Top Privacy Tools and Tips for 2025!

Top Privacy Tools and Tips for 2025!

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when we think about surveillance we need to think  about what are we trying to optimize for because   there are absolutely trade-offs a lot of the time  you don't really know what's happening to the data   on the back end Facebook is an advertising  company they make their revenue because they   create amazing profiles about people and then  sell access to people's attention it's so funny   how people talk about telegram if it's as if it's  a private messaging app it's like calling Facebook   a private messaging act so Brian Acton was uh the  creator of WhatsApp sold it to to Facebook he was   so dismayed with the direction that it was going  in in terms of privacy that he left like hundreds   of millions of dollars of vested options on the  table China has completely hacked into all of our   telecommunications networks choose a company that  you trust and they say they're not logging use   these other systems but be careful while you ride  in them. Everyone it's David Bombal back with the   amazing Naomi Brockwell, Naomi great to have you  back on the channel. I it's so lovely to be back   it's been too long. Way too long I was looking  earlier it's like 2 years ago that's insane we  

got to get you back more often. Well I think that  privacy and surveillance move so fast I mean Tech   in general moves so fast it's important for people  to keep up with it and it's like a full-time job I   should know because it's my full-time job but  I do think that it's helpful just to check in   with people and let them know what's going on  um because yeah I want people to be empowered   and know how to use their technology know how it  works and make informed decisions. So in this video   hopefully you're going to give us like your top  tips for 2025 like maybe top 10 or whatever the   number is top privacy tips but before before we do  that you got to tell us about your channel because   I want more people to go and sub to your channel  so if everyone watching go and sub amazing channel   Naomi tell us about your channel what you cover  so that people know about it. So we empower people  

in their technology we teach them about how all  the surveillance in their devices works we teach   them about privacy tools out there that can better  protect them we want people to be able to navigate   the online world safely and securely and with full  autonomy and sovereignty uh so that they can feel   free to express themselves and use the wonderful  things that make the internet so wonderful so we   have a uh research institute called Ludlow Institute  it's a nonprofit and we just spend all of our time   researching this stuff and then teaching you what  we learned so I hope that it's it's valuable to   to all of you. I think it's fantastic I mean  just for everyone who's watching I've linked   it below Naomi Brockwell TV fantastic channel we  got to get you to a million subs. Tomorrow let's   just do it tomorrow it's a great goal for 2025  right? Exactly so top tips for privacy and I mean   we we'll just go on a journey here but perhaps  you can give us some basic things and then some   more advanced stuff I'm based in the UK as we  were discussing earlier um Australia not that   you there anymore is um also not well known for  like looking after to people's privacy preps in   the US is also not great so you know what can  I do because the government is is like I don't   know. It's getting scary and last year we saw that  Australia just passed this bill talking about how   they banning people under 16 from using social  media and they have no idea how they're going   to imp imp this yet but basically what this is  going to necessitate is everyone in Australia   having to provide a government issued ID in order  to use social media and then once you have that   infrastructure in place uh one it's going to  be just a major target for anyone who wants   to hack it uh just another piece of information  that no one's going to be able to protect but on   top of that once they have that infrastructure  in place it's only a matter of time before they   start adding more content to the list what are  the other things you're not allowed to access if   you're in Australia perhaps you're not allowed  to access certain news sources or things from   other countries you know what makes the internet  so wonderful is that it connects people across the   world uh instantaneously and it's beautiful you  know I feel like sometimes I have more in common   with people um you know who are internet users on  the same sites as me over complete countries I've   never even been to than people in my own town who  are perhaps not using the same internet tools so I   just love that connection that it's formed and I  hate the idea that the trajectory we're going in   is towards more and more control of this uh and  it's always under the guise of we're protecting   you from your own choices but I want people to  protect themselves I want them to be empowered   themselves to be informed about the tech and  not be INF fantalis and told that they can't   make their own decisions you know you can't wear  your big boy pants yet um you know we all can we   just need to learn how our Tech works and you  know um decisions about whether people under 16   should be able to use social media should be a to  parents ultimately and uh and individuals so yeah   it I think that there are a lot of tools out  there that can definitely help people who were   really feeling the pinch who were starting to feel  their freedoms curtailed uh and you know there are   a lot of things that the government around the  world you try to push us towards and there are   ways to get around it and it's not illegal it's  just that they make it really difficult to use   the internet freely uh so it's just a matter  of you know just learning how to do it and   sometimes it can be difficult but I think  ultimately um this wonderful internet uh tool   that we have at our disposal it's worth it just  being able to access it with with full freedom. I  

really want to thank DeleteMe for sponsoring this  video and helping protect me and my family from   data brokers selling my personal information I  cannot believe that data brokers still exist and   can sell personal data about you to whoever they  want to notice here us moves ahead with crackdown   on data brokers selling to six countries of  concern so an executive order has been issued   preventing access to Americans bulk sensitive  data and United States government related data   by countries of concern including China Cuba Iran  North Korea Russia and Venezuela but think about   that they are banning the sale of your data to  these countries if you're based in the US but   your data is still being collected and may be sold  to other people there's another article from the   verge two data brokers banned from selling  sensitive location data by the FTC precise   location data from advertising IDs and mobile apps  can be used for surveillance that according to the   FDC puts millions of Americans at risk these data  Brokers were showing personalized ads on mobile   devices and then retaining tracking information  identifying them your data is being collected put   together by data brokers and then sold on the  amount of information that these data brokers   have about us is ridiculous I started using DeleteMe because of the recommendations of Rachel Tobac   and others in the cyber security industry Rachel  has done some amazing demonstrations where she   cloned someone's voice spoofed their telephone  number and pretended to be someone and tricked   an assistant into giving passport information  and other confidential information to her now   you may think you would never be scammed but  think about your mother your grandmother or   someone else who's less technical than you there  are so many examples of old people being scammed   how much money were you scammed out of 11,300  their life savings being stolen because the   attacker or scammer knows something about them and  they can trick those vulnerable people into giving   them money help protect your family help protect  yourself by using delete me to go out there and   remove your data from data brokers now you can  do this yourself and go and manually remove your   data but that means that you have to to put in  a lot of work and constantly monitor that your   data hasn't been put out there once again or  sold online so I personally would use DeleteMe   again because of recommendations of Rachel  Tobac and others you can use my link below join   http://joindeleteme.com/Bombal and get a 20% discount off  your subscription don't let others control your   data make sure that you get your data removed  from data brokers. So okay you asked for tips so   let's start off with private communication  um another thing that was announced last   year was that China has completely hacked into all  of our telecommunications networks in the United   States and I don't think this was surprising to  anyone we we know that the governments are all   in each other's critical infrastructure but  I think what was surprising was soon after   this announcement maybe like a month after this  announcement the government started then saying   hey you guys should protect yourself by using  encrypted communications within the telephone   Network and for anyone who understands how these  Network work they have something called lawful   access laws and these are Global right so every  country in the world has some sort of a lawful   access law which means that the communication  Channel itself in the Telecommunications uh   networks are not allowed to be encrypted and uh  and that's why we use things like signal because   we can encrypt packets and put them in the network  but the actual Channel itself is not allowed to be   encrypted and they've always said well that's for  your protection we need to be able to access this   to catch the bad guys and now they turned around  and said whoops turns out you're more vulnerable   because of this and China is listening to all  of your conversations and maybe you should use   encrypted communications within these networks so  I think they're just saying something we all knew   that private communication is really important  and that encryption is really important so   that's my number one tip for 2025 is encrypted  communications use end to-end encryption uh   services like Signal is one great example um but  there are lots of services out there that you can   use ultimately you don't want to be using SMS you  don't want to be using social media DMs you want   to be getting away from all of that and really  just you know protecting your communication. So   Signal are there any others? There are a lot of  others uh the reason why I always go to Signal is   because there sort of the gold standard the Signal  protocol is the gold standard um there are lots of   other alternatives some that are very interesting  that are trying to decentralize these networks   um a lot of them don't have things like perfect  perfect forward secrecy which I think is a really   important thing to have in a private communication  tool so I don't necessarily recommend a lot of the   others but are they better than SMS absolutely so  much better what is a magnitude better so I think   that like just choosing alternate uh alternate  means of communication is going to really help   you out and you're going to be doing a lot better  than just going with the default SMS that a lot of   us uh use today so I like Signal but you may have  a preference for other apps that you like to use   do you think are easy to use do you think provide  uh good systems but I've also found that Network   effect is very important and people get privacy  fatigue if you try to move them over to the next   best uh you know messaging platform I've moved  people over to previous ones in the past in   previous years and um you know maybe they get  bought out by someone maybe they get sold or   maybe the data gets hand over maybe it gets  compromised so I kind of really like to just   focus on what I think has the main staying power  now because I don't want people to feel fatigued   if I then move them on to the next thing that  being said I'm contact on a huge number of these   platforms because I'm willing to use them and I  love using and trying out these platforms uh if   you're just getting started or you're trying to  convince others I would go for whatever has the   biggest Network effect. yeah because I whenever I  talk about Signal then I get a lot of push back  

at why not Telegram what's your thoughts about  Telegram I mean the CEO got arrested in France. oh   Telegram isn't at all all it's not private at all  I I it's so funny how people talk about telegram   if it's as if it's a private messaging app and so  many like you see the crypto community is using it   and Gaming Community is using it and pretending  they're having these private conversations so by   default no peer-to-peer conversation no onetoone  message is and encrypted it's all just protected   by promises you know we promise we won't hand  over your data that's not a robust privacy   strategy it's not possible to enter any cryp the  group Chats on there so every group you're a part   of it's all just you know accessible to Telegram  servers and if you look at the history of Telegram   and what probably does like he his very char  charismatic he talks a good game he talks about   the importance of privacy but he hasn't walked the  walk because he can't be there saying how much he   values people's privacy and is there protecting  it when he knows that he is the central Target and   the central leverage point if any government wants  this information and all he can do to protect it   is just promised he'll never hand stuff over why  not flip on and an encryption and uh and protect   hundreds of millions of people with a flick of  a switch so his actions just don't support his   words um you know when even WhatsApp flipped  on endtoend encryption and protected a billion   users huge huge thing for privacy whereas telegram  has decided to not flip that on uh which is very   strange to me uh on top of that you know they  were banned in Russia because you know Russian   government wanted to get information on protesters  and they said no then it was unbanned in Russia   and then it was like banned in Iraq where the  Iraq government wanted to get on protesters and   then it was unbanned in in Iraq and then you know  he's arrested by by France if you were to ask me   and if my my conspiracy theory hat is on outside  of all the red flags and just the protocol itself   it seems that if you are not turning on end to-end  encryption by default it's because you want access   to those messages perhaps because it's a powerful  tool perhaps it's a powerful negotiating tool   perhaps you're a power broker I I would I would  not recommend anyone use telegram um but really   just at a base level even if you're not looking  at any external red red flags just the protocol   itself it's not end to end encrypted uh if there any  group chats and it's really hard to set up the uh   secret messages you have to be online at the same  time for someone to accept your messaged in order   to make it secret no one even knows that that's  something they have to turn on in order to make   it private because everyone's been led to believe  by this amazing marketing campaign that it's a   private messaging app but it's it's it's like  calling Facebook a private messaging app right   actually Facebook is far more private than  telegram because Facebook now has endtoend   encryption by default for private messages  so that's not even something that telegram   can claim it's like calling Twitter a private  messaging app it's not it's a social media app   and yes they do offer enter and encryption if you  want to turn it on but that's not what they are so   I think it's very misleading for Telegram to call  themselves a private messaging app that's really   not what they are they're public group chats um  and they call them private but what they mean is   closed groups they're not private because Telegram  gets access to the contents of these groups. That's   very interesting so you mentioned WhatsApp so is  is would you recommend WhatsApp or would you so   the gold sand would maybe Signal right but would  WhatsApp do? No there was a great document that   was released I think it was in 2019 and so it's a  while ago now but it gave us an insight into the   kind of data that governments can collect from the  private messaging apps so it looked it compared   all of the messaging apps that build themselves as  private and it was uh actually leaked by Rolling   Stone like good old leaking documents now um but  it showed you it was a from the FBI and it was a   document that showed what information could be  uh gotten from these apps so signal fared the   best out of these and uh WhatsApp fed the worst in  fact because of how WhatsApp handle I mean first   of all let's let's zoom out it's good for people  to kind of understand these mechanisms WhatsApp   is owned by Facebook right yeah and Facebook is  an advertising company they make their revenue   because they create amazing profiles about people  and then sell access to people's attention so why   are they offering a free service in WhatsApp what  do they get from it well they get your entire   social graph they get the records of of habits and  people you're calling the duration of these calls   there's such tremendous Insight that they get  from all this metadata so yes the contents are   end to-end encrypted uh if you trust Facebook uh  it is close source so it's hard to verify um but   even even if we do trust Facebook and trust  it's an encrypted um there's just such a   tremendous amount of metadata that they're also  collecting and it fed one of the worst in terms   of the amount of data that can be extracted uh  by the FBI uh on that service so or by anyone you   know how much data WhatsApp is getting how much  they're selling to advertisers it just gives you   an insight into that that data collection and how  it FS against other apps. Okay so even though it's  

end to end encryption because of the metadata and all  the other information Facebook has on you it's not   recommended. Absolutely um and also be careful of  updates uh I mean uh backups right a lot of these   messaging apps they'll give you these options  to automatically back up but for example if you   are automatically backing up to iCloud and you  haven't turned on end to end encryption for your iCloud   account well guess what all of your messages are  accessible you know to Apple and anyone who wants   to get them uh and whoever Apple get grants  access to so you really do have to be aware of   backups but you also have to be aware of metadata  we think metadata is not important but I probably   don't need to get the access access to the content  of your call if I can see that you know you're   calling someone for three hours a day and uh you  you know you're there's just so much information   that can be garnered just from that metadata so  it's it's important to keep in mind um that that's   going on but like there are other messaging  out I mean Wire is another good one I think   that they're very good yeah I think that they're  they're a great service some of these are paid apps um so again Network effect might not be as good  but I also think you should be thinking in terms   of what's sustainable if a a messaging platform  has a business model that's a really good sign uh   because you want it to stick around and you want  to know that they're not monetizing in some other   nefarious way they're not telling you about um  there are you know nonprofits out there so they   have a business model as well donation-based us  that's how Signal was founded it was actually   founded by a hilarious story bringing WhatsApp  back into the picture so Brian Acton was uh the   creator of WhatsApp sold it to to Facebook and  then he was so dismayed with the direction that   it was going in in terms of privacy that he left  like hundreds of millions of dollars of vested   options on the table that he would have received  if he' just stuck around another couple of months   so he was so incensed that he left all that money  on the table and he took 50 million I think it was   and went and founded the Signal foundation so he  started a competitor um platform and Foundation   to WhatsApp for private messaging so that was  a that's just a nice story that I like to tell   people like he was so upset with the privacy on  WhatsApp that he uh didn't want to be part of it   anymore. I want to come back to that but before  I get there you mentioned iCloud and um Apple   is a privacy company so what's what's iMessage  like? So here's where we talk about threat models   because I think that people are going to have  different threat models some people really don't   want their information like for whatever reason  maybe they're a human rights worker maybe they are   a lawyer representing a dissident maybe they are  a protester activist in a hostile country uh you   have to be really careful with your privacy uh in  those places the average person maybe just doesn't   want the government collecting their information  because it's none of their business or they don't   want corporations monetizing their data because  it's just really not their their right to do so   and so when we think about surveillance we need  to think about like what are we trying to optimize   for because there are absolutely trade-offs a lot  of the time and uh when it comes to Apple I would   say that Apple is a really great company for most  people because they're not an advertising company   the same way that Google is an advertising  company they treat your data a lot better   than Google does uh but if you're someone like  me and I'm kind of a privacy extremist Apple   takes too much information for my liking so you  know I do use some Apple products and when I do   I take great pains to lock them down even further  like Michael Bazzell has a great book where he talks   about setting up a like a Mac from start and all  the settings that you should adjust you know just   like blocking out a lot of telemetry that Mac is  that Apple is collecting themselves so I think   if um if I were to set my grandmother up with  something and I want her to be more private and   more secure I would not put her on Android I would  put her on iOS I would not put her on Windows I   would put her on a Mac but if someone comes to  me and says you know Naomi I am uh I'm writing   this article I'm an investigative journalist  and uh I want it to be as private as possible   I don't want this information leaking I would choose  other options I would choose a GrapheneOS device   uh for them and honestly I would choose I would  choose GrapheneOS for everyone it's not hard to   set up it's a wonderful uh operating system they  do a fantastic job it kind of operates just like   Android except you don't have the Google in it so  you're not sending everything you do to Google uh   centralized servers I I just I feel amazing on  my Graphene phone I've got I'm got right here   actually so I've got my little um little Graphene  device and it it it's wonderful I I Adore it so   it really just depends where you come down a  lot of people don't want the inconvenience of   having to install you know flash a new operating  system on their phone so Apple might be a better   option for them um you know someone might not  want to learn any sort of command line or deal   with Linux or driver issues or anything you know  so Apple might be a good idea if you are more worried   about privacy there are better options than  going with Apple for sure. Okay so messaging  

Signal would be the best choice um otherwise  like someone like let you say a grandmother or   someone who's technically challenged then maybe  Apple is is is okay choice but for the people   who are really privacy conscious uh signal and  then look at Graphene on a phone so that's your   recommended phone cuz I wanted to ask you that.  Absolutely okay yeah Graphene is amazing so the   reason I like Graphene first of all it has to be  on a pixel device and people think it's ironic   because pixel is yeah and um but the reason why  the Graphene team chose pixel as the de only   device that Graphene is supported on is because  you can flash alternative operating systems on   all kinds of android devices right but you lose  all of the security um uh protections when you do   that so you can have like verified boot all these  things when you're using Android but as soon as   you flash an alternative OS you lose those things  pixel is the only device that meets their security   requirements because you can have verified boot  even with flashing an alternative operating system   uh on top of that um pixel devices are great they  have this Titan M2 Chip in it which stops brute   forcing attacks so if someone gets access to your  device basically there's this uh delay mechanism   in there so that if someone's trying to guess your  PIN after while it just gets so long the periods   in between that that people just can't brute force  it there are different profiles on there that you   can set to just shut down when you exit them  so maybe you have like 2FA or something on a   secondary profile when you open up your phone for  the first time so if I just booted my phone and I   type in my my pin even if I then lock my phone  afterwards because it's been booted and because   I previously have typed in my pin that pin is  potentially accessible in Ram by someone who's a   sophisticated adversary right so if someone steals  my phone and I've already booted up for the first   time and logged in they could potentially get  everything on my device however these secondary   profiles and when I say secondary I mean you can  have up to 40 different profiles on your Graphene   phone if you want I wouldn't recommend it like  maybe four might be the max but um what happens   is every time I exit out of one of those secondary  profiles it's treated as a hard reboot which means   that if I'm carrying around my phone and using  it all throughout the day and messaging people   and taking pictures writing notes and whatever it  doesn't matter if someone gets my phone they can't   access anything in those secondary pro um profiles  there's no password stored in that ram it's that   like this hard reset every time I exit out of it  so the security pro precaution of that is great um   you know I really don't have to fear losing my  device leaving it in a taxi and someone um you   know getting access to what's on there you know if  I have a backup at home then I having that running   around in the wild doesn't bother me so it's  uh and they have a lot of things like granular   controls they have things called Contact Scopes I  mean how many apps have you downloaded that have   said can I get access to your contacts yeah and  we don't give it a second thought but if we were   to give it a second thought we'd realize that this  private information isn't ours to give away we've   just granted some unknown developer access  to like a thousand of our friends and family   members their birth dates their home addresses  their phone numbers notes in there you know where   they work that sort of information obviously is  monetized it's sold it's sold to these people   search websites it's sold to countless other you  know data brokers and other services so we really   should think about that but there are some apps  that when you go to downloader it demands you know   you cannot download us unless you give us access  your contacts what contact Scopes does on Graphene  is it basically creates this fake contacts profile  that's empty um or you can you can literally say   well I only wanted to get access to David Bombal's  you know uh contact information that's the only   contact I want it to do so it will allow you to  create these Scopes where you can like granular   decide what information they're getting maybe you  don't want them to get phone numbers but you want   to allow them email addresses you know you can  basically have more control over what these apps   get and I think that's what privacy is all about  it's not about hiding or like you know secrecy   or all of that it's just about choice it's just  about reclaiming our right to get to decide who   gets our information and then really um exercising  that choice I think is really important. The two   big ones that I wrote down here because I'm sure  people ask what about banking apps and what about   notifications do they work. So there some apps  can be problematic and that is because there  

are certain apps that require you to have like a  verified Google device and if it sees that it's   been tampered with you're tampered with having a  new operating system uh it will say this is not   secure enough for our app and I presume that's a  liability issue on their end um perhaps the bank   doesn't want to be liable if you're putting this  on an a secure device I haven't had an issue with   any apps on my device but I have heard there are  some banking apps that will not work and for that   I have a secondary device that I use them because  when it comes down to it I actually don't need to   carry around a banking app with me everywhere I  go I don't think most people do. And it can get   stolen yeah. It's handy to have um to to use if we  need it but we generally don't need it when we're   going to the grocery store um you know we don't  need to make a wire transfer while we're in line   at the checkout or try our clothes or visiting  our grandparents and so I think we can start to   be more judicious about like if we need an app  for something do we need it on the device that's   very personal and goes with us everywhere where we  go and sees everything that we see and knows who   we're connected with usually not I think that the  device we carry around with us can probably have   far fewer apps I have hardly any apps on my phone  at all it really is just a communication tool um   for emergencies I don't have any social media on  there I just don't need those companies to know   what I'm doing that being said if you're using  Graphene and you wanted to have all those apps   it's going to be far more private than using  Android or Apple because they do this amazing   sandboxing with the apps where uh they just the  the apps just aren't getting access to as much   information and you can again granularly control  how much information they get access to perhaps   I shut off all Network permissions entirely from  my calculator app well that seems reasonable my   calculator doesn't need the internet but I could  just turn that on when I want to regrant access   and so it's just a great system for being able to  choose at an app level what I want them to have   access to. Do you get notifications. Yeah something  that Android has is Google Play services and   to understand what Google Play services is it's  this infrastructure that is there for a number of   reasons and there's some bad byproducts on it so  we'll talk about what it's meant for to start off   with it's meant to basically save you on battery  um by creating this centralized infrastructure   that more efficiently handles things like  notifications so instead of like doing all these   different requests to all the different servers  it provides this more efficient mechanism within   Google Play services and then the apps just talk  to Google Play services uh and what that means   is that instead of apps handling these things on  their own Google Play services is handling that   now I don't have Google Play services on my um my  main profile I uh I don't want it I don't want it   talking to all of my apps one of the byproducts of  this system is that Google's just getting a ton of   data about everything you do on an Android phone  because it's all going through this centralized   mechanism and that is just being sent off to  Google servers so um like signal for example they   handle their own notifications push notifications  unless it notices that you have Google place   Services there on the device in which case it will  then default to that so I don't have Google Play   services uh where my signal profile is so signal  handles it by itself and it's fine um I actually   don't really like notifications in the first  place so I have those turned on CU I don't need   a distraction machine you know following me around  around if I want to call someone I will call it if   I want to check my phone I'll check it and you do  you know the statistics like apparently people on   average will unlock their phone every 10 minutes  like over a 100 times a day right so knowing that   it's just going to be 10 minutes before I see  a missed call or a message actually that's fine   for me to do it on my own terms I don't need it  inter to interrupt me mid-sentence or or whatever   um now that being said with Google Play services  I do have it installed on uh one of my profiles   because there are certain apps that require it but  what graphine does is they use something called   sandboxed Google Play services usually Google  Play services has incredible access they're just   like tentacles seeping into your Android device  and getting access to everything what graphine   does is says we're going to treat you like any  other app we're going to sandbox you so you have   this little area where you're allowed to operate  and you're not actually allowed to put your tend   anywhere else and that's great because I can put  Google Play services on this other profile and   these apps can use it and uh and the this and  Google isn't getting any extra information from   that so I found that uh Uber works better with  Google Play services so if you're someone who   use ride sharing apps uh you can you can install  Google Play services fine and uh and you can have   your apps work uh completely fine with that  um same with some VoIP providers if you want   not ifications to come through and the vo provider  doesn't have their own internal mechanism for this   you can use Google Play services just to install  it on another profile and then you're going to   get those real time notifications because phones  are the big problem I think for a lot of people   right so number one top of the tier is top devic  is uh is graphine then iOS then Android right yeah   absolutely yeah Android is uh just collec it's  insane how much information they're collecting   but Apple and Google they both will bypass your  VPN for their own internal system so if you're   someone who has a VPN always on you have that kill  switch and you're like well I'm protecting my IP   address and private actually Apple and Google will  both just decide to bypass it uh for their own   internal functioning and they will say well these  are essential things so we can't have a go through   of VPN because we you know they're essential and  for um mean operating and all this and really that   does decrease your privacy a huge amount and when  you have your internet gateway and your VPN on the   same device the OS can literally just decide to  bypass uh one to get to the internet and uh and   so I I really love graphine in that it's not  bypassing my VPN I think that's a a good thing   to um to have on a phone that's really interesting  so are you saying that Android and iOS bypass your   VPN with a kill switch at everything for their  stuff so they just simply bypass it all yep   so there's a research team called MK and they've  been doing some great Research into this um and   they just analyze the packets that are being sent  across the internet on their devices and I they   have a long list of the different activities that  Apple will bypass your VPN for um and uh a lot of   them are not even things that you you'd think  are are essential like it's things to do with   the app store or things to do with you know  your podcast app or you know it's it's crazy   to me that a company that is building itself as  a privacy company is doing this I felt kind of um   betrayed and heartbroken when I discovered that  this was going on and Google is doing the same   thing but I didn't expect any more of Google and  one thing I will say of Apple is that even though   um they could do better with privacy I I think  it's egregious that they're collecting so much   data about users I really do like that they are  pushing the Privacy conversation a lot of people   wouldn't even see privacy as a valuable thing were  it not for these amazing marketing campaigns from   telling people hey surveillance is going on our  tools will help keep you private so I do think   that they're helping and they're um positive  just for my personal life I've just decided   to U minimize uh apple and opt for things like  graphine instead so you mentioned VPN do you have   a preferred VPN or you or doesn't it really matter  it does matter tremendously uh there are so many   scams in the app stores and you should be really  careful of them because a lot of vpns either they   are outright nefarious in that they are just  you know collecting your keystrokes collecting   your mouse movements I had one friend um you  know Jonathan Tomac and he reverse engineered   some of these VPN plugins that you get extensions  and found that yeah some of them were literally   collecting Mouse movements how fast just scrolling  through pages just all this data so you need to be   careful with the VPN that you choose um there  are a lot of other companies that I would say   are in a gray area the fact is that these VPN  companies are very difficult to audit and they   tend to be all owned by conglomerates and uh  when I say that I mean like your five favorite   vpns are probably all owned by the same company  and um and so when one has one privacy policy but   another in their conglomerate has another that  is red flags to me because you don't really know   what's happening to the data on the back end uh  whether it's all being mixed together you know   how it's being treated and it's very difficult to  get that information and on top top of that you've   got a lot of vpns that are owned by companies  that also own a lot of magazines that promote   privacy products so if you go to your favorite  online you know uh news Outlet that's called tech   review Wizards the best ever um it's and they're  recommending XYZ VPN it's the greatest and it   turns out that they actually own XYZ VPN so a lot  of these independent reviews of VPN are um just   fake and and created by these companies and then  if you look even further these umbrella companies   a lot of them are tied to advertising companies  as well so the VPN realm is pretty crazy it's like   this rabbit hole and it's just it doesn't mean  that all the vpn's out there can't be trusted   it means that it's very difficult to figure out  what's good and what's not and because of that   I stay very heavily uh towards the products that  have a really good reputation so that means that   some really great people have worked there maybe I  know team members there um maybe they just have an   incredible reputation Compu security communities  and so I I think mulad has probably one of the   best reputations out there for vpns they accept  cash as well if you wanted to pay anonymously   they accept different cryptocurrencies um so if  you wanted to do that you can I like proton bpn   as well I think they're a great product Suite that  is providing some really good alternatives to the   Google Suite uh so I like to use their products  not just their VPN but I like their uh Drive   I like their mail service I like their calendar  it's super easy to import their calendar there's   literally one button you click that says import my  entire history of all of my Gmail uh appointments   from the last decade and all future appointments  and with a click of a button you could just import   all of that into a new calendar and it's ENT and  encrypted so no one is getting access to that data   going forward so I think that they offer a really  good Suite as well that's great I mean it's yeah   the one I always um that I recommend and a lot  of people in the cyber space recommend is proton   but it's good to know others um you mentioned  operating system so we've covered phones I think   but like desktop you said Mac OS is better than  Windows but Linux is the preferred I take it is   that right and yeah and it depends uh which Linux  distribution so there are companies that will   offer Linux distributions and they will collect  Telemetry from you as well ubun is that right   yeah I mean but you can turn a lot of that stuff  off Linux could be a really big learning curve   for people and a lot of people are scared to get  in there I remember the first time I got a Linux   computer and um there were different things that  just didn't work and I realized I kind of needed   to have this base level of command line in order  to be able to reinstall because I was using a um   a gooy to interact with everything and I didn't  realize that you know some of these processes   weren't actually being stopped through this  this um graphical user interface so it can be   a learning curve I would say start small and  just start with the very basic understanding   of you know how to use command line it's actually  not as scary as I initially thought um if you do   want to go with a different computer uh that is  going to have more compatibility then Mac can be   good if you lock things down so some of the things  you want to lock down like for example you might   um you're probably going to turn off everything  um uh related to Telemetry that you can you're   probably going to install little snitch to stop  that extra Telemetry going out uh and to monitor   any external connections that your computer's  trying to make you're going to even change the   time protocol Apple by default will sync your time  on your computer using their internal servers I   don't need them to have that uh data so I could  just you change that setting and uh go directly   to the time protocol itself and sync my computer  that way um there are lots of different settings   that you can you can tweak and again I think  Michael basil has the best outline of what to do   I see his book in the the background of your video  there um wonderful book yep yeah yeah exactly yeah   great book um highly recommend that people if  they are going for even if they're going for a   Windows device he goes through Linux Windows Mac  OS and explains all of them different settings you   can tweak so regardless of your setup I think it's  just a great book to go through and um and beef up   your privacy which Linux distri distribution would  you recommend if any well I've tried out mint and   pop OS um so both are considered very easy to  use when it comes to Linux um I know when you   talk about Linux suddenly you have 75 million  people at you in the comments you shouting at   you for their D and actually I yeah I actually  love that um whenever I talk about Linux uh I   always get just a wealth of information from the  community so it can be overwhelming if you're just   starting out but honestly if you have questions  ask the internet and there will be people there   who are so eager to help because honestly the  idea of Linux and the reason why so like it has   such an incredible Community around it well first  of all like everything in our lives runs L Linux   behind the scenes right um like even uh yeah  like all your iot it's all running Linux like   it there's just all the infrastructure in our  lives is running Linux so already we know it's   a powerful tool but I think people just love the  freedom of it and they love that it can be easily   forked and you can tweak it and you can customize  it so that it works for you so that your Tech is   not someone else's Choice the data collection  is not someone else's Choice it's yours um and   I think that granular control is really empowering  to people so I um like had s to that Community for   knowing so much about all of this and for helping  others and for sharing their knowledge I I just   think it's great browser I know which one you use  but what do you recommend uh I like Brave browser   but there are others like molad came out with a  browser and uh it's also very good so I think a   good resource is privacy tests.org and it looks  at a number of different criteria for third party   tracking and cookies and all of these things and  it gives either like a tick or a cross in terms   of how well it does and I think Brave out of the  box is one of the best browsers for privacy if   you just want it to work and you don't want to  have to go in and customize your settings it's   going to be fantastic it's going to do things to  stop bounce tracking it's going to you know create   a new Sandbox environment for every site that  you visit it automatically disables third party   cookies by default Chrome has been saying they're  going to do that for years yeah right every other   browser already has and then every year it's like  the excuse of oh what's their excuse this year you   know what's Chrome going to say the reason that  they pushed off they're turning off third party   cookies uh but they never do it they just keep  pushing it kicking the can down the road um but   yeah I think that that m is is really good Brave  is really good I would go to privacy tests.org if  

you're trying out a new browser and you want to  see how it fars uh in comparison to some of these   other ones um is just a a really good tool do I  need to use to you can use tour uh depending on   what you want to do on the internet I think tour  is an incredible tool that more people who use it   the more private it becomes because privacy loves  company and so if you're one person hiding in an   anonymity set of one you're not really hiding  if you're one person hiding in an anonymity   set of a million suddenly your actions are just  normalized and I think that's great so any privacy   tools that you can opt into I think is is um is  awesome uh tour is really is such an interesting   tool because there are different tradeoffs for  it right um um if I am using the internet like   first of all the the exit node is not encrypted  right it's uh it's always unencrypted and so I   don't have the same guarantees as perhaps like  a VPN that is encrypting that tunnel all the   way through um but tour is the best for privacy  because you are literally wrapping your packet   in layers of encryption and no single entity that  deals with with the packet knows both Who You Are   what you're looking at on the internet and I think  that's really powerful just disassociating our   real world identity from the things that we're  doing I think um if you want to use toy it's is   going to be slower for you um but it's an amazing  tool and uh if you even want to try it like if   you're not in a rush and you don't mind it being  slightly slower um if you can weave it into your   life you are helping other people be more private  simply by using this tool I know that sounds   really weird but you're liter really making a huge  difference for the people who really do need it   those human right rights workers those dissidents  those protesters so um so yeah see like try it out   um and also you can access all of these unindexed  parts of the internet we call it the dark web um   but that sounds very like nefarious a lot of  these things are just not indexed you know I   know friends who have set up tour websites one of  my friends actually just messaged me he spent last   night setting up a new Tour website for his uh  his platform um because some people just want to   be able to access normal websites like podcasting  sites uh with that extra layer of anonymity and   I think that's completely valid no one has to  justify wanting privacy in their life and it's   great that we have options out there that allow it  problem with t right is that when you go to some   websites they just block you right so that's where  Brave is a good backup I suppose Brave is a great   backup and also has tour integrated I would say  if you're going to use tour the tour browser is   going to be the best bet it's just hands down it's  going to be the most integrated um and the the the   best tool for using it but I love that brave does  has that in integration because I literally click   on a single switch and I can turn on tour and it's  just super easy got to ask your search engine um   I'm assuming it's not going to be Google I love  Google um no it's not Google I haven't used Google   for years at this stage I I use brave because it's  the default in the brave browser and maybe like   two years ago it wasn't good at all because there  are different kinds of uh search engines there are   meta search engines and then there are these pure  search engines so if you are a meta search engine   you're really just wrapping someone else's search  results up in your own facade and and setting it   out there are a lot of search engines that do  that they're just giving Google search results   and wrapping it up in is helpful they're you  know adding proxies they're making it more   private um I didn't want Google search results  because I want to have other indexing system   I wanted to support a market share of other people  entering the game so brave is a full search engine   in that they have their own spiders that are  crawling the web and indexing sites themselves   so you can imagine when they first started out  it wasn't great because they're indexing from   scratch and Google has had a really long head  start on them but at this stage I love it I do   not have any issue finding what I need to find on  Brave search engine there are other tools that you   know you can use as well so um all kinds of pre  of uh search engines actually like Emoji can uh   pre-search and start page start page is like a a  private frontend for Google search results if you   want that there are all kinds of tools you can use  it's so easy to swat swi swi put my teeth back in   uh switch out your browser and your search engine  for other tools it's probably one of the lowest   hanging fruits that you can do in your privacy  Journey yeah the problem with brave is like   exactly like you said I think a lot of people say  Google results are better than brave but it's good   to hear that it's got better oh absolutely better  that that's great to hear so if you want Google   without sorry if you wanted use Google results  but you want privacy then perhaps start page   right yeah and also within uh Brave what I like is  that you can put on different goggles so there not   someone who's going to filter results for you  you can say well actually I only want results   leaning to the left in the political Spectrum  or I only want results leading to the right that   can also be a really helpful investigatory tool  sometimes I want to look at issues and I want to   see what both sides how they're both framing it  see if there's anything I've missed you know um   so just doing search results with both of those  things can be very interesting they also enable   you to default to other search engines like if you  don't find the results you want in Brave you can   just click a button and then it'll include Google  search results as well so uh but I actually never   find that I need to do that uh maybe a couple of  years ago I did but um definitely not recently um   everything seem seems yeah there's really nothing  that I haven't been able to find on there um and   these days honestly like AI is is becoming the  new search engine as well um I like brave because   they have an integrated AI That's all completely  private there's no logging there's a proxy that   um strips out your IP address so that uh even  if someone were collecting results it wouldn't   be tied to your identity but on they're also not  collecting any of your results not logging any of   your information and it's a really cool Search  tool so when I'm searching in Brave Leo will   summarize the search results at the top so if I'm  just looking for an answer to the question like   how high is Mount Everest you know I could just  type that in and then the AI will just summarize   it at the top completely privately which is really  lovely so just for everyone who's watching we want   to make clear that there's Brave the search engine  right and there's Brave the browser and that's why   you're using those two there's two separate parts  but now you've mentioned AI because that was on   my list as well AI from a privacy point of view  just seems an absolute disaster I all right right   I have a hot take on that but before we get to  the hot take I want to give some uh methods of   using this because AI I think thinking of it only  through this lens of it's the end of civilization   is naive you know it's a tool that 10x is our  productivity it's a tool that gives you access   to resources you never had access to like I I've  started subbing out my lawyer for you know AI   tools saying hey can you write this contract and  they do and saved $10,000 so I think that like   we can't be sleeping on this technology at the  end of the day technology is neutral it's how   we use it as important now the problem is is that  AI for the past decade because we didn't just get   AI we've had powerful Compu machine learning and  neural networks for a long time and governments   data Brokers have been using it against us um  and suddenly we've kind of democratized access   to these tools and we have access to them now so  just because it's been hijacked in the past for   surveillance uses it doesn't make the tech bad  it's neutral and we need to reclaim it and we   need to be using this to empower ourselves and to  use it to fight for our privacy so might not take   it a moment um I'll get to how you can do that  but if you're just starting out and you just want   to know how to use these tools privately there are  different platforms that will respect your privacy   so I think that brave is one of the best AI tools  for privacy they are integrated directly into the   brave browser you can turn it on or off and there  is no log of any of your results so there is and   you don't even need to be signed in or anything in  order to use the um the Leo Brave uh AI system and   they also have this reverse proxy that I mentioned  that strips out your IP address from all of your   queries so instead of your queries going directly  to the um whatever server is hosting the model   it's going through a proxy stripping out your IP  aggregating uh these search results and sending it   back to you um even the way they handle payments  if you wanted to upgrade is private so they   have this token that isn't actually associated  with your identity and uh and I like Brave as   a company you know when they say that they're not  logging um I uh I trust them enough to be able to   put private search things uh into the search bar  that I definitely would not give to chat GPT so   you know if you're going to be using chat gbt I  would say that in order to preserve your privacy   be aware that you have a history of every single  thing you have ever asked in one cadet's profile   centralized on their databases so if anyone wants  to get access to that in the future they will keep   that in mind when you're searching for things  because things can be taken out of context used   against you if you've ever you know searched for  like what's the definition of a terrorist or you   know anything like can be completely innocuous  but just understand that those things can be   taken out of context and that is being stored in  perpetuity so be aware of that um then there are   some kind of interim ones that I say are in the  middle of CH GPT and something like Braves uh Leo   so Venice AI is um a private front end now the  way they work is their front end um what what I   like about them and what I think is really privacy  preserving is there's no centralized company again   collecting any information about you so let me  break it apart so Venice has a frontend called   Venice AI which is a really good user interface  for accessing these models and Venice self does   no logging on their platform so anything that  you put in they're not keeping a record of that   they're just a pass through they're not doing  the computation they're not actually doing the   processing of these queries what they're doing  is they're plugging into a decentralized network   um ultimately they'll be switching to something  called the Morpheus Network which is decentralized   compute currently they using something called uh  I think they're using Akash and hyperbolic at the   moment so think of these like an Airbnb for um  compute uh people who have you sped gpus on their   computer they can just rent them out to people and  uh and process requests so when you go through the   Venice front end nothing's being logged then it's  being sent out to you know any number of these   airbnbs for gpus and they're doing the compute you  don't know the logging policy of the people doing   the compute so I would be aware of that um but  there is no centralized entity collecting your   data it's not like one person on the back end  is scooping everything up and associate it and   building a profile on you so that's a really good  uh privacy mechanism so I would say wh

2025-01-20 11:02

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