Countering_Surveillance¶
In this post I will be covering various methods on countering mass-surveillance.
With new bills seemingly being passed each month it is more important than ever to protect your human right to privacy.
In the US recently a bill was proposed to force all platforms to verify age to allow users to access their platforms.
Major companies like Meta, X and Snapchat appear to be in full support of this bill, not to protect kids but to sell more of your data.
This argument has major flaws and I will break them down.
It is the parents job to protect their kids, not the governments.
This is a major attack vector for cybercrime groups. Imagine thousands if not millions of these IDs are leaked. I can assure you these companies do NOT delete this information, even if they pinky promise to, see the discord leak earlier this year.
This is protecting absolutely nobody. As long as a country exists where this is not enforced, a free VPN will bypass all of these measures.
If you are in the US this is completely unconstitutional and infringing on the right to freedom of speech.
The internet should and will always remain ungoverned. For the safety of people and protection against curruption and tyranny.
Note
NEVER give your ID to any company. Ever. I dont care how addicted you are to youtube your identity and privacy is not worth it.
I will be listing various methods to avoid this surveillance in order of importance.
tor¶
tor has been aroud for a long time, and has yet to be fully blocked by even the most ruthless dictatorships. Download tor before they try to ban it.
VPN¶
VPNs have been a hot topic with these proposed bills. Lawmakers see them as a threat to their censorship and will eventually try to ban them outright. Unfortunately these idiots havent realized their own job relies on VPNs and without them there will be major issues with security. Almost every buisness uses VPNs to securly access remote servers and resources, this is blatant incompotence and a very clear indication that these people do not understand the technology they are afraid of.
I am predicting they will make exceptions with extreme gray areas as the difference between a “buisness grade” VPN and a “consumer” VPN is a very thin line.
When it comes to chosing a VPN it can be difficult. My absolute #1 choice is Mullvad, they have worked with tor and been independently audited to prove their no logging policy. After that I would recommend PIA as they have also come clean in their independent audits however they have political ties that may make some uncomfortable.
Operating system¶
You wont like this one. If you want the best chance at staying private you need to use a unix-based system or Linux. There is no getting aroud this, you can harden windows to an extent but unless your system is completely airgapped Microsoft will always have control over your machine. New updates are forcing users to upload their documents to OneDrive, these documents are also potentially being scanned by Copilot to help “search” and “organize” your documents.
I would recommend Linux Mint if you are moving from windows, if you are a complete freak and want as much control as possible I would suggest Gentoo however this distrobution has a major learning curve and you should understand how linux operates on a lower level. The installation is completely manual and is significantly harder than installing Arch.
If you are borderline psychotic you can also use Tails OS, this OS operates from a USB and once unplugged from your computer completely wipes itself.
https://www.wired.com/story/age-verification-is-sweeping-the-us-activists-are-fighting-back/