At techxcite24, I gave a talk on the steps one can take to secure themselves online in an ever data-hungry world. The talk boiled down most needs into four broad caricatures which I used to explain the best ways to approach online security.
TLDR
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I am an Instagram user
For those that like being public unfiltered figures on the internet, this is for you.
- Enable two-factor authentication
- Do not click on weird links
- Do not join “Honour your parent” trends
- Do not reply unprompted DMs
- Do not join “Giveaways”
- Do not join “free stuff” government programmes
- Do not buy products from ADS
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I am not a criminal
”I am not a criminal, why should I care”. Privacy is not because you think you are a criminal, it’s because you don’t want to be labelled a criminal by the powers that be. No worries, I got you covered
- Try to use password applications
- Do not interact with unsolicited communication
- Reject cookies as often as possible
- Try to use email relay applications
- Do not use cracked software
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I am serious about this
Okay, you want to take security seriously and do your best.
- Ditch Windows
- Do not use Google Chrome or Edge
- Use services like ProtonMail and ProtonVPN
- Use AD blockers
- Avoid giving sensitive information to LLMs
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I am not a criminal… I swear
You love privacy soo much that you risk looking like a drug dealer.
- Use the tor browser
- Use operating systems like Arch or Gentoo
- Do not sign into Google Search
- Use LLMs locally via tools like Ollama
- Use Tails OS for extremely sensitive things
- Use throwaway email addresses