Privacy Tech

In an age of universal surveillance we need to find solutions to preserving what little privacy we still have. Technology pushed by large disinterested corporations is the primary culprit, with their corrupting influence over politicians. Technology also needs to be our method of fighting back, reclaiming our human rights and preserving our humanity.

encryption

Encryption is our best tool to preserve privacy, anonymity and in many cases security. The strength of encryption, and cryptography in general, is derived from the math on which its based. Encryption in particular is intended to allow us to keep information private, and has the side benefit of allowing us niceties like non-repudiation.

Much has been made of the threat to encryption posed by quantum computers. It is true that our current methods of doing asymmetric cryptography need to change. But that is totally doable, and is in th eprocess of being done. NIST has been working with various cryptographers to come up with vetted new standards that are quantum-resistant. Implementation will not be easy, and it entails upgrading or abandoning lots of software, but it will be done.

The real threat to privacy posed by quantum computers is more subtle. Entities, esp national governments, are siphoning up and warehousing data that will be decrypted in future. If you only need something to be secret for a week or a month you're ok. But if you have secrets that need to last for years, you'd better take extra precautions.

VPNs

VPNs are good technology rarely implemented or used well. Since the earliest days, VPN providers have behaved badly, and the trend continues to this day. Having said that, there are a small nmber of good actors out there that have both a reputation for being trustworthy as well as strong technical implementations.

The benefits of using a VPN are often misunderstood. Using a VPN means you are establishing an encrypted tunnel from your machine to the VPN server, through which all your internet traffic passes. This role is usually played by your ISP, sans the encryption. What you've done is to shift your trust from your ISP to your VPN provider. If you choose well, you've improved your situation in terms of privacy. If you choose badly, you get no benefit.

VPN clients can be used on a per-application basis, as in some browsers that offer VPN integration. VPNs are commonly used at the device level, where most or all traffic from a device is routed through the VPN server. They canm also be implemented on a router, which enables traffic from the whole network to use the VPN service. Think about your users, devices and situation when deciding wht the best strategy is for you.

VPN architecture is changing. Originally you connected to an endpoint and came out the other side with a different IP address, and that was it. Now we see VPN providers using fancier internal networks in various ways to send traffic through multiple hops, using Tor network integration, and providing stream isolation. Some are partnering up with 3rd parties to ensure that although you connect to an endpoint they control, your outgoing traffic is routed through another network to increase the difficulty of correlation attacks. Remember, security is not about locking things down absolutely, it's about imposing sufficient costs on potential attackers as to make attacks unprofitable or too difficult given their goals.

proxies

You should never trust proxies operated by entities you don't personally know. Why would you trust all your metadata to an unknown 3rd party online?

There are some new proxy softwares that empower you to run your own that seem very effective at concealing or disguising your traffic. The only one I have experience with is called Hysteria2, and it works well. It's fast, seems to do a good job disguising the traffic, and the server setup was easy.

steganography

Privacy does not need to involve obfuscation, via encryption for example. If it's not clear that there is anything hidden in the first place, secrets can be transmitted right under your nose without being compromised. In fact, steganography is often used to conceal encrypted payloads, imposing an additional cost on the observer if they discover the prsence of some hidden content.

Steganography is normally used to hide data in images or text. The reason for this is largely due to there being lots of effective software is available for all major operating systems. In actual fact data can be hidden using these techniques in any carrier. Detecting this can be nearly impossible in some cases, which leads to a lack of understanding of who uses it for what purposes. In general though, people use steganography to conceal messages, exfiltrate files, and to watermark content.

hardware

Varous hardware exists to assist you on your quest to enhance your privacy - too many to mention here. Let's talk about a few of the most effective ones briefly.

Yubikey is a device that must get mentioned here beause it delivers so much bang for the buck. This device can protect your logins to email accounts, password databases, cloud accounts, social media accounts, AI accounts and more. Buy one of these to protect yourself against phishing attacks and account takeovers.

Next up - a privacy protecting router like OpenWRT or PFSense. Get more control over your DNS and outbound traffic than you get with an ISP-supplied cheapo router. Tke the time to go through the settings and be sure to keep it updated.

Get a privacy respecting phone! Best choice is usually going to be a Google Pixel running GrapheneOS, but if not that then the second best choice might be an iPhone with lockdown mode. Obviously there are some unconventional choices that might make sense for you to try if you're a techie, but I think these two are the best bets.

A faraday bag is an essential piece of equipment in this age, even though it was never really a neccessity in earlier times. Put your phone and keyfobs in there when appropriate. Especially important if you plan to go to a protest or demonstration.

A pi hole to route all your network traffic through is a great and inexpensive way to block unwanted advertisements for all of your devices. If done sensibly, it pairs nicely with some device specific or application specific blocking. For example, if you use a browser that blocks ads, you cn go easy on the pi-hole blocking, since the browser blockers tend to render the web pages better when removing big portions of web pages.

Get an encrypted external drive to use for data backups. Find a physical microphone cover for your devices, and some sticky covers for cameras. In general avoid products that claim to be "military grade", "unhackable", or "anonymous" since those claims are obviously misleading.