Notice you have no criticism of the actual educational content


Odell's Ghost

I believe in freedom tech as well.
Ghost writer for SimplifiedPrivacy.com


VPN Mistakes to Avoid

VPNs are a great tool for privacy, but they are often misunderstood and misused. Sometimes people believe that they are getting more privacy or anonymity than they actually are. Or other times, a user’s goals are possible, but were not executed correctly.

Who sees traffic?

First of all, there are many different participants who can view different types of information about what you’re doing online. These include, but are not limited to:

1) Your Internet Service Provider (ISP)

2) The website itself

3) The government

4) Microsoft or Apple (unless you’re on Linux)

5) Google if it’s an Android phone or you’re using Chrome Browser

6) Search engines

7) Cross Site Cookies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, and more which can track you even on a different website.

8) Your router manufacturer, unless you specifically put open source firmware on it

9) Database brokers, such as Oracle, which get contracted to fingerprint your device by some websites and services and then resell that data to advertisers

10) Browser Add-ons may report data back

11) Your DNS or Domain Name Service. Often your ISP will pass this off to Cloudflare or Google

12) Many Websites use Denial of Service (DoS) from Cloudflare and Captchas from Google. These can be sources of tracking.

13) Companies such as Silverpush use ultrasonic audio sounds, which are invisible to the human ear, that are emitted from your computer desktop speakers and picked up on your smart phone, to track you across devices.

So now let’s talk about what a VPN does and does not hide (and what other techniques can be used to help).

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VPN Basics

A VPN forms an encrypted tunnel between you and the VPN company. Then whatever you do, is executed from the IP address of the VPN company.

A VPN does hide the following:

1) Your IP address from the website

2) Your traffic from the ISP

3) If properly configured, the VPN should have their own DNS, which will also hide your traffic from the DNS provider that the ISP uses, such as Cloudflare

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A VPN does NOT hide the following:

1) The Operating System’s company (e.g., Microsoft, Apple, or Google) phones from knowing the traffic and your true location (IP address)

2) Any type of cross site cookie tracking, such as Facebook

3) Any type of browser fingerprinting from the website or from its third party database broker, such as Oracle. Fingerprinting data include your timezone, your screen dimensions, and operating system version.

4) The government forcing a VPN company to track you in real time

How to Mitigate these issues

Now the cookies issue can be solved by properly modifying your browser settings (and using a good browser).

We covered this in this article.

The browser fingerprinting issue can be solved by Virtual Machines, which we covered in this article.

The Operating system issue can be solved by using Linux or degoogled phones. We covered how Linux works in this article. But if you are insistent on using Microsoft Windows or Apple, then a VPN on the router (instead of the computer itself), could help in some ways, such as hiding your real location.

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VPN on a Router

Putting a VPN on a router (instead of the computer itself) hides your IP address (and thus your real location) from Microsoft/Apple. But they can still see the traffic.

Now in theory if you never sign in to any account associated with your real name or known nicknames on that device, then it could potentially hide your identity. But in practice, this is highly prone to mistakes in execution, and it’s far better to just use Linux, using Windows or Apple only for specific software you need Windows or Apple for.

Also putting a VPN on most retail routers will slow down the internet connection, since the processing power on a router is less than real PC CPUs. However, there are more expensive ($500+) firewall routers that can match a computer’s speed because they have real CPU chips inside.

No Logs?

Now let’s talk about logs. Most VPN companies advertise a no logs policy.

This may or may not be true in practice. One can evaluate how the logs policy compares to their other policies.

For example does the company accept cryptocurrency? If the traffic data is tied to your real world financial identity, then the company is clearly less committed to keeping you anonymous.

Also, free VPNs that don’t cost anything to use should be avoided. They have no profit motive to protect you and usually store and sell data. Why else would they want you to use the service for free?

Not only should you only go with VPN providers who accept cryptocurrency, but also make sure they allow sign-ups through Tor. Do they process payments themselves or use a third party like Coinbase which blocks Tor?

Even though you may not use Tor to connect to the VPN, you want to see that they allow customers to actually be anonymous while in compliance with their legal department. This makes it much more likely that their legal structure is set up to resist third party attempts to de-anonymoize users because if the customer used Tor and cryptocurrency, then they can’t identify you.

What is the legal history of this VPN company? All of these factors can help you evaluate if you should believe their logging policy.

I hope you learned something, Subscribe on Nostr for more content!


These left wing big tech firms are interested in suppressing your opinion and limiting what information you can see.

When people say "why care about privacy?"
They really mean "why should I not use the infrastructure of my enemy?"


Privacy is interrelated with free speech.  If you have true privacy, then who is to tell you what you can say?

But it’s also deeper than that because not only does the speaker need to hide, but also the listener.

Check out our animated video on how Session messenger is not just for hiding messages, but also is a free speech platform:
https://video.simplifiedprivacy.com/how-session-names-work/


Why Linux is more secure than Windows

Open Source
First, Linux is open source, meaning anyone can view the code. Because of this, Linux does not have malicious tracking or anything that works against you.  Because the code is readily available, Linux gives huge numbers of participants the ability to test security flaws. The operating system improves through the contributions of decentralized individuals looking over the code.  Decentralized open source initiatives then progress through a merit based system, in which changes are adopted as they are shown to be needed.

Windows has less of an organic feedback loop

Linux is in sharp contrast to Microsoft Windows, for which management dictates what changes will take place. With Windows, only those within the company or those that the company hired can view the source code for security flaws. So by trusting Windows, you are essentially betting that these Microsoft employees are better and smarter than the entire rest of the IT community.
Management dictates Windows.  On the other hand with an open source project like Linux, it is a constant feedback loop of the community finding flaws, and then the development teams responding. Linux has good code because it’s stood the test of time of thousands to millions of eyes looking for security flaws in it that were then corrected.
Linux is built by a spontaneous voluntary decentralized ecosystem

It’s unknown what security flaws could be found from looking at Microsoft’s code, but there certainly are many instances of viruses and data breaches in the real world.

Windows is vulnerable to viruses

Linux is more resilient to computer viruses for a number of reasons. In fact, Linux is so secure that you don’t even need anti-virus software. (As an aside, anti-virus software on Windows is another way that you are being spied on. Every file it scans is reported back to the anti-virus company.)
Some say Windows has more viruses because it’s more widely used. This propaganda is only applicable to home users because Linux is actually a LARGER share of the enterprise cloud market. And they don’t get viruses because it’s extremely difficult to compromise.

Windows has a flawed design

Microsoft Windows is vulnerable to viruses by its flawed design of allowing programs either all or nothing access. When you download and run a Windows .exe file, you have to trust the creator because it can do anything once it is run.
In sharp contrast, when you get software from outside the package manager’s approved software, it’s usually an AppImage or Flatpak which are automatically sandboxed only have permissions related to that software itself and not the entire system. However, these sandboxes are relatively weak and not as strong as a full-blown virtual machine for isolation, but it’s still better than Microsoft Windows or nothing.

This AppImage and Flatpak sandbox system helps provide some security but remember it is a weak sandbox so any untrusted software should be run in a full virtual machine. The goal of any sandbox is to stop malicious software from spreading across your entire computer.

Linux software is better vetted

Another way that Linux differs from Microsoft Windows is in how you get applications. Every type of Linux (which is called a distribution) has a centralized free app store. The nerdy technical word for this is “package manager”, but it is very similar to an app store on phones.  You can easily and effortless install software from your “app store” package manager. This software installation method will dramatically increase your security, since all software is being vetted by the operating system’s creators as being safe.

The app store (aka package managers) have most of the basic programs that you’d need when you get started, such as an office suite, picture and video editor, and a web browser.

But then is it decentralized?

You might be thinking “But Linux is not really decentralized if the operating system’s creators get to pick which apps are in it’s app store” (aka package manager). There’s a few replies to this.

The first is that different versions of Linux (called distributions) compete with each other. Anyone could make their own version of Linux, so if you don’t like the contents of one app store, you can go to another one. This competition forces Linux developers to want to have desired software and not to censor.

The second reply is that just like Windows, you can download Linux software directly from the website of the creators, if you choose to do so. And if you do this without the app store (aka package manager), then the program itself is sandboxed like we outlined earlier in this article to only be able to modify files related to its own software.

Linux Software Updates Easily

Not only is Linux software more safe when you get it, but it stays safe over time. With flawed systems like Windows, the user has to update each piece of software individually over time. Since this is extremely burdensome, most users don’t do it, and then they are vulnerable to new security bugs.
Updates on Linux are easy

On the other hand, Linux lets you update all your software at once in a single typed command. This easy to apply update ensures you will effortless be able to resist the latest hacking bugs across the whole system effortlessly.

Follow on Nostr for more decentralized security tips!


Right?

https://image.nostr.build/cf9808107333b19193cb1bbd1b7e44fc2e03b38599ae8fb5e492382c2331d73e.jpg


This video discusses Nostr privacy issues and how the new feature on the Amethyst client fixes it:

https://video.nostr.build/ebfa449972cc62f338ccb063a919497eae32e7176cb2908424a0fac0dcb29eb5.mp4


Nixon reaction to Edward Snowden...

https://image.nostr.build/db5809e72b0fdbdc133ddea8a5b5e39c9955d1ac59c3abd4f0e19f2985a1cbf8.jpg


Breaking News: The GrapheneOS build for the Pixel 8 is out. This is not the final official version, but it’s making it’s way around their Matrix room, and they’re doing debugs.  Our brand-new video is timed to cover the basics behind DeGoogled Phones:
https://video.simplifiedprivacy.com/degoogledphonebasics/

We have brand new Pixel 8s in stock and ready for you. Reach out to us via encrypted messenger if you have any questions.