Privacy

I'm going to assume you know why privacy is important. :)

But if you don't, just keep reading past the recommendations.

What can I do?

1. If possible, tone down your phone usage. Disable mobile data, location, and prevent apps from running in the background where possible.
2. Stop consuming the news as much as is realistic for you.
3. Use an adblocker (specifically, use uBlock Origin).
4. Use Firefox - ideally Librewolf, which has baked-in privacy features. On your mobile, use a privacy centric Firefox fork like Iceraven.
5. Avoid using the in-built app store on your phone where possible.
6. Use open-source where you can (that means the source code is open for everyone to look at). On Android, download F-Droid for an open-source appstore.
7. Be mindful of what goes on in your daily life. Pay attention to how you feel when you see inflammatory news, or when you get the urge to access social media.
8. Stop using social media.
9. Interact more in your everyday life, if you can. If not, try to talk to people online more.
10. Do not use your real details online. Seriously, it's OK to make them up.
11. Use a VPN where you can. Some open-source apps allow you to spoof your location on Android; pick somewhere populated, where your system language won't stick out.
12. Use Tor to browse online where appropriate.
13. When torrenting, or not using Tor, use a VPN. (Don't mix both unless you know what you're doing.)
14. Move away from using Google or Hotmail for email. Proton isn't perfect, but it's better - there are other private services as well.
15. If you're serious (read: paranoid) and have the know-how or will, set up a Pi-hole.
16. Again, if you have the know-how, and you're serious, set up a VPS purchased using Monero via Lowendtalk.
17. If you need to install apps on Android, install Bouncer (lets you add and then revoke permissions from apps easily).
18. If you use a Mac, use Little Snitch. If you use Windows, use Tinywall and whitelist programs only as needed. If you use Linux, you're probably fine, but you can use ufw if you want to. (Or firewalld.)
19. If you use Windows, use ShutUp10++ to disable in-built privacy-eroding features.
20. Use Signal for messaging where possible. Check this list for Android apps that are privacy friendly.
21. If possible, stop using iOS.
22. If you have Android, and the know-how, root your phone.
23. If you can, use Linux as opposed to Windows or MacOS.
24. If you can jailbreak your iPhone, do it.
25. Keep a diary to understand what's happening for you emotionally, and physically. Have a couple of days each month where you note most things that happen each day.

How at risk am I?

Say you own an iPhone, or a Mac. Maybe you're in the EU, and you've denied Apple the right to your data! You might have even disabled Maps, or Suggestions to avoid them collecting your data. You make a search on your device. Apple promptly receives a message with your exact keystrokes, and your exact location coordinates. (This is still true in 2026.) On a fresh Windows install, the differences are minute. Before you so much as open a web browser, your computer calls out to Bing, McAfee, marketing AND an AI company. Then, they send Microsoft your location.

Android and iOS send Google/Apple information about you every 4-5 minutes even when you are not using the phone (p.2.). Android sends a greater quantity of data than iOS, but iPhones send extremely sensitive information: for instance, when you put a SIM card into a device, the device sends Apple your location and a list of devices that are physically near you.... so the iPhone not only compromises your privacy, but everyone else's.

The reality is that most of us don't understand how this affects us. In the experience of people I know who handle this sort of thing, 95% of people consent to the highest level of telemetry. The convenience is appealing, people figure it won't affect their life - or they feel it's pointless to even try.

Okay, but why should I care?

"Good job I'm just a boring Joe Schmoe," some people think. "I don't matter to the government."

Well, here's where it gets messy:

• Just because the government isn't trying to hurt or incarcerate you now doesn't mean they won't in the future;
• Just because the government isn't trying to hurt or incarcerate you doesn't mean they won't try to hurt or incarcerate the people around you,
• and just because that's not happening to someone you love now doesn't mean it won't someday.
• Just because you haven't done anything wrong or illegal doesn't mean that you won't be accused of it.

Privacy goes deeper than a company explicitly hunting down your data, because you may not always be the target of government-level espionage - but you are always the target of propaganda.

I don't see any propaganda.

The propaganda of today is unlike any other. In the past, the stylisation of propaganda required designers, artists, and could only go so far as a pamphlet, or with sufficient financing, a film.

But TV showed people could become addicted to advertising. If you ever wonder why privacy is such a growing issue, and why social media has become the behemoth it has: imagine a world where propaganda is addictive, whilst each addict is tracked and studied to improve the product. Needless to say, you don't need much imagination for that.

Instead of addressing your wage or employment, the news directs your upset to people's genitals (as the rich abuse your children), or money stolen by migrants (as the rich steal billions from you). When public outrage reaches critical mass, the media drags out another shock-generating statistic.

Overwhelm, stress, anger, and even excitement are tools used by the news and social media to suck you in to even more news and media. From the fake back-and-forth of political parties to getting angry at migrants eating too much at a buffet in West Texas, if you're dialed in to the media, you've dialed out of real life. If you believe the news, then you believe what the rich want you to believe, in part or in whole, since they decide what makes the news at all. Needless to say, social media is swimming with bots that are all trying to influence how you think.

That's just propaganda - not even getting into what can happen when the government actually, seriously, wants to find information on you.

But, in my country...

What if local laws don't matter? A recent leak exposed that the UK tried to force Apple to build a backdoor into encrypted iCloud servers, to access people's private information - globally.

Apple won because they have legal sway - but the reality is the NSA has successfully compelled tons of companies to do this exact thing, without the public hearing a word. The point being: the surveillance is worse than you think.

Governments globally mandate companies to provide access to their citizen's devices, and Five Eyes means that everybody gets to jam their hands in the sticky American surveillance pot. Routers sold in the US come with special backdoors for CIA access - even before being shipped overseas - (ever owned a Cisco router?). Even the EU, touted as the gold standard on privacy, has repurposed its digital systems for mass surveillance on immigrants as young as 7 years old. Supposedly free countries provide free access for the NSA, sometimes without a court order.

It's to protect us, though!

Protection is a very relative idea.

maia crimew, a hacktivist that exposed the USAs No-Fly List and footage from unsecured security cameras in Tesla factories and American hospitals after both were left exposed online, is now unable to leave Switzerland due to a secret but likely warrant from Interpol. These passwords were just floating around online.

Edward Snowden has been stateless in Russia for over a decade now after exposing the extent of surveillance by the NSA. (If you don't know... pour a hot coffee, and inform yourself.) The surveillance is now deemed illegal in scope, and includes widespread espionage from the USA, domestically and internationally, with the collaboration of countries across the globe. Around 2012, the NSA was intercepting over 20 billion communications per day. From stealing and sharing people's naked photos, to wiretapping and intercepting emails; just domestically, one program intercepted over 15 trillion intercepted emails and calls from 9/11 to 2013. This effort is credited with preventing just 50 attacks from 9/11 to 2013, and evidence is scarce that these 50 threats ever existed in any credible manner. Now Snowden is wanted for theft and violating the Espionage act, the latter of which prevents him from making his case to a jury.

When Edward Snowden broke rank with the NSA to inform on the fact that the NSA was routinely violating people's privacy, his email provider, Ladar Levison of Lavabit, was forced to surveil him. When Ladar refused to decrypt the communications of all Lavabit's users, the government argued that as a PC was to be used as a means of search, the entire operation was exempt from the Fourth Amendment's search-and-seizure protections. He was held in contempt of court, but was not allowed a hearing, or to dispute the charges.