Original post locked to keep guide format pristine.

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Hello! This has been requested from me dozens of times, and finally, from years of experience, I have created this guide that will serve an insanely large portion of computer users, from the most novice to the intermediate and advanced users. Everyone will find something here, this is a guarantee for both Linux and Windows users. This is something I have put my heart in, easily much more than the smartphone guide that people know me for. This might be one of my most definitive works by far, I carry this much confidence.

A little briefer, I have used Windows since the W98 dialup days, and Linux for the past 5 years. I have a fair amount of experience with data compression, archival and preservation, besides the OPSEC work I do here.

Before I move forward, I will thank many people:

• Narsil (https://git.nixnet.services/Narsil)
• DigDeeper (https://digdeeper.club)
• Ameliorated Team (https://ameliorated.info/)
• simplewall by henrypp (https://www.henrypp.org/product/simplewall)
• WindowsSpyBlocker project (https://crazymax.dev/WindowsSpyBlocker/)
• Energized HOSTS project (https://github.com/EnergizedProtection/EnergizedHosts)
• many who I cannot name or are lost in time
• and my dumb brain for remembering everything I put out here

There are some prerequisites for using this guide:

• You must know how to move mouse and type on keyboard, and copy paste files
• Have a little patience and vigour to learn things

Now that the basic things are out of way, we can move forward to the guide, which consists of 13 sections.

IMPARTING BASIC PHILOSOPHY

F(L)OSS VS CLOSED SOURCE

F(L)OSS means Free (Libre) Open Source software, and it means that the software is freeware, AND the source code that are building blocks of software, are available openly and freely for modification, reverse engineering, compilation and studying purposes. The correct way to say it, as Richard Stallman says, is FLOSS and not FOSS.

There are nuances to various software licenses (Apache, GPLv2, GPLv3, LGPL, MIT et al) which is out of scope of basic philosophy and concerns developers and highly advanced users or business users.

Generally freeware software (free as in free beer) exists whose source code is not available. This is freeware software and not open source or libre.

Closed source software does not provide its source code, and may be free or paid. The developer closes source code from public usually for these reasons – inclusion of non-free software code components, or monetising software, making a free artificially restricted version to monetise, or inserting ads/spyware/malware of some form.

As is obvious, FLOSS is highly transparent towards community and is generally laborious work done for free for the society’s greater good. This is rare in the case of closed source software, which serves one of the forementioned purposes.

The soul and spirit of FLOSS is socialist/communist, in a similar way to piracy. The purpose of it is to serve the greater good. In comparison, the soul and spirit of closed source software, outside rare cases of benevolence, is highly corporate and fascistic, similar to a leech, which in many cases these days may suck money out of your wallets for subscriptions. It may also serve as a leech to suck your data for telemetry and spying purposes.

FLOSS will rarely cause telemetry issues, and if it does, there will always either be a developer announcement or community uproar about it.

Always try to pick FLOSS software wherever possible, unless absolutely necessary otherwise, depending on job or social circle circumstances.

DEVELOPING EXPERIENCE AND VIGOUR

To do computing, there must be developed a little taste for computing. It is no different than a collector’s hobby, or an enthusiast for anything, be it pens, pencils, watches, cars, bikes, clothes, food and so on.

Computing is an art, and not just a way to get shit done and shutdown. You can not just do things but live with a computer. It has more capabilities and a bigger canvas than your itty bitty locked down smartphone or a crappy iPad. You may think that smartphone gets 95% of the job done, but there is no personal taste in convenience. This is the most non-human like part of convenience that people miss. There is a certain work ethic and class that computing has, when you sit on the desk and chair (not gaming chair).

There are simple ways to develop this vigour and proactiveness, like reading changelogs of software you want to download, install or update. This readies you in advance for knowing what the new software version carries with it, and forces you to learn more things naturally.

You should also, instead of blindly clicking the system update button, check what things are being updated. You will not die if you take a few minutes doing this practice every week. You may also benefit from it, at times.

There are examples of how this can save you, like the famous uTorrent 2.2.1 we all know, or Ubuntu’s file manager having to disable a functionality temporarily so that a vulnerability could be fixed, and so on. The most critical software to update is internet related, but everything else is not so critical. However, one of the biggest examples clearly would be the free upgrade offered to Windows 7 and 8 users, to Windows 10. Windows 10 was a nightmare of bugs and telemetry when it released, and there were no solutions. I primed my computer for the free upgrade, waited a couple days, and the forums and news all over basically taught me not to rush for upgrades. Let other people be guinea pig testers.

IDENTIFY PRETEND EXPERTS AND DRAMA QUEENS ON INTERNET

There are a lot of pretend experts these days. Some do it in the name of security, some do it on YouTube, some do it for drumming up hype purposes. Everything has a pretend expert these days, but I will restrict myself to the computing domain.

In the case of security, there are many people that ignore privacy and anonymity implications, telemetry implications, and act apologetic for corporate closed source software. This is generally done for Western Big Tech, especialy Google, Apple, Microsoft and so on. Most of them are generally either hopeless people, employed on behalf of companies for marketing, or secretly have shareholder stakes with these public companies. RUN FROM THEM! Run as far as you can. These people never have your security interests as a priority.

There are a lot of technology YouTube channels that try to capitalise and bank off of prominent and big software, and “recommend” it to people by reading the marketing sheet or website pages. Usually, they lack substance or are going to make a 2147483647th video about a topic, rinse and repeat. Unless something is FLOSS, if something comes from the corporate lovers, take it with a bag of salt, not just a grain.

It is not just corporate lovers, though, that have cults. There are some projects that are FLOSS but have toxic or propagandistic cults behind them. One of them has some wonderful recent examples, related to FlorisBoard or Bromite (Chromium-based web browser). One of them is largely known for scammy crypto currency and creating a harmful network effect by giving sponsorships to tech YouTube channels.

HARDWARE AND BASIC TIPS TO CONSIDER

• Do not fall for the special 50000 DPI mouse meme. 800-1000 DPI mouse works.
• For a desktop, get a $30-50 mechanical keyboard with replaceable keys. Get keyboard switches that make less sound (Cherry MX Brown or Kalih equivalent). You will save money forever instead of replacing membrane keyboards every year.
• Prefer brands for keyboard and mouse that can run without extra software. Zowie and Logitech are good brands. A lot of brands like Razer, SteelSeries and so on have spyware in the form of special software they “require” you to use for things like RGB lighting functionality.
• Get a $2 clip-on or USB strip lamp for your laptop, instead of finding a backlit keyboard laptop. Lasts years. And your laptop purchase choices will never be limited again.
• Get yourself USB 3.0 flash sticks made of metal instead of plastic.
• Wipe and clean your monitor screen, keyboard and mouse with alcohol every week.
• Take computer breaks every hour, and rotate your eyes and shoulders.
• DO NOT USE DARK MODE AT DAYTIME! Also, USE DARK MODE AFTER EVENING.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WINDOWS AND LINUX, SIMPLIFIED

You will not believe this, but Linux and Windows are almost identical today, with absolutely no emphasis on “almost”. The gap is so small, it is almost non existent now. Currently I have a setup of software that is identical and cross platform on both Linux and Windows, and the only difference lies with MS Office 2007 and CrystalDiskInfo.

You can easily keep Windows in a virtual machine (VM) using VirtualBox on Linux, and use MS Office inside it. Works even with Windows XP, and can run any 16 bit nostalgic programs (although you can use DOSBox or any of its frontend GUIs for it on any OS).

There is a compatibility layer (not emulator) called WINE, which you can use to run almost any Windows program natively on Linux without issues. A further improvement of it exists in the form of Bottles, a software based on WINE, available as a sandboxed Flatpak package. This allows to run things properly that even Windows 10 would not run today via backward compatibility.

Why would you need Windows? If you want to play one of those 5-10% specific non-Steam or non-Epic store games or some anti-cheat games that are unavailable on Linux natively or via WINE/Proton, this is a reason to use Windows. Or if you want to use the proprietary VSCode for your job, it is a valid reason. There are a few software like video editors you can count on fingers, or the latest subscription based Photoshop.

See this image for reference https://i.imgur.com/Uq4Xfxk.jpg

Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20220501212233/https://old.reddit.com/r/privatelife/comments/ug9qnc/writeup_criticism_of_rprivacyguides_grapheneos/

I wanted to publish this a week ago, but my machine was begging for repairs and it gave up, so it stayed dead for a week. So, here we are.

Hello! The dust has settled. There is something I want to talk to all of you once again, something that I wrote approximately 23 months ago about, and has been stickied on this subreddit ever since. No, it is not the smartphone guide, and it is a lore that I do not think anybody except me has ever attempted to shed a light on, except until a month ago when BurungHantu, founder of PrivacyTools.io, did.

As always, my aim is to stay objective throughout, and drop my opinions separately in a section at the very end. I also want to mention that this is a lore that basically nobody other than me has tracked in this depth, and nobody else carries a record of these events in this manner to date or ever can.

REMINDER: NONE OF THIS WILL MAKE SENSE IF YOU KEEP ON READING WHILE NOT READING LINKED ARTICLES/SCREENSHOTS I MENTION AS I GO ON.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW

A lot of people seemed to appreciate BurungHantu's blog post, and openly saw the censorship attempted across subreddits r/privacy, r/opensource and r/PrivacyGuides. This last one is the new "privacy" cool hangout cafe of the mainstream privacy subreddit circle.

THE PLAYERS IN THE GAME

Before we move ahead, it is a good thing to make transparent the characters involved, so that we know who plays what role. A lot do not like this, apparently, because they want to fake objectivity.

TheAnonymouseJoker (shameless plug): the "arbiter of truth" , "false privacy prophet", wumao, 50cent, Chinese plant (https://i.imgur.com/vOyaidS.png), Putin bot these days... I am an independent privacy/freedom writer in the community with no donation/money channels and no links to YouTubers (Techlore, The Hated One, other privacytubers) and privacy communities in any form or way whatsoever. I am also a long term active user and promoter of the Fediverse platform Lemmy.

trai_dep: A power moderator on Reddit. Moderator of r/privacy, r/PrivacyGuides, r/privacytoolsio (now defunct). I have spoken about him extensively in my 2 year old criticism writeup. One of the 2 characters in BurungHantu/PTIO's recent blog post.

Jonah Aragon: A power moderator on Reddit. Moderator of r/PrivacyGuides and r/techlore, and Techlore Matrix room. The other person and focal point of BurungHantu/PTIO's blog post with many revelations.

carrotcypher: Another power moderator of Reddit. Moderator of r/privacy, r/opensource and dozens of micro digital privacy/censorship subreddits.

Daniel Micay: Developer of GrapheneOS, a security focused AOSP-based custom ROM exclusively for Google Pixels. Known to submit hardened malloc() patches for Linux kernel. A very controversial figure in privacy and FOSS/Linux communities. Uses @strcat and u/GrapheneOS handles across various platforms.

madaidan: Admin of GrapheneOS, NoGoolag, SpiteChat communities/chatrooms across various platforms. The "insecurities" blog chap, notorious for a lot of misinformation in FOSS and Linux communities but opposite in a big chunk of mainstream privacy community. A staple of the "redditor hackerman" starterpack, for people who know nothing better.

anupritaisno1/clannad/Coooom Yuki Nagato/randomhydrosol: same user, multiple names over time. They are one of the GrapheneOS members who use a lot of sockpuppets and frequently change pseudonym username. madaidan's friend.

Note: clannad is seen changing username across Telegram and Reddit over time: https://i.imgur.com/V7McLFO.jpg

cn3m: a friend of madaidan, who regularly spreads pro-Apple propaganda in privacy communities. For the most part, the account serves as a sockpuppet of someone since it has stayed inactive since 10 months.

Lunacy: one of the newer GrapheneOS community parrots out there on Lemmy (now defunct). Comment activity was suspiciously similar to that of madaidan. An active member of GrapheneOS community.

akc3n: moderator of GrapheneOS community, and active on PrivacyGuides and GrapheneOS subreddits, as well as on XMPP hunting users.

Note:

• He is one of the GrapheneOS Matrix room moderators. This will be important information later on. Proof: https://i.imgur.com/Uq4Xfxk.jpg

• Notorious for practicing censorship beyond the Matrix room to practice censorship and/or suppress any GrapheneOS dissent, on Lemmy (https://i.imgur.com/4HtArcj.jpg) and XMPP (https://i.imgur.com/Hi089y6.jpg).

Tommy_Tran/B0risGrishenko: New moderator of r/PrivacyGuides with suspiciously proven close links to GrapheneOS community. Did a hitpiece on me to gain recognition with PrivacyGuides team. Uses sockpuppets and identity obfuscation a lot on internet.

THE STORY. ONCE UPON A TIME...

GRSECURITY/SPENGLER SAGA

Let me dial back the time machine to a few years ago, when madaidan's "insecurities" blog came into existence. It brought in a fair amount of fandom to him for some bizarre reason, which nobody has been able to pin down realistically. I can pinpoint it down to one big reason - anti-Linux faction of FOSS community, a large part of which is Brad Spengler, head of grsecurity, a security team that makes Linux kernel patches but gets rejected due to very arrogant behaviour, and even got reprimanded by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux kernel in a mailing list.

Some related threads on grsecurity:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220401163814/https://www.theregister.com/2017/06/26/linus_torvalds_slams_pure_garbage_from_clowns_at_grsecurity/

https://web.archive.org/web/20220416203735/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/pupumh/brad_spengler_grsecurity_brags_about_hoarding/

https://archive.is/f5djI

https://web.archive.org/web/20220416203035/https://nitter.42l.fr/spendergrsec/status/1486366129438212098

madaidan's certain amount of influence comes from the kind of Reddit and internet community that revolves around a particular group, a faction that I see as very anti-Linux and anti-FOSS for the most part, not because criticism is bad, but grift in the name of criticism is bad. I will expand upon this more in a moment.

I am sure, most are wondering what does madaidan have to do with this. Apparently, there have been way too many instances where, upon criticisms in discussions, GrapheneOS community proponents often cite a bunch of URLs, among which grsecurity is one of them. And this is not a one off instance, so I will link a couple screenshot threads from Lemmy from 6 months ago, which is an exchange between u/Lunacy and me. I will cite this in a later part of article as well.

< Lunacy Lemmy thread pic> https://i.imgur.com/dgWcn2J.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/fRXHRoR.jpg

ENTER THE DANIEL MICAY

He is a very underrated but important part of this whole story. I assume many people have an idea of CopperheadOS company splitting between Micay and James Donaldson (u/darknetj on Reddit) due to a lot of controversies and tussle I have nothing to do with, and therefore I will avoid commenting on. After this tussle, GrapheneOS project was born, essentially a fork of CopperheadOS in layman terms, which was also developed heavily by Micay. GrapheneOS is largely an AOSP fork of a fork with some security patchwork on top of it.

Here I would like to mention a little anecdote from 2 years ago, something Micay always avoids acknowledging for some funny reason. This screenshot is from my reddit inbox, where I was messaged by CopperheadOS CEO regarding something.

COPPERHEADOS CEO MODMAIL

https://i.imgur.com/hujn4P1.jpg

I will let the readers interpret this on their own.

DANIEL MICAY AND MADAIDAN'S POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

Moving on, there is a thread and mailing list I want to mention, which will help connect the dots as to how Micay and madaidan are not just related, but intertwined into each other, like a grandma's woven sweater. Most have no clue about this, so I will share the mailing list URL and screenshot here.

In the below reddit thread/screenshot, Daniel Micay and madaidan argue together against Firefox. Before the Tor Project mailing list happened in August 2019, the whole anti-Firefox sentiment mysteriously used to not exist in GrapheneOS community.

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2019-August/013995.html

https://www.unddit.com/r/firefox/comments/gokcis/firefox_is_insecure_refuted/

Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/8nkO5Ll.jpg

A SERIES OF COLLECTED THREADS OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS...

I will now share a Lemmy masterlist I made, perhaps a collection of various conversations by madaidan and his friend cn3m. Here is the URL: https://lemmy.ml/post/73800/comment/66676

I will relink the Lunacy Lemmy exchange screenshot once again, since Lunacy's comments are important for context.

https://i.imgur.com/fRXHRoR.jpg

I have never explained anything about the comment threads in my masterlist before, so this should help.

https://i.imgur.com/UHhQRIU.jpg I think this is self explanatory and shows madaidan's argumentation that is otherwise deleted by him.

https://i.imgur.com/FiYhbkk.jpg: madaidan being very 4chan-y in terms of blaming the computer language for problems in particular software code (in this case Linux kernel), while dismissing everything when it comes to Windows. His blog page about Linux is a massive piece of "toilet paper" repeatedly debunked at this point. If you think the phrase "toilet paper" is mine, come, have a look.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210929053611/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/pwi1l9/thoughts_about_an_article_talking_about_the/

https://web.archive.org/web/20220111035527/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25590079

https://archive.is/zxS72

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Relevant reading:

https://github.com/zlw9991/node-ipc-dependencies-list

https://web.archive.org/web/20220318095406/https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/peacenotwar/issues/45

https://security.snyk.io/vuln/SNYK-JS-NODEIPC-2426370

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/177032

Combined with access timestamps, they can uniquely identify the source of any shared PDFs.

Source: https://social.coop/@jonny/107685726645817029 -- Also includes tips for removing this data.

Mod statement: https://np.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/rxf02a/theanonymousjoker_false_privacy_prophet/hs1dxux?context=3

https://i.imgur.com/LahmNkO.jpg

dng99/dngray has branded a citation-less slander post as facts. These are the "community standards" of r/PrivacyGuides. Always remember this.

u/trai_dep, the record stands corrected once again

Moreover, my theory about GrapheneOS community using sockpuppets is true, as confirmed by...

https://np.reddit.com/r/fdroid/comments/rxtc14/came_across_this_thoughts/hs1o6no?context=3

https://i.imgur.com/JX6uTpx.jpg

Tommy_Tran = B0risGrishenko (OP of slander post). Thanks for confirming my GrapheneOS community sockpuppet theory.

https://lemmy.ml/post/128667

Lemmy unfortunately has a word limit for posts, and I had to break my post into 5 parts, 4 as comments, to be able to post it. So, comments and questions can be put here.

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Edit(11/1/2022): * MIUI has no biometric Lockdown, solution. * FFUpdater and UntrackMe apps recommended. * Added back Vinyl Music Player.

NOTE (June) 15/06/2020: r_privacy moderator trai_dep revengefully deleted my highly gilded 1.0 guide post before.

NOTE: I will NOT respond to prejudiced and political trolls.

Hello! It took a while before I could gather enough upgrades to create this fourth iteration of the smartphone guide so many people love. It seems to have benefitted many people, and it was only a matter of time before things got spicier.

It is time to, once again, shake up the expectations of how much privacy, security and anonymity you can achieve on a non rooted smartphone, even compared to all those funky "security" custom ROMs. It is time to get top grade levels of privacy in the hands (pun intended) of all you smartphone users.

Steps are as always easy to apply if you follow the guide, which is a pivotal foundation of this guide I started 2 years ago. After all, what is a guide if you feel unease in even being able to follow its lead?

Unlike last year, I want to try and fully rewrite the guide wherever possible, but some parts will seem similar obviously, as this, while technically being an incremental improvement, is also a massive jump for darknet users. This version of the guide took a while compared to the previous versions.

A kind request to share this guide to any privacy seeker.

---

User and device requirement

• ANY Android 9+ device (Android 10+ recommended for better security)
• knowledge of how to copy-paste commands in Linux or Mac Terminal/MS-DOS Command Prompt (for ADB, it is very simple, trust me)
• For intermediate tech users: typing some URLs and saving them in a text file

---

What brings this fourth iteration? Was the previous version not good enough?

No, it was not, just like last time. There is always room for improvement, but I may have started to encounter law of diminishing returns, just like Moore's Law has started to fail with desktop CPU transistor count advancements. This does not mean I am stopping, but upgrades might get marginal from here on. The upgrades we now have are less in number, higher in quality. So, we have a lot explanation to read and understand this time around.

A summary of new additions to the 3.0 guide:

• Update to the Apple section
• Many additions in section for app recommendations and replacements
• NetGuard replaced with Invizible Pro (this is massive)
• A colossal jump in your data security in the event of a possible physical phone theft using a couple applications
• An attempt at teaching the importance of Android/AOSP's killswitch feature for VPNs/firewalls
• (FOR XIAOMI USERS) How to configure Work Profile, as Second Space causes issues, and adding back biometric Lockdown
• How to be able to copy files from work profile to main user storage without Shelter/Insular's Shuttle service
• Some changes in phone brand recommendations
• Caveat(s)

---

Why not Apple devices?

iPhone does not allow you to have privacy due to its blackbox nature, and is simply a false marketing assurance by Apple to you. Recently, an unpatchable hardware flaw was discovered in Apple's T1 and T2 "security" chips, rendering Apple devices critically vulnerable.

Also, they recently dropped plan for encrypting iCloud backups after FBI complained. They also collect and sell data quite a lot. Siri still records conversations 9 months after Apple promised not to do it. Apple Mail app is vulnerable, yet Apple stays in denial.

Also, Apple sells certificates to third-party developers that allow them to track users, The San Ferdandino shooter publicity stunt was completely fraudulent, and Louis Rossmann dismantled Apple's PR stunt "repair program".

Apple gave the FBI access to the iCloud account of a protester accused of setting police cars on fire.

Apple's authorised repair leaked a customer's sex tape during iPhone repair. This is how much they respect your privacy. You want to know how much more they respect your privacy? Apple's Big Sur(veillance) fiasco seemed not enough, it seems. Still not enough to make your eyes pop wide open?

Apple's CSAM mandatory scanning of your local storage is a fiasco that will echo forever. This blog article should be of help. But they lied how their system was never hacked. I doubt. They even removed CSAM protection references off of their website for some reason.

Pretty sure atleast the most coveted privacy innovation of App Tracking protection with one button tracking denial would work, right? Pure. Privacy. Theater.

Surely this benevolent company blocked and destroyed Facebook and Google's ad network ecosystem by blocking all those bad trackers and ads. Sigh. Nope. Now it is just Apple having monopoly over your monetised data.

Also, Android's open source nature is starting to pay off in the long run. Apple 0-day exploits are far cheaper to do than Android.

---

LET'S GO!!!

ALL users must follow these steps except the "FOR ADVANCED/INTERMEDIATE USERS" tagged points or sections.

Firstly, if your device is filled to the brim or used for long time, I recommend backing up your data and factory resetting for clean slate start.

• Sign out all your Google and phone brand accounts from your device so that Settings-->Accounts do not show any sign-ins except WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram

• Install ADB on your Linux, Windows or Mac OS machine, simple guide: https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/

• Use "Universal Android Debloater" to easily debloat your bloated phone.

NOTE: Samsung users will lose Samsung Pay, as Samsung has been caught and declares they sell this data: https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-pay-new-privacy-policy-your-data-sold/

• Install F-Droid app store from here

• Install NetGuard app firewall (see NOTE) from F-Droid and set it up with privacy based DNS like AdGuard/Uncensored/Tenta/Quad9 DNS.

NOTE: NetGuard with Energized Ultimate HOSTS file with any one of the above mentioned DNS providers is the ultimate solution.

NOTE: Download the Energized Ultimate hosts file from https://github.com/EnergizedProtection/block and store it on phone beforehand. This will be used either for NetGuard or Invizible, whichever is picked later on.

(FOR ADVANCED USERS) If you know how to merge HOSTS rules in one text file, you can merge Xtreme addon pack from Energized GitHub. You can also experiment with the Porn and Malicious IP domain lists.

NOTE: Set DNS provider address in Settings -> Advanced settings --> VPN IPv4, IPv6 and DNS

• Install Invizible Pro from F-Droid (LONG SECTION FOR THIS BELOW)

• In F-Droid store, open Repositories via the 3 dot menu on top right and add the following repositories below:

1. https://gitlab.com/rfc2822/fdroid-firefox

2. https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index.php

3. https://guardianproject.info/fdroid/repo/

Go back to F-Droid store home screen, and hit the update button beside the 3 dot menu. (This may vary if you have newer F-Droid store app with new user interface.)

---

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/84636

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1727907

'Offline' is currently the default which is explained in the source code:

"This is the scenario for the "offline" rollout. Firefox Suggest suggestions are enabled by default. Search strings and matching keywords are not included in related telemetry. The onboarding dialog is not shown."

Switching to 'online' would trigger a dialog that comes up when you start the browser. Only clicking 'Allow suggestions' on the dialog would opt you into the search query collection.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/76603

I think this highlights a more general problem of data ownership. People do not own devices and services they pay for in a traditional sense because the company gets the final say on how they're used. Companies can decide to analyzer your data, share it with partners, and even prevent you from accessing it.

From the article:

Reuters revealed some of America’s biggest tech companies will let “Five Eyes” and the U.N. decide whose stories the “Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism” should censor.

“Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

Big Tech’s GIFCT is essentially a Five Eyes censorship program, masquerading as a Big Tech social media forum to stop terrorism and extremism.

“Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos — often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence — and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.”

Twitter and YouTube are also helping help Five Eyes spy on the world’s social media.

“The firms, which include Twitter and YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it.”

Other companies that have access to the GIFCT database are Reddit, Snapchat, Instagram, Verizon Media, LinkedIn, Dropbox, MailChimp and Airbnb.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/75411

From it's Telegram channel:

Hello,

At approximately 21:33 UTC July 26 2021, I have been hit with a cease & desist letter from a law firm repsenting Facebook. The letter was sent to one of my personal email address as well as Barinsta's public inbox (and as a result, it is published). In response, the source code has been taken down, and all promotional materials within my control has been adjusted to reflect the fact.

While I believe it is nearly impossible to fight a resourceful multinational firm and reinstate the app, we will still try to get as much resources as we could to navigate in this crisis.
At this dire moment, I ask you to do 1 thing: Please let others know what is happening here. Such bullying behaviour against a young university student is in no way excusable. Such bullying behaviour against many internet users is in no way excusable.

It has been an honour of a lifetime to serve as one of the main contributors of Barinsta. I am forever grateful for the countless supporters along the way.

Thank you & Best Regards,
Austin Huang https://austinhuang.me

The letter was posted in the Barinsta GitHub as a sadly notice of the end of the project.

Ripping this off and tweaking it from an answer I gave on reddit to someone recently here, I think it would make for an interesting post and can be helpful to many people, since most of us are forced to use some of such software due to network effect and such uncontrollable constraints.

There is only one way to use such centralised common apps/services, that I devised and follow.

1. Firewall them (and give internet access only when you need to use it temporarily and block its trackers via custom HOSTS rules in NetGuard), sandbox them in Android Work Profile and neuter their permissions.

2. Learn OPSEC and try not to type comments that give too much details about your life on non-E2EE or spooky platforms.

3. Learn stylography and how to maintain it for an highly improvised OPSEC.

4. Share images, videos, documents and other media on such platforms exclusively after stripping metadata off the files.

5. Physically covering the camera on your phone and laptop like this

BONUS: If possible and have extra cash ($100-150) for a second phone, make that device for such exclusive work purpose. Yes, a second work phone/laptop/device is an old compartmentalisation strategy, and it is still great.

I hope this helps a lot of people.

Hello! I think it is a nice time to re-mention some 101 tips of IT security for folks here, that I also practice. Pegasus malware investigation will be big news for a good while, so the more awareness it helps spread, the better.

RULE 1

DO NOT CLICK ON RANDOM SMS AND EMAIL LINKS. Please, do not do this, ever. Just do not do it. Do not do it. Do not do it. Do not do it.

Yes, that is how many times I repeated that line. That is how important this rule is.

Also, do not download random email attachments.

Phishing is such a common tactic that one would think this problem has been solved by now, but it has not.

RULE 2

Keep OFF auto download of photos, videos, documents and so on on WhatsApp, Signal and such apps.

Drive by downloads being self executable surprise bombs is not a new thing. Basically, this rule is similar to keeping off AutoPlay for external USB sticks on Windows computers.

RULE 3

Avoid using popular software too much.

I get it, this is a hard rule to workaround considering how much we need to use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and so on, so it is a lot better to compartmentalise your activities among multiple messengers.

Pegasus and a lot of specialised malware uses zero-days to be able to design zero click deployment tricks, which is what these government surveillance tools are good at reserving. They use their millions of dollars of funding and R&D properly, so you have to be careful.

As an example, try to keep WhatsApp internet turned off most of the times via NetGuard, and turn it on only when needed, a good method I have earlier suggested as well in my smartphone hardening guide.

CONCLUSION

Those were some thoughts on the top of my head, before I go to sleep. Stay safe against surveillance! And feel free to ask whatever you want to!