I didn't like Kodi due to the unpleasant controls, especially on Android, so I decided to try out Jellyfin. It was really easy to get working, and I like it a lot more than Kodi, but I started to have problems after the first time restarting my computer.

I store my media on an external LUKS encrypted hard drive. Because of that, for some reason, Jellyfin's permission to access the drive go away after a reboot. That means something like chgrp -R jellyfin /media/username does work, but it stops working after I restart my computer and unlock the disk.

I tried modifying the /etc/fstab file without really knowing what I was doing, and almost bricked the system. Thank goodness I'm running an atomic distro (Fedora Silverblue), I was able to recover pretty quickly.

How do I give Jellyfin permanent access to my hard drive?

Solution:

1. Install GNOME Disks
2. Open GNOME Disks
3. On the left, click on the drive storing your media
4. Click "Unlock selected encrypted partition" (the padlock icon)
5. Enter your password
6. Click "Unlock"
7. Select the LUKS partition
8. Click "Additional partition options" (the gear icon)
9. Click "Edit Encryption Options..."
10. Enter your admin password
11. Click "Authenticate"
12. Disable "User Session Defaults"
13. Select "Unlock at system startup"
14. Enter the encryption password for your drive in the "Passphrase" field
15. Click "Ok"
16. Select the decrypted Ext4 partition
17. Click "Additional partition options" (the gear icon)
18. Click "Edit Mount Options..."
19. Disable "User Session Defaults"
20. Select "Mount at system startup"
21. Click "Ok"
22. Navigate to your Jellyfin Dashboard
23. Go to "Libraries"
24. Select "Add Media Library"
25. When configuring the folder, navigate to /mnt and then select the UUID that points to your mounted hard drive

A couple years ago when I was first interested in privacy I stumbled across a privacy website that I found very cool. I regret not saving it, but I'm certain it's not lost. I only remember this about the website:

• It had this song as its background music
• The website was for educating about privacy, and you would "unlock" new knowledge as you went
• Some of that knowledge was in a "cave" where some dark stories and articles surfaced
• One of the interactive segments was about "What do you think step counter data could reveal about you?" and the answer was things like religion (if your step count increased on certain days such as Sunday or Tuesday which correlates with some religions), rough location (based on which times you walked), etc.

That's all I remember. Thank you so much to anyone who can help me find it!

Yesterday I decided to start "officially" selfhosting. With almost no experience with Docker, I struggled for eight hours straight, but I finally have it working.

Currently, the two tools I am selfhosting with Docker Compose are LibreTranslate and spotDL. I'm only accessing them over the local network using a direct IP:PORT, so there's no domain name. I don't want to use a custom DNS, since it is fingerprintable online, so I want to keep it the same as my VPN.

With that said, I want to add encryption to the connections. I was able to generate my own self signed certificates with this command:

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout ./certs/key.key -out ./certs/cert.crt

spotDL was easy to setup with these self signed certs, since it has command flags for --enable-tls, --key-file, and --cert-file. LibreTranslate has an environment variable for - LT_SSL=true, however it gives the following error:

libretranslate  | (URLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1006)')),)

That led me to this issue which is 2 and a half years old. LibreTranslate doesn't have a way to specify certificates that I know of.

I tried using Nginx Proxy Manager to create a reverse proxy, but I couldn't quite figure it out. (I also didn't understand Docker Compose at the time. I had a few hours to go before I did) NPM also seems to want Let's Encrypt certificates which can't be given without a DNS record. I tried manually providing certificates in the config file, but I don't quite understand NPM enough to be able to set it up properly on my own.

My requirements are:

• No changing the DNS from my VPN's default
• No port forwarding, everything should be accessed by the local network only
• No email required (ability to use a fake email without risk is fine)
• Only free and open source software
• Modern security standards where available

I also would like help adding the self signed certificates as a permanent exception in Brave browser, if possible.

This question has been answered. Please stop trying to repeat information that has already been said many times before. Everything in this thread is in good faith, I am here to learn, so I will make mistakes. Furthermore, if you want to contribute something new, please read the entire post to avoid misunderstanding the purpose of this post.

Selfhosting is useful when you either need a lot of storage or a lot of processing power. For example, Kiwix is useful to selfhost on a server because a lot of its content can take up terabytes of storage, which a phone may not have. LLMs are also useful to selfhost because they require a degree of processing power that, again, a phone may not have.

In both cases, there is also a need for perpetual access. If you simply hosted an LLM on your home computer, it wouldn't be very useful to access from your phone since your computer won't be running all the time. So, a separate always-on server is needed.

However, there are some selfhosted software that I don't see a use for. For example, Immich. Immich requires to be run on a server to function, but a lot of (or even all) of its functions are things that could reasonably done entirely on-device. Aves combined with some automatic backup solution such as Nextcloud gets (from what I can tell) most of the functionality Immich offers. Obviously, some features like AI image tagging are missing, but you get the point. AI image tagging is also something that could be run on-device as well, since it's mostly lightweight (iPhones are capable of it). Having a setup like that also comes with the benefit of automatic backups being completely optional, rather than required.

There's no reasonable need for extra storage or extra processing power needed for that use case, from what I can tell. (Disclaimer: I haven't actually used Immich before, so this is speculation. I apologize if I'm missing something obvious) There's a lot of other selfhosted tools like spotDL which have a selfhosted web UI, but no GUI that can be installed outside of a web browser.

I guess my question is why there are so many selfhosted tools that unnecessarily require being run on a separate device. I do understand the legitimate use cases some of them have, but others seem better off on-device airgapped. This especially became an issue trying to find a notes app for Android that requires no account and runs fully locally, or an RSS reader that loads from the device itself. I found Joplin and Feeder or Read You as the software for each of those. I don't like "server-based" selfhosting for things that could be done from the device itself.

I'm sorry if this turned into a rant. If someone could help me understand, I would appreciate that very much.

Cheers!

Edit: The comparison here isn't between selfhosting and using a cloud provider. The comparison here is between selfhosting on a server and running explicitly on-device (besides where extra storage or processing power is required)

Answer

So that nobody has to dig through the comments for answers, this is what I've learned: In the case of Immich, its purpose isn't designed to be a photo gallery. It's designed to be a more polished backup solution, designed explicitly for photos and not general files. While Nextcloud could be used to backup photos, it's not as focused on photos as Immich, and so it isn't as nice to use for that purpose. Immich also allows you to share photos with a link, rather than relying on a cloud provider to do that for you. There's also another benefit to selfhosting that I hadn't entirely realized, which is availability across devices. Some things like an eBook library may not take up much space, but it's convenient to not have to sync manually (or automatically) across devices, and instead access it from a central server. That same logic is true for RSS readers as well, since it's inconvenient to manually add and sync feeds across devices. Syncing across devices can be done with something like Syncthing in some cases, but not all, and so that's where selfhosting can be useful.

After about 2 and a half years of battling for my privacy, I'm finally at a place where I can step back and be happy. Technically the seed of privacy was planted 5 years ago, but it hadn't become a goal yet.

I used to use Windows 7 (even 10 and 11, eventually), an iPhone 6, Gmail, Google Hangouts (anyone else remember when it was called that?) and Discord as my main messengers, Snapchat, Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Reddit, ChatGPT, Chrome, Google, Avast and Avast VPN, YouTube, Authy, and so, so much more.

I am so fortunate to be able to be where I'm at now. I use Fedora (Silverblue. I tried secureblue but it was too strict for my taste), a Pixel 8 running GrapheneOS, Proton Mail + addy.io (although I try to use email as little as possible), Signal and SimpleX Chat, a "self-hosted" music library, some cheaper ways to stream movies, Lemmy (duh), HuggingChat (because I don't have the hardware to run my own model quite yet), Tor Browser and another (I want to avoid arguments about my browser choice), SearXNG, Proton VPN (until I can get Mullvad VPN paid for), FreeTube, Aegis Authenticator, and a plethora of other software.

I got quite lucky with device compatibility. My computer and laptop just so happen to be compatible with every distro I've tried, and I've sure dragged them through hell to find the one I want. I'm blessed to have been able to snag a decent phone for GrapheneOS, and so glad to have automated the transition from Spotify.

It's been a good run. I'm glad to finally be satisfied with where I'm at. I started to see the fruit of my labor months ago. Now I can rest easy and do my part to help others become more privacy aware. I'd love to hear your story too, maybe mine isn't far off!

Bonus story: The straw that broke the camel's back that caused me to fully switch to Linux was Windows 11's Efficiency Mode. It's a cute feature that throttles the performance of programs to save on carbon emissions... and (at the time) you couldn't disable it. You could disable it per-process, but it would re-enable itself shortly after. ChatGPT was becoming quite popular at the time, but Efficiency Mode slowing down the browser made it nearly unusable. I did look for ways to permanently disable it, but either I wasn't experienced enough or it didn't exist yet. Well, no way except to replace Windows altogether!

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.

I use an RSS reader to curate my Lemmy feed, which means I see every post, including deleted ones. Every so often, posts will crop up with pessimistic content such as "Why try anymore?" etc. Most of the time these are a result of privacy burnout, where the individual has a threat model that is too strict for their own tolerance.

We all wish we have perfect privacy. We all wish the world could be more pro-privacy than anti-privacy. One day, that may be the case. For now, we have to accept that nobody can be completely private. Privacy is a spectrum, and doing what you can to minimize data collection goes a long way. You can't become private overnight, so taking small steps like these means you can grow a strong foundation for future privacy. Privacy takes time, so take it as slow as you need to.

Even if a company already has your data or another means to track you, by minimizing you are making it harder for them to extract that data, and it increases the odds that your data becomes stale. By caring about privacy to begin with, you're showing companies and other people that the data collection is not ok.

I've been a privacy activist for years now, and I will also face periods of privacy burnout. I handle it by stopping, taking a step back, and reevaluating my threat model. It's good to take breaks like those, because it means you don't push yourself past your limits and become burnt out.

It's really easy to get caught up in the "breaking news" of privacy, too. This is more of a personal stance, but getting caught up in politics and news often leads to stress and makes it harder to make real progress. (This is one of the reasons I use an RSS reader, I can curate my information without stressful headlines.) You don't need to use the most private software or jump ship the moment anything goes wrong. If you feel you need to switch, do it when you have time and when it won't cause problems elsewhere.

Take a look at how far you've come, and realize that even if you're not where you want to be yet, you've taken steps to get there. Every person who starts to care about privacy, even you, is one more person to help make the world a more privacy respecting place. It may not seem like you make that much of a difference, but it's not just you. You and everybody else who cares about privacy makes a huge difference.

Don't give up now. Privacy is an uphill battle by design, but the payoff is worth it.

Good luck!

Hello Lemmy!

I'm excited to celebrate the 100th release of my project, Open Source Everything! Open Source Everything is my own curated list of open source (or at least source-available) software. It started out with a bit of a bumpy start, even being deleted at one point, but the project is still going strong!

Over the past 4 months, the project has seen releases, both big and small, but it has grown so much since its initial release. It started out with a small list of 128 software I'd kept on my phone for months, but since then it has over doubled, and now has almost 300 pieces of software listed! It's truly inspiring to see the community come together and help the list out, so thank you very much to everyone who suggested software and contributed to the list!

With that said, the list has a long way to go. There are many sections that need improvement, and many mistakes to be fixed. I try to focus on quality over quantity, which means a lot of the software needs to be personally tested before I can definitively make sure that it belongs on the list. Of course, that's difficult for one person to achieve. I kindly ask for community feedback on software listed there, and if you feel there is a better alternative, please let me know!

I'm also considering moving Open Source Everything to a website structure, since I'm currently limited by the functionality of a markdown file. If there's some way to do inline tables and rounded images in a markdown file, let me know. Otherwise, I'll start working on creating a website for it.

Finally, if you're a good SVG artist, many of the software logos don't have high quality svg options available (or some SVGs, like Wikipedia, are broken for whatever reason). I would appreciate anyone with the skills available to help replace all PNG images with SVG counterparts, especially projects that are missing logos.

Thank you so much all of you, and I hope to make 2025 a great year for Open Source Everything!

P.S. Open Source Everything is hosted on GitLab, and mirrored on GitHub. I'm linking to the GitHub version because it supports slightly better formatting and header links are broken on GitLab due to a bug.

Happy Christmas and Merry Hanuka!

If you're struggling to find something to buy your privacy enthusiast friend for the holidays, I have some gift ideas. As with any gift, not everyone will need these, but it can give you a good idea of what to look for. Feel free to submit your own suggestions, as well!

No affiliate links, no sponsors, no favorites. All prices are in USD. If a price is something like "$X.99" or "$X.49" or "$X39" I have rounded it up by one digit.

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Subscriptions

Some privacy tools come at a cost, and not all open source software can be used for free!

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Addy.io

Addy.io is an email aliasing service.

Pricing

Lite: $1 / month

Pro: $3 / month

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Bitwarden

Bitwarden is a cloud-synced password manager.

Pricing

Personal Premium: $10 / year

Personal Families: $40 / year

Business Teams: $48 / user / year

Business Enterprise: $72 / user / year

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Calyx Institute Internet Membership

The Calyx Institute Internet Membership provides you with a privacy respecting cellular hotspot.

Pricing

Contributor Yearly: $500 / year for first year, $400 / year thereafter

Contributor Quarterly: $150 / 3 months

Contributor Plus: $600 / year for first year, $500 / year thereafter

Sustainer Yearly: $750 / year for first year, $500 / year thereafter

Sustainer Quarterly: $175 / 3 months

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JMP

JMP is an open source phone number provider.

Pricing

Plan (USD): $5 / month + additional usage costs

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Mullvad VPN

Mullvad VPN is a virtual private network.

Pricing

1 month: $5.28 / month

Physical vouchers are also available through resellers.

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MySudo (PROPRIETARY)

MySudo is a proprietary aliasing software. I could not find any open source option for aliasing phone numbers, especially this cheap.

Pricing

SudoGo: $1 / month or $10 / year

SudoPro: $5 / month or $50 / year

SudoMax: $15 / month or $150 / year

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Privacy.com (PROPRIETARY)

Privacy.com is a proprietary financial transaction masking and aliasing tool. There are other options such as Revolut (open source), but Privacy.com seems to be the one that works best in the United States. Consider your threat model while using these tools.

Pricing

Plus: $5 / month

Pro: $10 / month

Premium: $25 / month

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Proton

Proton is a software suite that includes email, VPN, cloud storage, password manager, calendar, and wallet. Their pricing is extremely convoluted and difficult to navigate.

Pricing

Proton Unlimited 1 month: $13 / month

Proton Unlimited 12 months: $10 / month

Proton Duo: $15 / month

Proton Family: $24 / month

Mail Plus 1 month: $5 / month

Mail Plus 12 months: $4 / month

Drive Plus Monthly: $5 / month

Drive Plus Yearly: $4 / month

Proton VPN Plus 1-month plan: $10 / month

Proton VPN Plus 1-year plan: $5 / month

Proton VPN Plus 2-year plan: $4.50 / month

Pass Plus Monthly: $5 / month

Pass Plus Yearly: $3 / month

Proton Business Suite Monthly: $15 / user / month

Proton Business Suite Yearly: $13 / user / month

Mail Essentials Monthly: $8 / user / month

Mail Essentials Yearly: $7 / user / month

Mail Professional Monthly: $11 / user / month

Mail Professional Yearly: $10 / user / month

VPN Essentials Monthly: $9 / user / month

VPN Essentials Yearly: $7 / user / month

VPN Professional Monthly: $12 / user / month

VPN Professional Yearly: $10 / user / month

Pass Essentials Monthly: $5 / user / month

Pass Essentials Yearly: $2 / user / month

Pass Professional Monthly: $7 / user / month

Pass Professional Yearly: $3 / user / month

Drive Professional Monthly: $10 / user / month

Drive Professional Yearly: $6 / user / month

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Hardware

Not everything is digital. Hardware is the foundation for privacy, after all!

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Dumb Television

Smart TVs are so last century... and this century... and the next century... Enjoy the luxury of buying a "dumb TV" while it lasts, because your TV doesn't need to spy on you! There's no best option here. You might need to purchase a large monitor instead of a TV.

---

Google Pixel

Google Pixel phones are one of the most secure devices, especially when you run a security/privacy focused custom Android distribution such as GrapheneOS. Other phones exist for this category, but the Google Pixel is a good baseline. Prices here are based on what are actively being sold on Google's own website.

Some things to look out for when installing a custom Android distribution:

• Make sure the custom Android distribution you want to install supports being installed on the device you get. GrapheneOS, for example, only supports Google devices.
• Make sure the device you purchase allows unlocking the bootloader.
• Make sure the custom Android distribution you want to install supports locking the bootloader after installation for the device you get. Some devices do not allow relocking the bootloader, and in some cases this can brick the device. Google Pixels generally have the best support for this.
• Make sure the device you purchase is carrier unlocked or the carrier allows OEM unlocking/bootloader unlocking. Some carriers (most notoriously Verizon) will disable this functionality to maintain a monopoly and will refuse to lift the restriction. Second hand sellers are often unaware of this and will mistakenly list the device as "carrier unlocked" when it is in fact not.

Pricing

Refurbished Pixel 6 128GB: $340

Refurbished Pixel 6 256GB: $390

Refurbished Pixel 6 Pro 128GB: $540

Refurbished Pixel 6a: $250

Refurbished Pixel 7 128GB: $430

Refurbished Pixel 7 256GB: $480

Refurbished Pixel 7 Pro 128GB: $630

Refurbished Pixel 7 Pro 256GB: $680

Refurbished Pixel 7 Pro 512GB: $780

Pixel 7a: $500

Pixel 8 128GB: $700

Pixel 8 256GB: $760

Pixel 8 Pro 128GB: $1,000

Pixel 8 Pro 256GB: $1,060

Pixel 8 Pro 512GB: $1,180

Pixel 8 Pro 1TB: $1,400

Pixel 8a 128GB: $400

Pixel 8a 256GB: $460

Pixel 9 128GB: $650

Pixel 9 256GB: $750

Pixel 9 Pro 128GB: $850

Pixel 9 Pro 256GB: $950

Pixel 9 Pro 512GB: $1,070

Pixel 9 Pro 1TB: $1,300

Pixel 9 Pro XL 128GB: $950

Pixel 9 Pro XL 256GB: $1,050

Pixel 9 Pro XL 512GB: $1,170

Pixel 9 Pro XL 1TB: $1,400

Pixel 9 Pro Fold 256GB: $1,500

Pixel 9 Pro Fold 512GB: $1,620

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OpenWrt One

OpenWrt One is the first router designed specifically to run OpenWrt. It's not the only supported device, and there are other open source router firmware projects, but this is a good out-of-the-box choice.

Pricing

This can currently only be purchased from unofficial resellers for $90.

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Qubes OS certified hardware

Qubes OS is likely the most hardened Linux distro available. They have their own list of certified hardware that comes with Qubes OS preinstalled. Those devices aren't the only ones capable of running Qubes OS. You can also check out the Hardware compatibility list and Community-recommended computers. These computers can run more than just Qubes OS, but if it's good enough to be certified by them, it will likely run anything else just as securely!

Pricing

NitroPad V56: Lowest $1,565.58

NovaCustom V56 Series 16.0 inch coreboot laptop: Lowest $1,256.40

NitroPC Pro 2: Lowest $1,614.73

Star Labs StarBook: Lowest $863.00

NitroPC Pro: Lowest $1,614.91

NovaCustom NV41 Series Lowest $930.60

Dasharo FidelisGuard Z690: Lowest $994.28

NitroPad T430: Lowest $737.79

NitroPad X230: Lowest $737.79

Insurgo PrivacyBeast X230: $1,341.46

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Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pis are miniature computers that are very useful for setting up proxy servers.

Pricing

There's endless configurations, but the most recent Raspberry Pi model is the Raspberry Pi 5. There are multiple resellers of this, and the cheapest one is the $50 Raspberry Pi 5 2GB

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Self-hosting hardware

A privacy enthusiast's best tool is being able to self-host certain things. There is no single device to self-host, but some ideas are:

• A server rack for general self-hosting
• A powerful GPU for self-hosting AI
• A self-hosted home automation kit

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Hardware Accessories

What is a piece of hardware without a few accessories? Modularity is always a benefit of modern technology.

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Camera covers

From laptops to webcams to phones, cameras are everywhere. If you don't fully trust the device you use and want some peace of mind, having an accessory to obscure the lenses of your cameras is a good thing to have. There are lots of options here depending on which camera you want to cover. Some phone cases even offer a sliding camera cover.

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CD/DVD/Blue-ray drives

Some CD/DVD/Blue-ray drives can allow you to preserve the physical DVDs that you have bought and paid for, that may soon be end-of-life. These devices allow you to read the contents of the disk, and save a digital copy of it for archival purposes. There is no best-option here, so look around to find one that fits.

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Data storage devices

Data storage devices are useful for many things such as backups, installing operating systems, booting live operating systems, data transfer, and more. The market here is huge and convoluted, so learn about different types of drives, different connectors, different connector versions (such as USB), etc. before making an educated decision.

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Hardware security keys

Hardware security keys allow your accounts to be locked with a physical form of multi-factor authentication. Many organizations sell these, and some of them even provide open source hardware/software. Here are a few common brands:

• Nitrokey
• OnlyKey
• SoloKeys
• YubiKeys

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Microphone blocker

Microphone blockers come in all shapes and sizes, but they all serve the same function: making sure your microphone is not able to hear anything. The effectiveness of some of these are debatable, given that most phones have multiple microphones, but it can be a fun gift nonetheless.

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Privacy screen protector

Privacy screen protectors are films that you apply over your screens to restrict viewing angles. This means that if someone were to look at your phone while standing next to you, they likely wouldn't be able to see what you're doing. These screen protectors are also available for laptops, smart watches, and other screens.

When buying these, make sure of the following:

• The screen protector supports fingerprint unlock for relevant devices.
• The screen protector actually works well.
• The screen protector will actually protect the device as a screen protector.
• The screen protector fits correctly for the device you're getting.
• The cameras will still work after the screen protector is applied to relevant devices.

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Wired headphones

Bluetooth can pose a privacy risk, and that is especially true when you need to play sensitive audio. One time I was in a hallway with my Bluetooth earbuds in, connected to my phone but not playing anything, when suddenly I heard a grainy piano song. My phone wasn't playing anything, and eventually the music just cut out. To this day I have no idea how it happened, but it does mean you should be careful with wireless headphones.

Wires can be annoying, but being able to fully turn off Bluetooth can give you peace of mind knowing that your audio stays inside the wire. Having high quality wired headphones can be a blessing, and even provide a better listening experience. It's worth looking at many brands, but Google still sells USB-C wired earphones and headphones from a few different brands. Here are a few:

Google Pixel USB-C™ earbuds: $30

AIAIAI Pipe 2.0 USB-C Earphones: $40

AIAIAI Tracks 2.0 Headphones: $60

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Currency

Anonymous payments are growing more and more difficult, so if you aren't sure what to buy, these are well appreciated options.

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Cash

Cash is one of the most anonymous methods of payment, and can be a privacy enthusiast's gold. Multiple small bills ($1, $5, etc.) are appreciated more than a few large bills ($20, $50, etc.) because many places do not accept cash in large bills. You can also gift some rare or interesting cash, such as $2 bills, half dollars, silver dollars, dollar coins, etc.

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Cryptocurrency

Getting cryptocurrency, especially anonymously, can be a long and painful process. If you are comfortable setting it up, this is a huge time saver and a great gift. Monero is generally considered the most private cryptocurrency, so that's a better choice than other cryptocurrencies. However, Bitcoin is the most popular and most widely accepted, even though it isn't very private. Try to obtain these through anonymous means such as using cash at cryptocurrency ATMs that may be in your city.

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Prepaid cards

There's usually no option to pay in cash online, but there are ways around this. If you buy gift cards or prepaid VISA cards with cash, it can be almost as anonymous as cash itself. Some good choices may include:

• Amazon Gift Cards: Amazon is very hard to use privately, but this can help significantly.

• Google Play Gift Cards: Google Play is one of the most secure ways of installing apps, but not all of them are free. Google Play gift cards can allow you to pay for apps anonymously, so you can maintain your security.

• Visa Prepaid Card: This is a catch-all solution for when there's no specific gift card available.

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Physical Items

As with hardware, not everything needs to be digital. There are plenty of items that are cheaper and good for almost anyone.

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Books

eBooks are a marvel, but they come with complications. Sometimes the formatting isn't right, sometimes you can't get them anonymously, and you need a device to even view it. If the digital apocalypse ever happens, the only way to access information will be through books. No ads, no eye strain. A good privacy related book you could buy is Michael Bazzell's Extreme Privacy: What It Takes to Disappear

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Calendar

Digital calendars can be convenient, but not always safe. Anything digital can risk being remotely accessed or spied on. Having a physical calendar means you can have the benefits of a calendar, without the need for a digital device. Plus, it comes with pictures that you get to pick.

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DVDs

Best paired with a DVD ripper, having physical copies of movies and games means no company can take it away from you with the push of a button. You have no ads, use no internet, no subscriptions, and have full quality.

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Faraday bags

Faraday bags and pouches are containers for your devices that block all incoming and outgoing signals. That means anything that goes inside of it will have no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, NFC, etc. This is useful if you want to make sure your device isn't phoning home. This is an item that you may want to spend extra on, because lower quality ones can still leak radio signals.

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Merchandise

Privacy themed merchandise can be a good way to show that you care about privacy and to help spread it. You can find privacy merch anywhere, but NBTV (a privacy YouTuber) has a good selection of products: https://shop.nbtv.media/en-usd/

Monerochan my beloved

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Notebooks

Having everything in a digital notes app can be nice or convenient, but I much prefer to write a lot of things down in a physical notebook. From diaries to sketches, it's nice to take a break from your digital life to jot down some ideas, privately.

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Paper shredder

When you have sensitive documents that you need discarded, one of the best ways is a paper shredder. If you buy one of these, the best ones are ones that dice the paper or burn it entirely. Even those small squares can be pieced together again.

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Safes and lockboxes

Speaking of sensitive documents, where do you store those? A good place to store sensitive documents is in a safe or a lockbox. From government documents to your best ideas, they deserve to stay (in a) safe. It's good to make sure you buy a fireproof safe, just in case Fahrenheit 451 becomes more of a reality.

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Surveillance camera jackets

As the looming threat of widespread AI surveillance comes closer, defenses against them grow stronger. Generally, you have two options:

• A jacket that fights AI recognition

• A jacket that blinds cameras entirely

These can be expensive and hard to find, but the best way to fight surveillance.

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Ending notes

Thank you all for reading this! I hope it helps you find a gift for a privacy enthusiast you can't think of a gift idea for. You don't have to buy the exact things listed here, but it gives you a general outline with ideas. I know there are some great gift ideas I missed here, so please leave them in the comments to help out others!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanuka, and have a nice day!

- The 8232 Project

I've gotten to a point in my privacy journey where it's less about moving towards private options, and more about relaxing and having some fun with what I can do.

I put off messing around with RSS for a while. I simply didn't have a significant need for it. However, after finding no good options to monitor various Lemmy communities without logging in, I decided to try out an RSS reader.

I settled on Feeder as my RSS reader, despite a few missing features I would like. I added my first Lemmy community as a feed, to try it out. I was immediately surprised how well it worked.

I also added other feeds, such as Tails News, and I was happy with that. I could monitor all the communities I needed to.

Then, I noticed one day, there was an RSS button for my Lemmy inbox. This is where I was really pleased: I can view my notifications without the need to log in, all in the same place.

Lemmy and RSS are both incredible, and I truly believe RSS is the hidden backbone of the internet. I love it, and maybe you should give it a try too!

(Ahem P.S. if anyone has an RSS reader as good as Feeder for Android that fixes this issue, please let me know)

Nobody on my post asking for controversial privacy topics asked this question, but I feel I should cover it anyways. People sometimes assume that software is safe simply because it is open source. That is a misconception, and I would like to cover that in this post.

What does "open source" mean?

When software is "open source," it means that the developers have made the source code for the software public and allows anyone to help contribute to the code, or create their own versions of the software based on the source code. By contrast, proprietary software is software that has not made the source code visible to the public. There are similar terms to open source, such as "source-available," "open-core," and "libre," which I won't cover in this post. For the sake of simplicity, any source-available software will be called "open source," since the specifics don't quite matter for the majority of this post.

What are the benefits open source software?

Open source software provides many benefits over proprietary software:

Code auditing: Because anyone can inspect the code, anybody can look for vulnerabilities or invasive code to make sure that the software is safe. With proprietary software, the developers would have to hire a third party auditor to inspect the code. That means you have to trust the auditor, and you have no way to verify first-hand that the code is safe.

Bug reporting: While both open source and proprietary software have bug reporting systems, open source software tends to have more thorough and transparent bug reporting. Bug reports are generally on a public issue tracker such as GitHub, which can also help prevent duplicate bugs from being reported. Having these reports public also makes the next benefit easier:

Bug fixing: Anyone can contribute to open source software, which means the workload is distributed. Instead of a small team of developers being the only ones working on the software, anyone can look at the public issues and code their own fixes for the software.

Resurrecting projects: Both open source and proprietary software can one day stop being developed. Even big companies such as Spotify can retire software, which can lead to hardware devices becoming unusable or insecure. (The code for Car Thing has been reconstructed, by the way.) Open source projects that fall out of development can easily be forked and maintained by a new developer. It's rare to see proprietary software handed off to a new owner.

Accountability: Open source projects hold the developers directly accountable for any vulnerabilities or invasive code, meaning the developer's interests are aligned with its users and not malicious purposes. This also incentivizes creating code without paywalls, since anyone could release a version of the code with the paid features "unlocked".

However, even with all these benefits, open source software isn't perfect.

Why has proprietary software become so popular?

Since ads and paywalls can generally be removed from open source software, it doesn't make it a very appealing choice to for-profit organizations. Generally, these organizations want to monetize and control their software, which means injecting ads, paywalls, and other invasive elements. This is done most easily if the software is proprietary.

It's also rare to see open source software becoming so popular, because generally open source software receives its funding from donations and doesn't have the budget to advertise the software. There are exceptions, such as OBS Studio or Blender, which have mostly become the most popular software in their categories.

Is open source software safe?

There is another downside to open source software that many people don't talk about: it is much easier to exploit than proprietary software. Because all the source code is visible to the public, it makes it easy for malicious parties to craft vulnerabilities. Proprietary software is generally a stab in the dark until a vulnerability is found, since you can't see exactly how it was coded.

Software being open source does mean that it becomes more likely to find and fix vulnerabilities, but being open source doesn't automatically make software safe. Which device do you think would be more likely to obtain a virus, a device running (stock) Android or a device running iOS? You're most likely more inclined to say the device running (stock) Android is more likely. Android at its core is open source. While correlation is not causation, and there are other factors at play, it's much easier for someone to try to craft a malicious app for Android than for iOS because of its open nature.

Proprietary software isn't automatically safe, either. It can be just as vulnerable as any other software. However, open source software has the potential to become much more secure than proprietary software, simply because more people can find and fix vulnerabilities. That's probably why Apple open sourced their Private Cloud Compute code before launching a bounty program for it.

Anyone can code malicious open source software. It's riskier, since it's more likely to be noticed, but it's still possible. Microsoft could open source Windows one day, and it wouldn't make it any more safe until somebody identified and fixed the issues. Open source software doesn't automatically make something private or secure, but it does provide integrity, because the developer is showing that they will be accountable for any malicious or vulnerable code, and that anyone is free to look through the code.

Final notes

I hope this gives you a better idea of what it actually means if something is open source. Even unsafe proprietary software can be run safely under the right conditions. If your threat model requires you to use as much open source software as possible, I made my own list of open source software called Open Source Everything that you can look through. I hope you enjoyed reading this!

- The 8232 Project

In my post on why mass surveillance is not normal, I referenced how the Wikipedia page for the Nothing to hide argument labels the argument as a "logical fallacy." On October 19th, user Gratecznik edited the Wikipedia page to remove the "logical fallacy" text. I am here to prove that the "Nothing to hide" argument is indeed a logical fallacy and go through some arguments against it.

The "Nothing to hide" argument is an intuitive but misleading argument, stating that if a person has done nothing unethical, unlawful, immoral, etc., then there is no reason to hide any of their actions or information. However, this argument has been well covered already and debunked many times (here is one example).

Besides the cost of what it takes for someone to never hide anything, there are many reasons why a person may not want to share information about themselves, even if no misconduct has taken place. The "Nothing to hide" argument intuitively (but not explicitly) assumes that those whom you share your information with will handle it with care and not falsely use it against you. Unfortunately, that is not how it currently works in the real world.

You don't get to make the rules on what is and is not deemed unlawful. Something you do may be ethical or moral, but unlawful and could cost you if you aren't able to hide those actions. For example, whistleblowers try to expose government misconduct. That is an ethical and moral goal, but it does not align with government interests. Therefor, if the whistleblower is not able to hide their actions, they will have reason to fear the government or other parties. The whistleblower has something to hide, even though it is not unethical or immoral.

You are likely not a whistleblower, so you have nothing to hide, right? As stated before, you don't get to make the rules on what is and is not deemed unlawful. Anything you say or do could be used against you. Having a certain religion or viewpoint may be legal now, but if one day those become outlawed, you will have wished you hid it.

Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean it is justified to share everything. Privacy is a basic human right (at least until someone edits Wikipedia to say otherwise), so you shouldn't be forced to trust whoever just because you have nothing to hide.

For completeness, here is a proof that the "Nothing to hide" argument is a logical fallacy by using propositional calculus:

Let p be the proposition "I have nothing to hide"

Let q be the proposition "I should not be concerned about surveillance"

You can represent the "Nothing to hide" argument as follows:

p → q

I will be providing a proof by counterexample. Suppose p is true, but q is false (i.e. "I have nothing to hide" and "I am concerned about surveillance"):

p ∧ ¬q

Someone may have nothing to hide, but still be concerned about the state of surveillance. Since that is a viable scenario, we can conclude that the "Nothing to hide" argument is invalid (a logical fallacy).

I know someone is going to try to rip that proof apart. If anyone is an editor on Wikipedia, please revert the edit that removed the "logical fallacy" text, as it provides a very easy and direct way for people to cite that the "Nothing to hide" argument is false.

Thanks for reading!

- The 8232 Project