Your Privacy

chris snell

Administrator
Callsign: NW5W
Staff member
Facebook and the controversy over their past dissemination of user data has been on the news a lot lately. Lots of people deleting their profiles or at least thinking about it. There's another story that will hopefully blow up--a much bigger story, in my opinion: the data that Google and other ad networks are collecting on you. This data isn't just coming from your searches and emails, it's coming from your offline purchases around town, the GPS on your phone, the random web surfing you do, and so many more places. The data is being cross-referenced and used to build a profile of you, which is then sold to others with virtually no regulation.

I just want to take a moment to tell you about your privacy when you use this site because it's something that sets us apart from the other LR forum and, really, almost every website out there. These hold true for both this site and for DiscoWeb, if you're a user over there:

- We don't run any ads on this site. Therefore, your activity on this site is not being captured by an ad network for profiling purposes.. However, it may be possible for others to track you when someone includes a third-party image in a post here. I'm working on a solution to stop this. In the meantime, we suggest running an ad blocker. It's also possible that your posts could be correlated to you if you post under your real name. If you're concerned by that, feel free to post under an alias. We can change your username if you ask us.

- We don't have any tracking cookies here, beyond the vBulletin cookies that allow you to stay logged in. We have no third-party cookies whatsoever. Compare this to other LR sites that load your browser up with dozens of trackers every time you visit.

- We don't sell your personal information or usage logs to anyone. Period. Server access logs are maintained for a few months for systems security purposes and then deleted. I'm not going to give anyone access to them without a warrant.

- This place will always be free and non-commercial. This board is supported out of Dave's and my pockets. We spend about $1500 a year between us to keep this thing alive. We do this in the spirit of the early internet--back in the day, people used to build cool shit and give it away for free just for the fun of it and the goodwill that it spread.

- We use TLS 1.2 for encryption and authentication to protect you from man-in-the-middle snooping. There are still things that your employer or ISP or DNS provider (looking at you, Google DNS) can do to sniff some of your traffic. I'm happy to give you ways to protect yourself in this department but it will be long and technical.

If you have any questions about the site and your data here, we are here to answer as best we can.
 

Jeff B

Well-known member
Chris, can we just cut through all the BS.....

Tell me who I'm voting for in the next election?!



.
 

chris snell

Administrator
Callsign: NW5W
Staff member
Well, it doesn't have to be that way. I decided about six months ago to slowly wean myself off of Silicon Valley tech mega-company products.

Here's a list of the things I've done. Some of them are things that the average user can do; some will take some networking skills:

1. Switch from Google for web searches to DuckDuckGo. DDG doesn't track you. It's also a fantastic search engine.

2. Switch from Chrome to Firefox. If you last used Firefox when George W. Bush was in office, you really should give it another shot. It's fantastic.

3. Install uBlock Origin. There are many ad blockers out there, including many that have ripped off uBlock Origin by using similar-sounding but different names. uBO is the only one I trust. The author, Raymond Hill, is a hardcore Internet privacy dude. He doesn't give a fuck about advertisers or tech companies. Many of the other ad blockers sell your data/history on the side or sell ad companies the ability to be unblocked. Fuck that. Get uBO here (and only here): https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/#installation

4. Stop using GMail/Yahoo Mail/Hotmail. Start paying a mail provider to host your email because--as a wise man once said--if you're getting something of value for free, you're not the customer, you're the product being sold. I highly recommend Fastmail, which starts at $3/month. Take it one step further and register a personal domain for your new email address so that you can take your email address with you if you ever want to change email providers. https://www.fastmail.com/

5. Use a VPN. Even if you visit HTTPS-enabled sites, your ISP can still see where you're visiting and sell this data. Most of the big ISPs are doing this already--it's a huge revenue stream for them. Using a VPN stops this from happening. It also stops them from favoring one website over another when it comes to internet speed. I've been using Private Internet Access (PIA) for about five years and never had any trouble. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/

6. Stop using your ISP's DNS servers. Don't use Google's DNS, either. This is a prime target for collecting your browsing history. Instead, use a third-party DNS provider that respects privacy. I recommend OpenNIC: https://wiki.opennic.org/doku.php
However, you should use DNS encryption (DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-HTTPS) to stop your ISP from simply sniffing your DNS traffic anyway. If you don't know how to do this, just use a VPN and it will basically accomplish the same thing. Personally, I use DNS-over-TLS and run my own private DNS server that doesn't log requests. If you're technical and want to try it out, message me privately and I will give you the IP.

7. Finally, stop using shitty forums that fill your browser with tracking cookies and tax your CPU with invasive ads and crapware like Bitcoin miners.
 

chris snell

Administrator
Callsign: NW5W
Staff member
Speaking of privacy, this is the opposite of privacy: unsolicited email from Defender Source, sent by a third-party company who now has my email address.
 

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donb

Well-known member
Thanks for the tips Chris and for running the NAS-ROW site!

Any pointers for iPhone privacy (besides not using one :D )?
 

AdamSanta85

Well-known member
Any pointers for iPhone privacy (besides not using one :D )?

Don't expect any privacy on anything you put on the internet be it forum, social media, email, app etc. If you must use social media, don't use their app, access it from the browser.
 

chris snell

Administrator
Callsign: NW5W
Staff member
Thanks for the tips Chris and for running the NAS-ROW site!

Any pointers for iPhone privacy (besides not using one :D )?


Run Safari and use the Refine app to block ads. It's not perfect but it's better than running unprotected. Another good one is Firefox Focus--it blocks ads and clears all of your history after each visit. The downside is that you have to re-login everywhere. It's great for reading news sites with the "first five articles free" crap.
 

chris snell

Administrator
Callsign: NW5W
Staff member
Don't expect any privacy on anything you put on the internet be it forum, social media, email, app etc. If you must use social media, don't use their app, access it from the browser.


Facebook uses location tracking in the iOS browser, too. I need to figure out how to turn it off without messing up other stuff, like geolocators on retail sites.
 
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