All of us have made privacy mistakes at some point in our privacy journeys. In an effort to help those earlier on in that journey, please share some of the mistakes you’ve made, and how you could have prevented it.
If you decide to use Google Messages on an Android custom OS, set up Contacts Scopes (if you can) or else it it will have access to all of them around the time you first open the app.
I bought a two year sub for proton.
I pay monthly but I migrated everything to their platform and now I need to calm myself a little bit and think about which services I will migrate to
Posteo is something you should check out for email.
Not me, but my mother sent her dna to 23andMe. I was not happy to hear that.
Using a VPN for torrents and forgetting to set it up to kill the network connection when VPN is lost. Got a couple “love letters” from my ISP that way.
After getting those nastygrams myself then having to troubleshoot some other issues, I’ve ended up using solely a private tracker (iptorrents because I couldn’t get an invite elsewhere) for torrents which I only use for manual search in radar/sonarr to minimize seeding space. Automatic downloads go through Usenet if I add something to my watchlist. I did have torrenting bound to PIA as a VPN in the past, but with Usenet and a private tracker I never felt the need to renew it.
I taped my latest DMCA letter to the wall to remind myself of this. I also wrote a small script to kill torrent processes and eventually break the software adapter if needed if certain gateways are reachable.
Used Facebook for years.
I knew Instagram was privacy invasive long before I ever started using it. Still decided to use it for some reason. Anyways, glad to have my dopamine receptors back.
It’s been quite a journey:
- Posting accurate personal info to my Google+ account when I first signed up
- Signing in to Google on my phone and browser
- Using an Android phone from eBay of dubious origin
- Sending confidential info via email
- Using the same gmail address for everything
- Signing up for things with my real info when it wasn’t necessary
- Handing out my phone number to loyalty programs
- Running hacked game APKs without checking for malware
- Using the User Agent Switcher extension on MS Edge, which was subsequently updated to include an infostealer
- Using browser extensions of unknown provenance
How to avoid:
- Ironically, Windows 10 started me on my privacy journey. Microsoft was in my face enough with privacy offenses that I began moving to Linux and investing time into my privacy.
- Don’t post unnecessary info to social media.
- Never email confidential info.
- Use a password manager, or at least some organized text file if you have an encrypted disk.
- FOSS software is more available and user-friendly than ever, always look for a FOSS alternative.
True story:
When I was a kid I wrote a review for Dexter’s Laboratory on the internet. I wrote “I think the show fuckin sucks!”. I don’t know why. Again, I was like 10. AOL ratted me out to my parents somehow and I got banned from the dial-up for a week.
99’s kid detected.
stood in my balcony with my pp out and someone saw me
Well depending how old you where that’s fine or creepy
Recently I got conned into giving a couple websites my email address for an alleged discount thinking, well I’m going to give it to them with the purchase anyway. Only for them to then request my phone number.
Couple lost sales for them.
I changed the user-agent of my browser to “Error: No browser installed”. Can’t be more unique than that, I guess. That was 30 years ago, though, I don’t think it will hurt me today 😆
Just make it your username
😅
Last year I purchased a domain name for our farm business as a place holder knowing I’ll eventually get around to putting together a website when life allows.
Well the domain registration site had a “privitize my infomation” button…which I forgot to check…for the first 12 hours.
EVERY web and app developer from here to Pakistan now has my phone number and I get about 4-6 calls a day asking if I want help developing an app for our website.
I’ve had to block entire area codes with an installed spam blocker just to slow them down and get some small bit of peace back.
Moral of the story, Never forget to hit that privitize button.
Using the same username ober multiple platforms
I’m gonna cut this short and say all of them… 😂 its a marathon not a sprint.
Before really learning about the implications, I had used the same alias on dozens of sites. I had hoped for serendipitous interactions.
Its taken forever to track down and clean up all of those old accounts.
I forgot to tap the “location” button on my phone to set it to “off” for about ten years.
