build your own computer (including the parts themselves), code your own os, move to an underground bunker in the woods, faraday cage it, build an antenna and a satellite to steal wifi

I'd rather have my info be given to the swiss government than the american government when using protonmail

"On this channel, were all on the spectrum" FACTS!!!

There's another problem about "normies". Since they "have nothing to hide" they can be a huge problem for people who are privacy-conscious. They use all the poop that corporations want them to use and being close to them can be fatal for your privacy or anonymity.

Anonymity is also a big concern for me. I don't want people who want to hurt me to be able to find out who I am, where I live, my personal info, who I work for, what I do/like/etc and use it against me. Stalker exes and weirdos with extremist political beliefs tend to do this a lot.

Privacy is essential for a free society.

The big misconception is that you must choose a privacy lifestyle for everything you do. That's not the case. You can be a public figure, use your real name on social media, do absolutely nothing to protect your privacy. And at the same time have another paranoid profile on another computer, with a fake name in which you do more secure things, like crypto trading, secure emails etc.

I’ve found that misunderstandings of privacy are usually baked down to not understanding basic networking.

I think the most important thing really is, at the end of the day, to live intentionally. Awareness goes a long way and helps you already gain some privacy back to you and act upon it. Activism requires a lot of time and effort, choosing targets well and sometimes losing money for it, but I also don't live in a cave away from civilization, nor do I want to.

Most people also have different privacy needs for different activities. In fact if you want to be secure, it's probably good to push some "normie" behavior just to be less suspicious. For example having public social media, a regular phone etc. that governments can check if they want to investigate you. Meanwhile for your pseudonymous/anonymous identity you would use entirely separate devices and accounts.

The best privacy practice imo is to just not have information you'd like to protect uploaded anywhere online or even on your computer. Don't list your current workplace anywhere, don't upload pictures of your family, don't fill out your social media profiles (if you intend to use social media at all), never share your location with apps when they ask for it (even though Google still tracks you regardless). Just make it such that the highest detail of information available on you online is nothing more than you'd willingly give out.

I primarily don't want to be a data point. I don't want by personal information to predict how X demographic will react to Y advertising. I also believe that privacy is one of the main pillars of democracy and freedom (mostly since you can influence voting behaviour if you have enough data about enough people).

It's a mess. I use ghost level stuff one day, then watch KZfaq videos on my phone 20 mins later. Convenience makes anyone wildly inconsistent I guess

A couple of days ago you could put me in the normie category but right now I fall perfectly into the "Privacy-Conscious" one, mostly thanks to your videos 😎

Full understanding of the TCP/IP stack must be taught in school.

One thing that I still find a little puzzling is, whether it makes much sense to try a 'hybrid' approach, where you have one public 'normie' identity and one or more anonymous identities. For example, on one hand having social media accounts, using 'normie' communicators, doing some innocent stuff using plain un-private internet. And then doing other stuff, say stuff related to finances (maybe not banks because they don't like it, but online shopping, crypto, investments etc.) or other information you would prefer to keep more secure, using more privacy-focused and anonymity tools. Or does it make more sense to make a complete switch and stop using internet like a normie. As far as I can tell, there is no obvious answer - both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. For some people, like those whose life is already in danger or who are wanted by the government, they may have to go into full hiding. For others, those who are simply privacy conscious and follow the 'better safe than sorry' mindset, but don't want to sacrifice too much convenience, a hybrid approach might perhaps make sense. You're not going to use Tor to watch youtube or download large files. Even a VPN can slow down your internet and introduce latency, so you might turn them off when playing an online multiplayer game. As long as you are careful to always crank up your security when doing more important stuff, intuitively you should be ok... Or are you? Well, I guess it depends. Even innocent information can be used against you so you might argue the less information others have about you, the better. Also, you might argue that someone malicious might try to attack you when you're more vulnerable, for example they may find it easier to install malware on your computer when you're doing 'normie' stuff, to then use that malware against you when you're trying to do anonymous stuff. The more I think about it, the more I realize one should probably have separate hardware for doing normie stuff and separate for doing high security stuff (luckily, there's a simple solution of having a liveUSB or such for your high security stuff, so you can theoretically use the same computer for both, but another option would be to find some old outdated, and thus cheap computer, and use that... you probably don't need a powerful gaming rig). That also reduces the risk of you ever forgetting to crank up your security after lowering it down for an online game. Another question is if it makes sense to try fooling others (big corporations, your internet provider, the government, any third parties) into thinking you're a normie. I guess it would be very, very hard. Most likely, they will figure out you are doing stuff to enhance your privacy, they may know you're using a VPN or Tor, they may know you use Linux, they may know you are tech savvy, and they may know a lot about you from the time before you started caring so much about privacy and anonymity. They may have limited access to all the details, but they still see the big picture. And they likely still have a lot of useful information about you (such as knowing when and how much data you download/upload, even if they don't know what it is or where it goes). So I guess doing the hybrid approach to fool them isn't going to work. You could try, doing the high security stuff from a different physical location e.g. using public WiFi instead of your home or mobile internet. But even then, they may still find it suspicious that you appear to be a tech savvy person, but act like a normie when using your home internet. So, in all likelihood, from their point of view you will remain a 'suspicious person, but innocent until proven guilty'. Though they are known to persecute even people who aren't proven guilty. And then there are third parties, such as black hat hackers and criminals, who should be considered separately from threats such as the government, because they likely have less information about you. In that case, while they may be easier to fool into thinking you're a normie, the benefits of doing so are also questionable. I suppose if they find out you're 'hybrid', they may assume you have something valuable to hide, and even if it is better secured, it might be worth targeting anyway? But AFAIK most black hats either target normies, or they target businesses. Attacking a poor nerd who, say, uses some privacy tools to hide his visits to the piratebay, might not be a valuable endeavor. So, I guess the main benefit of going hybrid is that it helps you maintain relations with normie friends and family. And has some convenience benefits. But it's probably less secure than going full anonymous. Even if the government still considers you a suspicious person either way.

I think a big problem is that a lot of people believe that they should strive for "perfectly private, impossible to trace", so they dismiss anything that shows any flaws. Unfortunately, perfect privacy is impossible, and hoping to leave no trace back to your person is like trying to hide your face from CCTV when going grocery shopping. A lot of work for something ultimately useless. Kinda like that comic where a nerd is super proud of his encrypted PC but says the password when physically threatened. If someone big like the government wants to trace you, they will, and unless you already have no trace on the internet by that time (what you called "the ghost"), they will find you, and then there's not much a single person can do against being physically traced.

Hey again, it's me. I totally get you, and I don't think we're alone in this perspective. Your spectrum image is awesome. Super clear and easy to understand. If I had to pick where I stand, I'd go with The Activist. Privacy on the internet is a big deal to me. I use a mainly tor, tools like Mullvad and VPNs. I'm all about Linux, never using my real name, and I've got multiple fake accounts.

I have a few thing to hide and a huge number of things to PROTECT.

(Mostly) Normie only recently shifting to privacy-conscious to activist. Shifting more towards the privacy part is kinda difficult for a lot of reasons (mainly technological inaptitude, ignorance and college and work-related reasons), and I don't even know if making the shift is going to be of any use. I just want to be safe from attacks from criminals (online and offline) and that's it. I already had some of the "privacy-conscious" traits, and the people around me constantly tell me "use (insert random service that collects your data)", "why are you suddenly so interested in Linux, Windows is way better", "why are you not on social media", ... It's only been a few days since I started on this, and I'm losing hope. I still have so many questions, and all the answers make me have even more questions.

I'm surprised that "disable all cookie and javascript" is NOT a privacy option despite many many people suggesting it (but it is somewhat still effective to bypass exclusive article or read limit in some news websites)

I identify as privacy-conscious, tending towards activist. Yet, I still use Outlook for my business e-mails, simply because it's tied up to so many things and people...I'm stuck. I got it way back in in the 2000's before I knew about all this privacy stuff. I use protonmail just to register to websites, almost never to write messages. By the way, it's funny that you brought up your own anonymity. I was wondering why you would opt to put your real name on your channel and show your face instead of being a vtuber.

I think a better way to think of privacy is that it is *data discretion: I choose what data I share and with whom.* it is easier to explain, easier to get out of the all or nothing category, and not only more accurately describes peoples true intentions, it also removes the stigma of people thinking privacy is only for evil people. also it is a good idea to note that there are industry terms such as op-sec and threat models which is designed to make your behaviors less traceable and make you more data aware, not "completely private". [just noticed these two actually work with the idea of data discretion... huh... also lindunn threat modeling is a good first start into threat modeling] Hope you have a great day & Safe Travels!

That thumbnail, not the anime pic but like the statements counteracting each other is totally relatable - but you're very much right it's about the threat level focusing on what one is protecting their data from

While I am on the "Privacy-Conscious" point, there is that problem of my parents and friends being absolute normies and they upload everything to "the cloud", making my privacy way worse. And when I try to explain to them, I get told things like: - You're schizophrenic - Stop with the conspiracy theories - Do you think they really care about what you're doing - Go live in a cave - (from parents) When you buy your own house, you'll decide what you do ... etc It's seriously annoying and I'm wondering if you know the best way to talk with normies about such stuff.

I think the biggest factor that made me privacy-conscious on the internet was Mr. Robot series which I heartfully recommend to anybody as much as I do with Signal (I think the series was also the reason why I started to use it). It got excellent 4-seasons plot and just amazing attention to detail when it comes to "hackers" and IT stuff, one of the most underrated TV series that ever came out.

Imo, privacy is important because I cannot trust corporations or really anyone with my information. Not even in a “I have something to hide” sense, more of a I literally don’t trust them to handle it securely with data breaches left and right and I don’t want to get identity frauded.

I would actually agree with the "all vpns are useless" take, to an extent. VPNs are useful if: * you want to get around a region lock * you want to connect to an off-site network as-if you were physically there (e.g. for a job) They are NOT useful if: * you want your network traffic to be more secure * you want your network traffic to be private * you want to protect yourself from "the hackers" For one, there is nothing secure about a VPN. Any security features or end-to-end encryption they provide are REQUIRED for a VPN to even function. Not to mention, network traffic is generally encrypted with TLS as a rule, e.g. HTTPS. VPNs are not private either. Not in the sense the ads make it out to be. The "private" in virtual private network means that it is a private network. Your home network is also a private network. The private means that nodes inside are not visible to nodes outside. You talk to the internet using the public-facing node of your network: your internet router. Being on a private network does not magically grant you privacy. Not to mention, the whole concept of having privacy when connecting to an external network relies on an assumption of trust. You are _assuming_ that the VPN you are connecting to is not logging and selling your data. It is impossible to know whether they are or aren't. You can only choose to trust them or not care. And VPNs offer zero protection from a malicious third party. Any "protection" you get is effectively security by obscurity. If someone really wants to break into your network, they'll find a way.

One thing that I can add upfront, is that I see too many people not differentiating between privacy and secrecy. To put it very simply, in the way I understand it: secret is something you need to keep from others, because otherwise, it might and will be spread (like criminal evidence); privacy is that, what you should not even have to keep secret from others, because even if it comes to someone, they should not spread it (like information about someone's intimate life etc). Basically, secrets should be treated, by the owner, as if everyone could potentially know them, but private information is such, that even those who know, should act as if they don't. And whereas secrets depend on the owner and their skill alone, private information is kept private by the instincts towards decency of a whole society. I know it's not that relevant to this technological discussion, but I would appreciate it being described to be about "secrecy" rather than about "privacy", given the importance of an attitude of privacy in society in general, as well as the overall societal destructiveness of the erasure of the difference between private and public life through social media, and it's tendency to treat everyone's private life with the same prying ruthlessness as once only those of celebrities were treated by certain "newspapers"

"On this channel we're all on the spectrum" 😂

I'm so glad you linked the spectrum in the description. A very useful infographic!

It's rather sad that the common mentality has become "I have nothing to hide" when it should've been "you don't need to know this".

To answer your question about what the best email provider is for privacy, its yourself. Self hosting email means that only you can read your email, and nobody can start lawsuits to get your personal info. Its a pain to set up but ive done it and its 100% worth it.

Thanks Eric! for another great vid, I've started learning Linux thanks to some of your vids, and using hardened Firefox. Great work in helping us normies in becoming safer out there in the wildwest that is the interwebs.

I think that I’m most likely between The Normie and Privacy Conscious because I use Windows, unhardened Firefox and things like KZfaq but still don’t want big companies to track me

"cause on this channel we're all on the spectrum" made me lol

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. When getting into this stuff it's easy to go down the rabbit hole and aim for *perfect* privacy and anonymity, and then subsequently give up when you realise that requires unfathomable commitment and technical knowledge (and even then you can never be sure). There's a huge gulf between: 1) my data is just channelling directly into the hands of corporations, and 2) my data could potentially be obtained by a motivated actor with resources and expertise. For most people the latter case is way beyond their threat model and basically isn't worth thinking about. In fact, its actually detrimental to think about, because it demotivates the smaller and easier changes which help with scenario 1). These would be basic privacy/security recommendations: good passwords with a password manager, 2fa, privacy respecting browser and search engine, sensible social media usage etc.

My "Why?" of privacy is that I don't won't my data and credentials to end up public on the internet to find by anyone after some leak.

i have come to that point in life where i just dont really care anymore, as long as im not dumb enough to do anything criminal related, or they're going to steal my bank account or raid my house even if i didnt...

Can't wait for email providers tier list. Love your vids❤

Funnily enough I fit fairly close to the Normie category in so many aspects, an online friend of mine sits somewhere between Privacy Conscious and The Activist, and an IRL friend of mine I'm pretty sure is off the spectrum to the left. He loves big companies a lot and actively supports them disabling shit on a whim.

When you are online there is no privacy. The only way to stay private online is to not use the internet for anything. It doesnt matter what program you use to hide your IP the minute you use any kind of search engine you risk your privacy being leaked.

I want better privacy because I think without it our society can't function. It is easy for people in positions of power to start using the lack of privacy in order to do less than good things. I don't want our society to go that way.

Love these new videos, so well prepared and informative :)

really appreciate the well thought out breakdown of different online strategies for folks with different privacy needs.

There's an amount of privacy that's actually make your experience better. Like blocking trackers not only help your privacy, but doesn't waste your machine resources in something that isn't interesting for you. Linux, Firefox and duckduckgo has some features their competitors don't have.

I'm all over the place on this. I rarely use social media and if I do it's not with my real name. I use things like google pay wherever I can, but when it comes to verifying my identity for things like a loan or credit card, I don't exist. If you do know something about me and try to do a background check, you'll either get information that is outdated by over 10 years or completely inaccurate. I'm sure my online presence is hell for people trying to track me. I'm not a ghost, I am a mirage.

Levels of privacy also relates to what are you doing. Piracy is pretty much ok in my country, but questioning the government openly is best done with a fake account. Donations to opposition politicians are best done with cryptocurrency, but shopping online is ok.

As a Software Developer I prioritize convenience over privacy, its many tools and resources that I simply cant give up as i gain nothing in return

Great video Eric. Your channel is getting consistently better.

My goal with online privacy is to as much as possible reduce my reliance on "big tech". And then I'm especially thinking of corporations that are involved with A.I. like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Just by being privacy conscious you can prevent 90% of tracking. It's the last 10% that is the hard part.

That an actually good "tier" list explaining how different people approach specific things! Thanks for the video!

Hey, great ideas and well put. Small critique, maybe the bullet points could've been offset horizontally to further reinforce the idea of it being a spectrum. Like, using ddg should be way more to the left than installing linux, for example. Overall though, great vid.

I have a question. Many apps and services (also cookies on websites) have privacy settings. Sadly, they are fairly well hidden and also set to collect your data by default, but you still can access and edit them. So how much does leaving only the strictly necessary of them on, and does it even matter? Not being overly pessimistic, just wouldn't be too surprised if it didn't.

At first when I read up about privacy I'm getting more and more paranoid about privacy, fake name, fake email, never use google seach, tor browser, private DNS and the more I know about it I realize I cannot attain or maintain this kind of lifestyle and think back for a bit. I don't really NEED that much so I just fall back on the privacy-concious level, if they don't need it I ain't give it, if the Back require your Real info sure I do give, but chat message wants your camera access? F no.

Recently been into online privacy, your videos helped me a lot, thank you. :)

I do indeed fall somewhere along the spectrum

On privacy-anonimity spectrum, you forgot that guy that agrees to every privacy policy and allows all cookies.

Going ghost requires resources and careful planning. You can achieve any of the other levels within a single day, but that level of privacy might require years of learning, building connections, and saving resources. It's doable, but it requires heavy sacrifices and a lot of hard work.

All I wanna say is: I do care about privacy, but I know I lost that battle years ago. And also another thing to notice: Some times something is cheap bc they get their money back by collecting and/or selling your data. And if you don't have a lot of money to begin with, you don't have much choice.

"When it comes to penopticons, one is too many, but many is much better than one." ‐ Exurb1a

Thank You So Much For Clearing Everything Love Your Videos 💓

well spoken, privacy is a subjective concept and with a spectrum you cover all cases.

Disable Javascript is the most renovating advise I had ever received

Can you please tell me where you got that image in the video? I would like to show some people it please. Also, great video.

I don't really fall into any one category, but I think privacy conscious would be most apt. For instance, I don't even use e-mail and I don't buy things online. If I have to buy something online I use someone else as an intermediary. However, I do use KZfaq so it's not like I couldn't be found. The only way to achieve true anonymity would be to not use the internet or any connected services, and the only way to do that in today's society is to remove oneself from society. So if you're part of society, then to a certain degree you don't want privacy, and it's just a matter of how much. The government would certainly like that level of care to be zero, and they're working hard to indoctrinate everyone with that idea. I just hope that people realize the truth before it's too late.

It is so ironic to be recommended this video after talking to someone about privacy in whatsapp.

I actually fall into the normie - privacy-concious, and much closer to the privacy-concious side. I use brave to not have google tracking my everyday usage of the internet, I look for open source alternatives, I'm not afraid to do more work to become keep my privacy (I would love to get a custom android rom, and use micro g, but I can't unlock the oem on my phone yet (it's carrier locked)). Now, I do still have a couple google accounts, the one I'm using to write this comment, and a personal one (well, I'm using a brand channel, but it's connected to my second email, which uses my online username instead of my real name). Pf course I am using a modified youtube app to add things like, remove ads, sponserblock, return youtube dislike, hide shorts, and much more. Unfortunatally it doesn't have an option to stop google tracking. Overall, I try to use privacy centered programs and websotes, but sometimes I have to use google.

I'm more of a blend in with the crowd and be invisible. Someone's who's obsessive about privacy is more suspicious to bad actors than someone who looks like everyone else

How do you use youtube without google tracking you? (especially on my phone?)

Great video, I like your spectrum graphic

For the entire system to be trustworthy, the foundational hardware must be inherently reliable and possess unquestionable integrity.

Can you make a video about what browser and engine you use for what purposes?

When it comes to being private on the internet I tend to just create a persona of sorts and be that persona so that i keep myself as far from my actual identity as possible.

clicked on video due to anime girl on thumbnail

I LOVE your content so far btw. You're filling the void for the Luke Smith absence.

Could you also cover software that sends fake data to companies to scramble the info they already have on you

This is great love your content, but I have few concerns. I know there is a lot of comments, but I dont think its possible to have privacy when you are looking for a job for example, all talk is made via gmail with interview on google meet, so you send your CV that way, which contains basically everything Also buying anything online, you have to input your real data so they match with your payment method (also adress)... Also as a youtuber you dont have privacy, youtrube and google are interconnected, you need adsense for this

a cool thing about my laptop is that there is a switch that blocks/covers the webcam when you don't need to use it.

I fall into normie category, but I feel uncomfortable exposing my personality online. I am okay with corporations stuff because they aren't interested in me as person, but only as part of some demographic, and so they can't effectively process all info about me. But I keep myself restrained from taking interest in some topics, don't interact with media posts, because these interactions can be seen by close people and I'm afraid of my opinion not being tolerated by them

I'll be honest, videos about privacy are interesting to watch. A lot of cool features to play around with as well. XD

I just create so many alternate personalities online that even identity theives end up finding out that that person doesnt exist.

Regarding your spectrum: it is possible to switch roles (with exception of Ghost probably). Depending on what exact activity you perform, you may choose more or less private tools. If you are talking about cats, then what the problems with using real name for it? For some other talks, even having nickname is not enough - at least Tor Browser is needed.

That's Really Unfortunate For The Freedom to Our lives i wish we collaborate together and fight for ever lasting Privacy

I'm somewhere between normie and privacy-conscious, and the reasoning is mostly convenience (I use social media a lot but I don't use my real name, I use Windows/MacOS for different reasons (games+school/music production), will use Google if Brave search is being too slow/not showing what I searched for, use Gmail and feel guilty abt it?? and I would like to use a more private email but have a LOT of things I'd need to change first) but despite all that, I literally can't wrap my head around people not using Firefox or Librewolf or at the VERY least putting an adblocker/tracker blocker on their browser 😭 like the "default" experience is literally worse??? even if you don't care abt privacy, it's so easy to do and it's literally MORE convenient to not get ads shoved in your face 24/7 😭

“disable javascript”☠️

At high school I used tor to get around the website filters because they block vpns but not tor lmao

tbh the word "corparations" makes it sound simple, like there are no people in the corparations there is always friend of a friend(or friend of a follower) in that corparation that can just expose you when ever they want. i think best thing is having different identities that are at different positions on the spectrum. for example this account is linked to my irl, but i might have an account that has no links to my other identities, never the same ip, never the same name, never the same "hobbies", never the same friends(the hardest one), never the same os/browser or same screen size, or device, never talk about weather, never tell you are sleeping, never tell time etc

You could put me in the Normie category because I value convenience. Doesn't necessarily imply that I'm blissfully ignorant though that is common. Putting me in an interesting situation where I advocate for awareness about surveillance, but do more or less nothing to protect mine.

It's important to get an early diagnosis on paranoid schizophrenia, it can save your life!

great 10/10 would watch again

You can also do privacy to the next level after ghost, basically one just opens up their pixel phone with Grapheme installed to remove the cameras & microphone, plus carry that device in a faraday pouch.

The only reason why I have Instagram is because that's pretty much the only way to connect to my irl friends as they all have it. I wish they didn't but I guess that's how the cookie crumbles.

As a remote worker, I feel like a slave to the system.

In one of your last videos, you talked about how email weren't designed to be private. Lavabit (Snowden) closed down. It seems like they are functioning again.

Extremely surprising to see Sasame Yaya to be on the thumbnail for a video about..... internet privacy

is there any search engine equivalent to google scholar but more private? idk exactly why being anonymous are wanted by researchers, but if there is i would like to know.

you forgot to add a level between "The Activist" and "The Ghost",is like the acitivist but using layers of VPS with a VPN in a VM, in a CyberCafe using a LiveUSB while wearing a hoodie and sunglasses

The Cabin in the wood without internet is the best about the privacy and online privacy, ngl.

I use social media except facebook instagram and tiktok, i never share my real name or personal photos and i use chrome and windows. how private am i?