, with its omnipresence reach, is almost always left alone is a bit odd.

    • Natanox ( Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
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      2 years ago

      Well, following that (not fully wrong) logic everything until enthusiast level is useless since it runs on Windows and often not degoogled Chromium. And (given the meme doesn’t contain /e/OS, iode, ShiftOS or Linux Mobile anywhere) anything until activist that happens on mobile phones is equally useless since it runs on Apple/Google Android.

      I’m more annoyed about “Linux” as a whole being sorted into “Enthusiast”. Using your Steam Deck in Desktop mode, buying a brand new Linux laptop for +600€ or even installing and using Linux Mint really isn’t as enthusiastic anymore. :D

        • huppakee ( huppakee@lemm.ee ) 
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          2 years ago

          I haven’t had an iPhone the last few years so I’m not sure what would be the best way to go about it. A decade ago I definitely felt safer with apple than I would now, even though stuff might actually be better encrypted now.