this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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privacy
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Big tech and governments are monitoring and recording your eating activities. c/Privacy provides tips and tricks to protect your privacy against global surveillance.
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To further protect yourself, you can also:
Formally request that large transactions through your bank be done with you present, in person. Ask if you can set a limit and only if done in person also temporarily lift that limit.
Obtain a credit card. Either you fight to get your money back when fraud hits, or they fight to get their money back. You can guess which team is better staffed. I was procrastinating for ages getting one myself. Then another fraudulent transaction hit. Despite having a fair amount of knowledge in this realm and doing a solid amount of research independently AND reporting it immediately, it still took days to get money actually placed back into my account. AND THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN with a brand new card within 30 days. Likely the shitty auto update service large organizations can subscribe to, or I got unlucky on a brute force attempt. Either way, a CC will save you this hassle.
Bitwarden.
Passwords only on your phone. No biometrics without a backup plan.
Yeah, I only use credit cards or cash these days, and leave my debit cards frozen/locked. The only time I would need my debit card is to use an ATM, and it's easy enough to login on my phone and unlock it. I've had several fraudulent charges on various cards, and so far it has been resolved with a short phone call and a reissue, and my replacements seem to come faster than new credit cards. The rewards are nice, but the purchase protections are the real reason I use them.
Biometrics are really nice, and on newer phones, way more secure than a PIN. They're also local-only, so they're quite privacy-friendly.
But absolutely have a backup. I use a long PIN as my backup, and my bank lets me use a long PIN on my debit card as well, so I keep them the same (easier to remember that way). I use my fingerprint for pretty much everything, but I also have my phone reboot itself after a period of inactivity, which forces a PIN login (again, helps me remember it). Oh, and it's a random PIN, so not something anyone could guess (I'm a developer, so I used a small Python script:
import random; ''.join(str(random.randint(9)) for _ in range(N))where N is your desired length). I ran three of those and picked one.And yeah, Bitwarden is fantastic. I apparently have >300 logins, and there's no way I'd be able to remember that many unique passwords.
I got a NEW credit card faster than my bank was able to reissue and send me a replacement debit/credit. By like half the time.
I wasn't aware biometrics were more secure. My info is clearly out of date! Though I was also thinking of the forced unlocking of phones by, er...other people.
Police. I'm talking about the popo.
Good old Tasker should be able to handle the bulk of automating things like an auto-shutdown. Might still need to insert custom code BUT they have a community. A couple searches and verification that you're not being a dumbass and downloading something malicious and wham bam easy - or manually type it out. I dunno. Don't be big dumb.
Tasker ain't obsolete yet, dammit!
Remember, folks! NONE OF THIS MATTERS IF YOU GIVE UP YOUR CREDENTIALS JUST CAUSE SOMEONE CALLED AND SAID GRANDMA WAS INJURED IN A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT.
Here's a Naomi Brockwell video about it. I also used to avoid it, but that video changed my mind. I can easily turn off the biometrics if I'm going somewhere where LE might force me to unlock it (e.g. travel), but I can just mis-scan it a few times and it'll force me to enter the PIN anyway.
Yeah, that can work, but GrapheneOS at least has an automatic reboot option after so much time has passed w/o being used. I set mine to 4 hours so it'll reboot at night, but I make it a lot less when I'm traveling. Everything is encrypted on a fresh boot and calls still work (emergency outgoing, and any incoming), so it's a really nice bit of extra security for lazy people like me.