# What have you furs been doing to protect yourself from corperate and government surveillance



## NathanBitTheMoon (Mar 24, 2020)

Personally, I have rooted my Galaxy S8 and installed Lineage OS. I try to not use Google or Facebook apps. Although I do still need to use the Google Play store. I use NewPipe to watch YouTube videos

I also use Linux on both my laptop and gaming PC. I pretty much only use web apps for things like Discord. But I have the telegram desktop app since I think they can be trusted to some extent (Discord cannot). I use Firefox with UBlock Origin blocking all 3rd party content.

What have you furs been doing to protect yourself?


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## Toby_Morpheus (Mar 24, 2020)

I fill my devices with the kinkiest of kinks so nobody would ever want to take a look.

Any files that are named with red flag words, when opened, only show an image of my man bits.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Mar 27, 2020)

I use a hardware router based on FreeBSD Linux to protect the house. Just looking at the logs for my firewall, I see some very interesting attempts to circumvent the password, once they figure out where to click on the blank login screen for a login. The admin name is arcane, as it should always be but the password is a 20 character mess of upper and lower case, numbers and some very obscure symbols. When I'm  out and about, I always VPN on my Android based phone. I won't use an Apple phone because they have ZERO security in actual use.


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## Tyno (Mar 27, 2020)

I give my FBI agent compliments so when i search up free robux generator they don't report me to the government.


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## Rockclawmon (Apr 4, 2020)

Put a fake name on my e-mail


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## Rouge166 (Apr 5, 2020)

I don't really have interesting info from my internet so don't really bother lol


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## Sir Thaikard (Apr 15, 2020)

Implying I'm not the Government spying on all of you already.


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## Foxy Emy (May 1, 2020)

I make a LARGE paper trail just so that there is enough put there that I can slip what I want under the radar without suspicion.

I don't really have anything I NEED to hide, but I encrypt crap on principle. Sometimes it is something with absolutely nothing personal or sensitive, but I encrypt it just so waste the time of anyone trying to spy on me.

Seriously, the easiest way to avoid surveillance is to avoid making anomalies that would cause them to bother looking into it.


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## Deleted member 82554 (May 1, 2020)

I do what most rational people do: flip the bird to every street cam or CCTV camera I come across and load all my digital devices with some of the most depraved shit known to man.


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## Foxy Emy (May 1, 2020)

NathanBitTheMoon said:


> Personally, I have rooted my Galaxy S8 and installed Lineage OS. I try to not use Google or Facebook apps. Although I do still need to use the Google Play store. I use NewPipe to watch YouTube videos
> 
> I also use Linux on both my laptop and gaming PC. I pretty much only use web apps for things like Discord. But I have the telegram desktop app since I think they can be trusted to some extent (Discord cannot). I use Firefox with UBlock Origin blocking all 3rd party content.
> 
> What have you furs been doing to protect yourself?



Rooting phone: bad idea for privacy unless you find a way to make it signals it sends out look exactly like your standard phone which means Google apps and all.

If you don't want your location to be tracked, get a film (as in camera film) bag. Turn your phone off and place it in the bag. It will block all outgoing signals.

However, suddenly vanishing also looks suspicious and will lead to probing into where you where and who you were near when you vanished and when you came back on. So, only do this at home and do not take the phone back out until you are back at home. That way, it looks like a dead battery or something.

If you really want to hide stuff, though, opensource software is not enough. You need opensource hardware on top of that.

Like I said, the easiest way to do things is to make enough of a paper trail that it doesn't even look like you are trying to hide stuff.


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## hologrammaton (May 1, 2020)

i wish the nsa person happy ________ on holidays on my phone calls because their job is quite possibly the most tedious thing ever

i also ask for recipes and driving directions

no jokes that's just what i do


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## Kellan Meig'h (May 2, 2020)

Odd that it might be mentioned. I have a friend that runs a "Honey Pot" at home. He gets hits from China, North Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Georgia, Poland, all over the place. They merrily download the HDD that's full of very malicious warez and such. When hackers get pi$$ed off, they take it down only to be back up and running later that day from an image backup.


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## rekcerW (May 3, 2020)

Kellan Meig'h said:


> I use a hardware router based on FreeBSD Linux to protect the house. Just looking at the logs for my firewall, I see some very interesting attempts to circumvent the password, once they figure out where to click on the blank login screen for a login. The admin name is arcane, as it should always be but the password is a 20 character mess of upper and lower case, numbers and some very obscure symbols. When I'm  out and about, I always VPN on my Android based phone. I won't use an Apple phone because they have ZERO security in actual use.


I was damn near floored the first time I ever checked my logs within a week of leasing a server. It was non-fucking-stop. Trying to maintain a blacklist was pretty much useless. Any half-ass common piece of software that was existing in the public domain was subjected to continual targeting. Most hits originated from Russia.

It was mind-blowing, they were trying for any kind of exploit, even versions that were relatively recent and not outdated by much were subject to attacks for stuff that was patched out within a month prior. I wish I was savvier on how that shit operates, but it feels like there are swarms of botnets that scour the web looking for hits on known exploits. Lots came from the same address blocks, and they weren't just aimlessly targeting anything, they were all going after things that were on the server. It's actually pretty fucking scary.

Talk about being disheartened as an aspiring developer, what the fuck happens if somebody digs something out of the thing you've poured your time and patience over and it finds its way into that kind of shit before you can react to it?


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## Kellan Meig'h (May 4, 2020)

rekcerW said:


> I was damn near floored the first time I ever checked my logs within a week of leasing a server. It was non-fucking-stop. Trying to maintain a blacklist was pretty much useless. Any half-ass common piece of software that was existing in the public domain was subjected to continual targeting. Most hits originated from Russia.
> 
> It was mind-blowing, they were trying for any kind of exploit, even versions that were relatively recent and not outdated by much were subject to attacks for stuff that was patched out within a month prior. I wish I was savvier on how that shit operates, but it feels like there are swarms of botnets that scour the web looking for hits on known exploits. Lots came from the same address blocks, and they weren't just aimlessly targeting anything, they were all going after things that were on the server. It's actually pretty fucking scary.
> 
> Talk about being disheartened as an aspiring developer, what the fuck happens if somebody digs something out of the thing you've poured your time and patience over and it finds its way into that kind of shit before you can react to it?


Looked at the logs yesterday to see why our Intarwebs was slow as cold molasses. We were getting about 100 to 300 hits ("Scrapes") an hour from "Scrape Bots", just three of them, all run by a South Korean firm. I did a bit of sleuthing, found their server, managed to change their root and user passwords for them. I added insult to injury by making Russian the default language and rebooting their server for them before I backed out. Learned those hacks working part time for a local ISP some years ago. There are reasons why you must change default passwords . . .

A number of times that ISP was attacked by Russian Script Kiddies, running the same one hundred or so scripts over and over, hoping some combination would work for them. When this would happen, the senior tech would redirect the hacking to a particular node that was a honey pot. Within ten minutes tops, all attacks would cease.. Cant imagine why. He was the one that taught me forced entry into a server so you could fix something at night without going to the server farm.

BOT Nets usually go after a full block, like 143.16.34.xxx, where the target is the last octal. It makes a focused attack, requiring only 255 IP addresses to be loaded for exploit.

I do suggest people use Google's DNS servers for better security and faster resolve time, though. Especially if you're on Comcast.


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## Rassah (May 4, 2020)

I wear a mask when I go out in public


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## FooFoo4230 (Jun 28, 2020)

Best way to protect yourself from government surveillance: auto-targeting death rays
Best way to protect yourself from online government surveillance: Netscape Navigator. They’ll think you work for the government, because only the government would require people to use such an outdated browser.


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## Vesper The Coyusky (Jul 2, 2020)

Government Surveillance? Just taped a piece of paper over my laptop cam and disabled my microphone. Simple.


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## Ruki-the-Zorua (Jul 2, 2020)

What every good CEO does. Use the black market for my goods and or services, off the books deals, and anything strictly staying away from legal company regime. Business is a tough work, and doesn't play fair, so I won't either.

Don't tell anyone I told you this. Please. I'll give you a cookie.


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## hara-surya (Jul 2, 2020)

Reynold's heavy duty aluminum foil.


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## Ruki-the-Zorua (Jul 2, 2020)

hara-surya said:


> Reynold's heavy duty aluminum foil.



It's foolproof!


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## hara-surya (Jul 2, 2020)

Kellan Meig'h said:


> I use a hardware router based on FreeBSD Linux to protect the house. Just looking at the logs for my firewall, I see some very interesting attempts to circumvent the password, once they figure out where to click on the blank login screen for a login. The admin name is arcane, as it should always be but the password is a 20 character mess of upper and lower case, numbers and some very obscure symbols. When I'm  out and about, I always VPN on my Android based phone. I won't use an Apple phone because they have ZERO security in actual use.



When you said "FreeBSD Linux" I got suspicious. (FreeBSD is not Linux.) But when you said Apple phones have "ZERO security" you lost any and all creditability. The FBI spent months trying to strongarm Apple to decrypt a phone they made because they couldn't. (Apple couldn't either, for that matter, by design.) When they found a third-party that could do it (and spent dump trucks of money getting access to the gear) the next iPhone model was designed to protect against that attack.

Meanwhile anything and everything you do with an Android phone is vacuumed up by Google for "ads" and handed over to any three-letter agency that asks.

And I say this as someone who used Nexus and Pixel devices for years, until buying an 2020 iPhone SE because the reasons I listed above.

I'm not saying they're perfect against a determined wealthy nation-state attacker, literally nothing is unless you encase it in concrete, but they're better than "race to the bottom quality, vacuum every bit of data for ads, 2 years of updates if you're lucky and more likely none" that you get with Android.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Jul 3, 2020)

hara-surya said:


> When you said "FreeBSD Linux" I got suspicious.



(Snipped for brevity)

FreeBSD, BSD, Minix, Posix, and Linux all have their roots in Unix. If you had no Unix, the other systems/kernels would not exist.


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## hara-surya (Jul 4, 2020)

Kellan Meig'h said:


> (Snipped for brevity)
> 
> FreeBSD, BSD, Minix, Posix, and Linux all have their roots in Unix. If you had no Unix, the other systems/kernels would not exist.



Duh, but that's not what you said. You wrote "FreeBSD Linux." Linux is _not_ UNIX and never has been. (There is a strict definition of UNIX that requires passing tests by the Open Group. Even if a Linux distro could pass it, they've never applied.)


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## Deleted member 111470 (Jul 4, 2020)

Nothing. I don't think I am capable of hiding myself from the government, or corporations. And I don't care to, it's not like I live in an oppressive regime where they're just waiting for me to order coca cola online so they can cut me to ribbons.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Jul 4, 2020)

hara-surya said:


> Duh, but that's not what you said. You wrote "FreeBSD Linux." Linux is _not_ UNIX and never has been. (There is a strict definition of UNIX that requires passing tests by the Open Group. Even if a Linux distro could pass it, they've never applied.)


Are you done nit-picking?

I'm pretty sure the older Redhat prior to 8 would have passed the test. Too many changes to the kernel in 8 and newer that would not have qualified.


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## AceQuorthon (Jul 4, 2020)

Not much honestly, I disable corporate spying whenever I can in like games and stuff. And I use Firefox instead of Chrome.


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## Skittles (Jul 4, 2020)

I don't. They probably have better things to do than spy on me.


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## hara-surya (Jul 4, 2020)

Kellan Meig'h said:


> Are you done nit-picking?
> 
> I'm pretty sure the older Redhat prior to 8 would have passed the test. Too many changes to the kernel in 8 and newer that would not have qualified.



Yet, they have never, technically and legally, passed the test. And doesn't change the fact you confused FreeBSD and Linux. It's like confusing Ford and General Motors among American car people.

And I agree, I'm sure they could pass the test should they choose to. MacOS has gone out of their way to get the certification for about a decade, though. At this point I'm sure it's more a procedural and historical thing than anything else. I seem to recall Linus Torvalds having made comments about Linux not needing the Open Group's approval. (And I say this while using Windows 10 Pro, and I view the WinNT kernel as a perfectly valid and capable security model and operating system.)

But you're arguing semantic about UNIX vs Linux and not the security state of iOS vs. Android, which was a bigger part of my original argument.

Again, I repeat my comment about Reynold's foil. If you're using a modern operating system on any ISP you're being tracked no matter the steps you take. Even if you're using tons of browser and security extensions, your lack of signature is a signature in and of itself.


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## Sharg (Jul 6, 2020)

I use Pale Moon browser, as it has a reputation for being one of the better reputations for privacy and security. I abhor Facebook and other social media platforms, as they are pretty much massive government surveillance programs. Never had a Facebook account. I try to use cash as much as possible because it greatly decreases my footprint, as well as never connecting to public WI-FI networks. I turn off and disable GPS on my phone because that creates a nifty map of where you've been at all times. Of course, they still have many other ways of tracking that you can't escape, but I try to minimize my footprint as much as possible.

I use Ubuntu on my laptop, but haven't switched to Linux at home because of gaming. Speaking of which, I only buy Steam games using pre paid cards as I don't give out my credit card info unless absolutely necessary. I don't have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean I want to have everything I do tracked and logged in a government database somewhere. I wouldn't use a cell phone either if I didn't need it for work and communication with family members.


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## KairanD (Jul 10, 2020)

Well, I hate Facebook and other social media sites and the only desktop operating system I use is Ubuntu, even for gaming. It's not much, but a good start.


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## Night.Claw (Jul 10, 2020)

Everytime i turn on my computer, i sprinkle holy salt around in a circle, say the magic words 3 times, do a backflip, and wait upside down in the air mid backflip, until the government agent who is suppose to watch me give me a call to ask how i'm doing it.
Jokes aside, i don't think anyone would watch a literally nobody like me. I have no money, i never commited crime, i never even moved away from my town to even travel.
People might be a bit paranoid about this, so to pop your terrified bubbles, the government won't spend money on collecting your information, when all will they get is nothing, or maybe a little bit of illegally downloaded games or movies.
If you're terrified to see that the things you were thinking about suddenly show up on you media feedback, no... your mind does not being read by the evil corporation of Google, or Facebook. It's mere coincidence. And if you looked that thing up... it's also in your browser history. What else have you expected?

Also, what the heck you people have to hide so badly, that you need to hide from the government? Illegally downloaded kitten photoes? Eww... sick.


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## otakunanon (Jul 10, 2020)

I jump up and down in front of cameras and say "look at me! look at me!" until i get sick and vomit, by then they will have lost interest in me and move on. I was merely playing the fool.


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## TR273 (Jul 10, 2020)

Massive amounts of porn!

Ok seriously, generally I don't I assume the government and Amazon have better things to do than spy on me, plus I don't do anything they would be interested in. Also my searches are so random and varied that the search metrics can't get a handle on any pattern.
(How do predict someone who's searches include 'Peugeot, cute cats, Royal Navy Destroyer D48, Bristol, Garden shredder, and Monty Python?)


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## 57_Wolve (Mar 11, 2022)

hara-surya said:


> When you said "FreeBSD Linux" I got suspicious. (FreeBSD is not Linux.) But when you said Apple phones have "ZERO security" you lost any and all creditability. The FBI spent months trying to strongarm Apple to decrypt a phone they made because they couldn't. (Apple couldn't either, for that matter, by design.) When they found a third-party that could do it (and spent dump trucks of money getting access to the gear) the next iPhone model was designed to protect against that attack.
> 
> Meanwhile anything and everything you do with an Android phone is vacuumed up by Google for "ads" and handed over to any three-letter agency that asks.
> 
> ...



I loaded up my Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS for this exact reason.


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## Raever (Mar 12, 2022)

I don't do a whole lot; a camera cover here, a private application there, maybe some classic no-logs VPN stuff.
Nothing super technical but enough to make me feel better, lol


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## Fallowfox (Mar 12, 2022)

I feel genuinely sorry for anybody spying on me.


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## Raever (Mar 12, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> I feel genuinely sorry for anybody spying on me.



For me it's less the "spying" fear and more the mental comfort of it. I'm not necessarily bothered by, say, an "uncovered" camera but because I can be called into a meeting at literally any time of day I'd prefer not to be naked in front of my boss because he decided to call me at 3:00 am or something ridiculous like that lol. The rest is just because it makes browsing in general easier and more accessible.


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## Mambi (Mar 12, 2022)

NathanBitTheMoon said:


> Personally, I have rooted my Galaxy S8 and installed Lineage OS. I try to not use Google or Facebook apps. Although I do still need to use the Google Play store. I use NewPipe to watch YouTube videos
> 
> I also use Linux on both my laptop and gaming PC. I pretty much only use web apps for things like Discord. But I have the telegram desktop app since I think they can be trusted to some extent (Discord cannot). I use Firefox with UBlock Origin blocking all 3rd party content.
> 
> What have you furs been doing to protect yourself?



My phone is a flipphone, paid through work, so no worries there. 

Also, my home PC is connected to the internet through a virtual environment that emulates right down to the BIOS level with the main PC isolated from the network card. In effect anyone breaking in would see a completely fake environment and not the real one, like a virtual holodeck that looks boring, and I maintain several copies on my M.2 drive so I can restore one in less than 3 seconds at any moment.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 13, 2022)

Raever said:


> For me it's less the "spying" fear and more the mental comfort of it. I'm not necessarily bothered by, say, an "uncovered" camera but because I can be called into a meeting at literally any time of day I'd prefer not to be naked in front of my boss because he decided to call me at 3:00 am or something ridiculous like that lol. The rest is just because it makes browsing in general easier and more accessible.


I used to do squats during remote group meetings because I got bored and thought I may as well do exercise while I listen. 

and I continued doing that right up until somebody highlighted that I had never disabled my webcam properly. :}


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## Raever (Mar 13, 2022)

Fallowfox said:


> I used to do squats during remote group meetings because I got bored and thought I may as well do exercise while I listen.
> 
> and I continued doing that right up until somebody highlighted that I had never disabled my webcam properly. :}



THIS!
I love doing little exercises during more regularly timed meetings. It feels so much more productive than anything actually being talked about. X'D


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## PLEASE DELETE ACCOUNT (Mar 13, 2022)

I am a lot more concerned with monitization and cooperate intrusion than governmental ones. Government is too incompetent to actually be malicious imo at this current time. But in some capacity everything you do they can get access too now without warrant as civil liberties have been eroded through various acts to look for forns, or spys, or terrorists, or whatever flavor of the week is best used to get Congress to vote away the 4th amendment.

As for corporate interests : I have never had a credit card. I never sign up for memberships, I do not use cloud services in any capacity other than steam games. I do not own smart appliances, or "smart" cars. I do not use apps hardly for anything if they have a Web site. I do not use anything that requires always on authentication ( games and software that need to phone home to stay activated). I pay cash for most things if in person. I often turn my phone off, though technically in some cases those still ping towers. I used to use blackberry but moved to apple and don't use anything other than the basic apps. I use otr on chat clients, and ssl or tls on most other Web services I can like email. Lots of add block, cookie blocking, I used to do vpn or at least onion routing. It's hard to go completely off grid though.

And since people said stuff about Web cams : I have never had a cam on a desktop, on laptops I ordered them without cameras ( it was always an option to get no camera on the Dell precision line, which is what I had more or less since 2010 or so.
My current laptop the Webcam is physically disconnected ( pulled out the ribbon cable)


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## KresiekTheFurry (Mar 14, 2022)

vpn.


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## Night.Claw (Mar 14, 2022)

Nothing. I need to hide nothing from anyone. So basically... My level of protections stops, where i don't even have a password on my phone.

After 2 years, i still don't know what you all have to hide so badly.


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## Firuthi Dragovic (Mar 14, 2022)

If there's anything I've learned about surveillance, it's that if someone really wanted my info, they're going to get it no matter what I do.  And that everything is compromising and immoral to someone.

That mental trap and paranoia is actually what surveillance people want more than anything.

My devices have passwords to protect from accidental usage..... I go with the standard complicated passwords and physical security measures to protect from incidental and casual thieves... and I don't have much in the way of smart devices simply because I prefer physical controls over digital ones.

It also doesn't help that I'm the only one in my family who can handle a password more complicated than eight characters.


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## Nexus Cabler (Mar 14, 2022)

-I use a virus and tracking protection program.
-I don't click on suspicious links or visit hazardous sites.
-I don't use twitter or facebook.
-I keep a cover over my computer camera lens at all times.

It's worked out well for me so far.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 15, 2022)

At my old place of work a junior member installed malware on his supervisor's computer so that he could write his own job recommendations. 
He even installed malware on technical machines like digital microscopes.

Aside from that behaviour, guy was a creepy weirdo and I couldn't stand him.


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## Yakamaru (Mar 15, 2022)

VPN
Auto-delete of cookies when closing my browser
Brave browser
AdBlock
No Twatter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.
Cover my camera lenses(they are useless anyway due to my phone having been dropped far too many times on the ground/pavement, both inside and outside)

"If you trust the government, you don't know history." - ???


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## TyraWadman (Mar 15, 2022)

I've traumatized too many fbi agents so they don't try to watch me and no one wants to collect my personal data anymore.


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## Yakamaru (Mar 15, 2022)

TyraWadman said:


> I've traumatized too many fbi agents so they don't try to watch me and no one wants to collect my personal data anymore.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Mar 15, 2022)

Being cringe and unmarketable.


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## Parabellum3 (Mar 15, 2022)

This post is sponsored by Nord VPN.


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## Bababooey (Mar 15, 2022)

I don't find myself interesting and I've got nothing to hide (nothing illegal) so I don't really care. I practice typical internet safety because of "stranger danger" and nothing more. I don't even use incognito mode. If the FBI, NSA, or my internet service provider wants to peek in on the fetishy crap I look up then be my guest. I hope I awaken something in them. lol


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## x_eleven (Mar 24, 2022)

hara-surya said:


> Reynold's heavy duty aluminum foil.


Needs a low impedance ground.

I avoid social(ist) media like Face Book and Twitter. I never had an account with either one. I'm running a Linux system (ever since Ought 1) use Falkon as it doesn't phone home the way Firefox does. Don't use Goolag's Chrome, and don't have a phone, just a regular landline. I use 10minute mail so's I'm not giving out e-mail addys, and that saves me from a lot of e-junk mail. What I do, where I go, who I see is nobody's business but my own.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Mar 29, 2022)

The old Samsung Galaxy phones prior to the first one you couldn't take the battery out of (S6) really were off if you turned them off. No ping, no nothing when they were off. My Kyocera Duraforce Pro 2 phone is the same, - off means off. No ping, nuthin'. this was discovered when I was trying to record music in my home studio - half-way through a song, my Kyocera would ping the nearest tower and make audible noise on the recording. I turned it off, no more pings. MY galaxy S7 FE 5G tablet, however only pings if it's being moved from one room to another so it wasn't a bad actor toward my music recording.

iPhones, however are only off if the battery is dead. You have battery, it's still pinging. The elder daughter has that new iPhone 13 Pro that still pings when it's off, she had to put her phone downstairs at the other end of the house so we could record some stuff. Also, Siri is always on, even if you turn Siri off. A friend works in development, says Siri is an integral part of the OS. That might be changing in the future but for now, keep that in mind. Example; my daughters and I were talking about taking a trip north to go slot car racing. That afternoon, the elder daughter starts getting suggestions for slot car and RC car racing on her phone. Her Siri is set to OFF. Go figure.

BTW, anyone seen my black electrical tape for the 'puter's camera? Everyone at Apple that knows better has tape over their camera and mic.


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## Smityyyy (Mar 29, 2022)

The irony of someone calling _private_ tech companies, the result of capitalism, a “socialist” company entertains me to no end.

Personally, I don’t do much to protect myself online. I no longer commit cyber crimes and even when I did, the government wouldn’t care. The government cares _a lot less _than people might think. Y’all ain’t that special.

It’s generally good to follow basic internet safety, though. Don’t give out your name, use a VPN, be careful what/where you post, be cautious of who you talk to.


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## Kope (Mar 31, 2022)

Bought an iPhone


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