I have been pro privacy and anti data harvesting for many years now, however it is becoming increasingly more difficult staying off some platforms. Mostly Meta.
Over the years I have convinced most of my friends and family to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. However, there are still chat groups that I am missing from, and trying to keep up to date with local events seems next to impossible without Facebook or Instagram.
Additionally, I am finding it more and more tiring to have the awkward “No I don’t have WhatsApp. No I don’t have Facebook either. Or Instagram, sorry. Do you want to try an app that you’ve never heard of to stay in contact with me?” every time I meet someone new.
I saddens me that it feels like the multi-billion dollar data harvesting companies are winning, but I no longer know if this is a hill that I’m willing to die on.
What are your thoughts on what we have to give up in our lives just to stay in control of our personal information?
It can be a bit annoying sometimes, but there are solutions for almost anything, like alternative clients and frontends. I also think it’s important to remember that this is not an all-or-nothing situation. Every little bit of privacy you can preserve helps, even if you still have to use their services sometimes.
If your example is mostly about chat then Beeper might be a good option for you. The messages on FB and IG would still go through Meta, but at least you don’t have to install their apps.
Oh I hadn’t heard of Beeper. Thanks I’ll look in to that.
it’s not private, and could technically read and collect messages sent via e2ee services, FYI.
Good to know, thanks
If you have an always-on-and-connected device then you can self-host their bridges. It preserves e2ee because messages are de- and reencrypted on your device, and it’s relatively easy to set up.
Thanks, I do run my own server so this is a possibility
Man I got so excited about beeper but it just fails to log in to anything I try to set up. FB, sms, anything at all, it successfully logs me in and then hangs on the spinning wheel of death
It’s a hill I’ll die on.
Ive refused to use anything FB since it first launched and I wasn’t permitted to use it anyway (not that I cared).
I’ve never once been to FB intentionally. I’ve accidentally clicked a link, then closed the tab as soon as I realized.
I was sent an FB link the other day. Replied that all FB domains are blocked on my networks and devices.
Sometimes doing what you believe in comes with costs. Oh well. My life is for me, and if someone can’t be bothered to look outside their bubble, put in a tiny bit of effort, then I guess I’m not worth it in their eyes. Message received.
I even have friends who’ve complained how shitty SMS is for 20 years. I’ve offered multiple solutions, and they simply refuse to change. OK, not my problem when you message me and I don’t get it because SMS sucks and you refuse to solve the problem.
At the end of the day, you should follow your personal priorities. Everyone that wants to contact me easily uses signal, and I choose to live life without much contact with those that do not use signal. Sure, they can call me over the phone, that’s one way to reach me, assuming I don’t have it in airplane mode (it spends around 70% of its on time there). But, I am one of those people that don’t really care to know about anyone else’s life. If they want me to know they’ll figure out how to reach me.
My wife and kids contact me exclusively over session, as do my business partners.
Haven’t been on FB for over 9 years now, and about 7 out of WhatsApp, and I have not missed them at all, not even the first day without. Never had Instagram.
I killed my Twitter the day before the acquisition by Musk was completed, and enjoy my online time researching self hosting, interacting in Lemmy, and having a few laughs on Mastodon.
I feel my mental health has improved exponentially because of these choices. But you’re going to have to choose where it starts to be a heavy task for you, and I suggest you stop right at that point.
Don’t lose hope, resistance is NOT futile.
There are third party frontends for most of Facebook/Meta services and desktop apps which can be used when there are no other options.Be aware of installing Whatsapp app on iOS and Android, there are vulnerabilities currently exploited by the israelian Pegasus. Nothing prevents anyone else from using these vulnerabilities.
Thanks MrSoup, do you have any suggestions on a good frontend for Instagram?
There was bibliogram (web) which I’ve used a couple of times, but it’s now discontinued.
Your best bet here would be using instagram web as a webapp with a bunch of addons limiting their tracking. I dunno if there are some limitation on the instagram website, I don’t use instagram at all.By looking up on f-droid there is “barinsta” which received a cease and desist letter from a law firm representing Facebook. Maybe you can find an active fork of it.
If you find something, please update us. There could be someone else in your same condition.
Thanks. Yeah I found Barinsta but saw it hadn’t been updated in years. I’ll have a look around and report back.
I’ve heard good things about Instander, but it may not satisfy all the requirements of an alternative frontend.
I’ve found most to either be a) you are flagged as malicious by their system and routed thru their process to prove you are human; some you can end up locked into, b) they gate content or services. Mostly the latter but the former is becoming prominent with all the fuss about AI. I imagine they are training protection models on us.
Mostly it’s just convenience you lose, having to always add a protective layer (like temp emails, etc.) while everyone is good to go. Managing all that can be a chore too. Or seem like one.
Understandable thought process imo. I‘m in the opposite boat.
For years I didnt care about data privacy and the amount of phishing attacks and spam mails skyrocketed.
I had all the social media accounts, connected to each other for convenience. Bit tech cloud managed my pictures and everything else. Stuff started vanishing off of my favorite streaming services.
Then I started to migrate away from big tech and started my own home server. Ripped all my old dvds on there so I dont have to put them in the player. I disabled my facebook account, twitter, instagram, you name it.
Now I can chat with people on my Linux phone (postmarketOS), watch videos on my peertube instance, write this comment over my lemmy instance, etc. Is it easy? No. But its doable.
I do still have whatsapp but i dont use the app and have bridged the 2.5 people that dont have matrix to it. Same for signal and discord. I only use matrix and a couple people switched because matrix can help them use one app only.
Now comes the hard part: is this end user ready? No, not at all. Stuff can break like every half a year and some people are just tech illiterate and will have constant problems because they have no patience.
I cant promise you that it works for everyone. But it should work for the 80% or so who are able to follow a basic video tutorial on how to cross sync new devices in matrix for example.
Oh and the whiners will also have a bad time. If you need „perfect“ and „polished“, apps wont always be up to your standards and you should embrace big tech. They make it perfect for you you give them your data. Thats their way of saying thanks /s
Addition: The general idea for those who can tinker should also be to not only use but contribute. Either financially or otherwise. The software is dependent on it.
my Linux phone
What brand? My pinephone stopped turning on :(
One plus 6. works very well so far. Have you tried fixing your pinephone? Its open source hardware so you should be able to, generally.
Have you tried fixing your pinephone?
I don’t know what stopped working. I could have tried buying a brand new mobo, but at the same price I bought a Pixel and flashed Graphene but I do miss Linux phone.
Can you please share some info?
How’s battery life? Is everything smooth enough? Are you on phosh or plasma mobile? How’s call quality? Does VoLTE works?I‘m somewhat early in the whole linux phone game.
The OP6 works decent enough for my needs atm. I use it for matrix chats on fluffychat, browsing with firefox works well. I can use it as terminal client which was important to me since I have some servers that I need to work on remotely sometimes.
So far I havent realized my idea to use it with a usb/hdmi or DP adapter as a mobile computer but thats something I‘ll try.
So far I havent managed to put a sim card in it since I dont have a spare and my old phone still works so I‘ll get to that at some point.
To your problem:
The pinephone is open source. You can look in the schematics and check if the motherboard gets enough juice and what if anything is broken afaik. The pinephone is not an end user device imo, the OP6 very much was but postmarket isnt. The documentation of the pinephone should also be somewhat extensive.
So I‘d suggest you either stick with graphene or start embracing the tinker mentality. :)
Stop trying to join them. Make a reason for them to join you.
I saddens me that it feels like the multi-billion dollar data harvesting companies are winning, but I no longer know if this is a hill that I’m willing to die on.
It is a very sad thing indeed :(
What are your thoughts on what we have to give up in our lives just to stay in control of our personal information?
I guess it depends whether you want to be reachable 24/7 on mobile or not.
With Signal and with things like WhatsApp and for that matter Telegram a phone number is only required to sign up. And you do not have to restrict yourself to one phone number.
Actually that is not correct because contacts syncing is another thing. If you are willing to have a private life without Meta and a second life which includes Meta Zuck it is technically possible. Buy a cheap smartphone with another SIM card for signing up and for syncing contacts and then link it to desktop apps that you can check a few times a day to check in with your friends via the Meta Zuck channels. The cheap smartphone can stay off unless you need to sync contacts.
Thanks, yeah I had thought about using separate SIMs to sign up but then, like you said, would still need to sync contacts.
Although I hadn’t really though about only using the desktop apps.
I may loose some answers in searches since I only use DDG
I often do not read articles or information from websites if the gdpr popup isn’t solvable in a click but the site ask to click on a thousand toggles
Where I am at the moment, the lack of FB marketplace sucks
A lot of cultural info goes through Instagram here, so I have to be a bit proactive if I want to know what’s happening
I use signal or text when possible, but work is impossible without whatsapp
random searx instance rotator would probably be more private than just giving ddg all your searches
deleted by creator
What’s a town square. -American /s
Suburbia hell doesn’t install those. We have no public commons.
Thanks for your comment Deckweiss. To reply to your assumptions I’m not American and am definitely not young.
I’d be interested to hear about how your and your friends learn about local events without any access to the main channels that seem to be used by most venues, i.e. Facebook and Instagram, as I’d happily take some advice on this.
Also, as per my original post, it is not about meeting new people, that I have no problem with, it is about the inevitable conversation when they exclusively use WhatsApp to stay in contact.
Do you want to try an app that you’ve never heard of to stay in contact with me?” every time I meet someone new.
email
I get where you’re coming from and I have often felt the same. However recently I have been listening to a podcast called Your Undivided Attention which has given me a bit of optimism about the future. It’s not specifically about digital privacy, but that is one of the areas they are aiming to improve through their advocacy for a more sustainable and ethical business model within the tech industry (as opposed to the surveillance capitalism we live with now).
It’s really easy to feel like the fight for digital privacy is just an impossible one for people like us to win, because the tech industry has so many more resources at their disposal than us. So this podcast gives me a little more hope because it’s an example of people from within that industry acknowledging that there is a problem and working together to brainstorm and advocate for solutions. It helps me to know that there are really smart and creative people out there who are on my side and dedicating their lives to finding solutions to the problems the tech industry is causing.
Thanks llandar, I’ll have a listen
It’s easy, use a VPN and as many fake data as you can, also you can use an AI generated profile pic, if you need a phone number you can use a virtual number like TextNow app.
You are right on all counts.
Just not sure if “easy” is the operative word here.
Thanks, yeah I’m always on a VPN, but as you suggested, maybe nowadays it’s not about trying to live without an account, but having the account with generic/fake profile data.
Yeah the point it’s into giving them fake data, you keep using the service and they get fake stuff at exchange. Better than not using their service.
Honestly, it sucks. I’ve been increasingly falling back on regular SMS, because a lot of people seem to prefer cutting me off to the slight effort of a different communication medium. I was thinking that everyone has a phone, but there’s a lot of resistance to using it in my age group.
The cost of extreme privacy is your mental health and human relations. As rough as it sounds, you have to make a compromise, because you will not be an Edward Snowden in your life. What you can be, however, is an individual with a private life that beats out 95% people at having better privacy.
While I do not want to recommend it for privacy reasons, having just WhatsApp is good enough to strike that balance, to keep that one outlet open to society. I ended up doing that, since I realised barely a few people came to install Signal for me, even though I have a lot of leverage. They would instantly prefer normal calls and SMS over the usual WhatsApp, which is way worse for message content privacy and security. I did that experiment announcing reducing and even stopping WhatsApp usage, firewalling it and opening it weekly to check messages, and did gain a lot of leverage, but life became harder and stressed.
If you feel like you want to talk more, you can, whenever I will get time online. I can help you with threat modelling.
I would not consider whatsapp any better, maybe even worse than normal calls/sms, because it has been shown that it is compromised.
https://securityaffairs.com/125176/security/encrypted-messaging-apps-data-access.html
You need to read the article yourself first. If you looked at the main content closely,
you will notice a WhatsApp section where it says “Messages: Limited*”, referring to unencrypted iCloud backups giving away messages which is no mystery. This is not an Android problem, and even better if chats are locally backed up on Android.
WhatsApp message content for one-to-one chats has not been compromised to date as far as E2EE goes, whereas metadata is unencrypted. WhatsApp messages atleast on Android can only be accessed in two ways — either user reports the other user to end up sharing the last few contextual messages between both parties, or by (forcefully) opening the phone. There is a third way, Israel/USA tools like Pegasus malware and Cellebrite toolkits, but those are reserved for high profile targets like activists and politicians.
you assume the application itself isn’t compromised.
Brainrot conspiracy theories are baseless when we have examples of court subpoenas and sophisticated malware like Pegasus needed to open phone and get to WhatsApp messages. Metadata is far more valuable compared to message content for feds, which is what stupid people are yet to realise. The same people that believe in this conspiracy theory and then go on to use Chromium based browsers leaking every bit of metadata possible, and using PWA apps without a firewall and good HOSTS ruleset are laughable.
Nobody I know refuses to use email or SMS. They might find it odd but usually don’t even bother asking. There are equivalent outside of Meta for everything I know, from ads (e.g CraigsList) to events (e.g neighborhood public calendar) so I understand the feeling but I’d argue, just like people who use Amazon for everything, it takes little trying to find viable alternatives and weeks or even days later you’ll forgot what Meta even was.
