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2025

Privacy Is Like Broccoli

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If you are just starting the journey to improve your privacy online, you might feel overwhelmed by all the information you recently learned. This is normal, don't panic!

How To Improve Your Privacy and Security on Mastodon

Illustration of a mastodon mascot pointing at a padlock icon in a cheerful way. Above is the Mastodon logo over a purple background.

  1. Mastodon mascot by @dopatwo@mastodon.social and Mastodon logo used with permission from Mastodon gGmbH. This site is not otherwise affiliated with Mastodon gGmbH.

Increasingly, more and more people have joined Mastodon in recent years. The advantages provided by a decentralized network and using open-source software maintained by a nonprofit organization are undeniable. Mastodon offers much more robust protections for your privacy than commercial social media platforms do. This tutorial will show you how to make the most of it.

Privacy and Security on Mastodon

The Mastodon name and logo over a dark purple background with a large purple padlock icon under it.

Mastodon is an open-source and decentralized social network that has been growing in popularity for the past few years.

While most social media rely on commercial models harvesting users' data to sell to advertisers, Mastodon offers a human-centric alternative that doesn't seek profits from your data and attention. This means better social connections, better controls, and better privacy.

  • in News

Queer Dating Apps: Beware Who You Trust With Your Intimate Data

Photo of a hand holding a phone with a rainbow gradient and a white heart on it. The hand holds the phone in front of a vertical rainbow background with an open eye displayed transparently over it, symbolizing surveillance.

When discussing the intersection of data privacy and LGBTQ+ experiences, it's inevitable to also talk about queer dating apps. Due to a smaller percentage of the population and a number of factors complicating in-person dating, people part of the queer community are more likely to seek online platforms to meet lovers and friends. Unfortunately, using queer dating apps can be very dangerous for privacy, and even for safety.

You Can Say NO

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In the age of facial recognition and age verification, it might feel like our data is being harvested left and right, completely outside our control or consent. Yet, we still have a powerful weapon to fight back against surveillance: The power to say no.

Creating a Tricked-Out Monero Server with TrueNAS

A cover image for this post showing an illustration of a NAS and stacks of coins imprinted with the Monero logo

In this guide, we will walk you through setting up a very powerful Monero server on TrueNAS. By completing these steps, you will be able to connect to your own self-hosted Monero node with the official Monero wallet and Cake Wallet, and you will be able to connect to your own self-hosted Monero LWS server with Edge Wallet and MyMonero.

  • in News

Stay Safe, but Stay Connected

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In data privacy, we often talk about the dangers of data collection and exposed data. It can get overwhelming to learn more about all the information that is collected on us, especially at the beginning. As a coping mechanism, some people react by downplaying concerns, disregarding dangers, and ignoring precautions altogether. Others react the opposite way: by isolating themselves, and no longer sharing anything with anyone. But neither is a viable solution.

Selling Surveillance as Convenience

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Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

  • in News

The Importance of Data Privacy For The Queer Community

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Data privacy is important for everyone. But for some marginalized populations, data privacy is indispensable for social connection, access to information, and physical safety. For Pride month this year, we will discuss topics at the intersection of data privacy and experiences specific to the LGBTQ+ community.

Your Online Life Is IRL

Photo of an illuminated red street sign with the word Internet on it.

If you, like myself, have been inhabiting the internet for a few decades, you're probably familiar with the old adage IRL: In Real Life.

The acronym was used a lot when the distinction between online life and offline life was much greater than it is now. In today's world, can we really keep referring to our digital life as being somehow disconnected from our "real life"?

KeePassium Review: A Flexible Password Manager for iOS and macOS

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If you have been looking for a password manager giving you full control over your data, KeePassium is a fantastic option. The application available for iOS and macOS keeps your password database offline by default. KeePassium still offers synchronization and backup options, but allows you to choose which storage provider to trust with your database, and change it whenever you want.

  • in News

Sam Altman Wants Your Eyeball

Image of a red circle of light that resembles a human iris over a black background.

Last week, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman announced in San Francisco that the World project he co-founded, formerly known as Worldcoin, is opening six stores across the United States, allowing users of the project's app to scan their eyeballs.

Simply put, the premise is this: scan your eyeball, get a biometric tag, verify yourself, buy our apps (and cryptocurrency). The scary part is the for-profit company developing the project has now gathered millions in venture capital investment, powerful partners, and is ready to expand and impose its Minority Report style technology everywhere. Welcome to Dystopialand.

  • in News

Age Verification Wants Your Face, and Your Privacy

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Age verification laws and propositions forcing platforms to restrict content accessed by children and teens have been multiplying in recent years. The problem is, implementing such measures necessarily requires identifying each user accessing this content, one way or another. This is bad news for your privacy.

In Praise of Tor: Why You Should Support and Use Tor

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You might have heard of Tor in the news a few times, yet never dared to try it yourself. Despite being around for decades, Tor is still a tool too few people know about.

Today, Tor is easy to use for anyone. It helps not only journalists and activists, but anybody who seeks greater privacy online or access to information regardless of location. But what is Tor exactly? How can Tor help you? And why is it such an important tool?

Privacy Pass: The New Protocol for Private Authentication

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Services that require authentication can correlate your activity on that service with your account, and that account is normally linked with payment information that could potentially link back to your real identity. With the Privacy Pass protocol, it doesn't have to be that way.

Encryption Is Not a Crime

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Contrary to what some policymakers seem to believe, whether naively or maliciously, encryption is not a crime. Anyone asserting encryption is a tool for crime is either painfully misinformed or is attempting to manipulate legislators to gain oppressive power over the people.

The Dangers of End-to-End Encryption

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In the digital age, nothing is more important than convenience and easy access to data. Unfortunately, there has been an alarming trend among technologists to implement End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) in their applications, to the detriment of all the important work being done by countless organizations, including the best and brightest intelligence agencies and big tech companies.

  • in News

Interview with Micah Lee: Cyd, Lockdown Systems, OnionShare, and more

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If you don't know who Micah Lee is yet, here's why you should: Micah is an information security engineer, a software engineer, a journalist, and an author who has built an impressive career developing software for the public good, and working with some of the most respected digital rights organizations in the United States.