Privacy

If you came to this part of the site expecting to find the privacy for what analytics I collect it's bare minimal, this website isn't for financial gain.

Most people think I'm weird, odd, quirky, whatever you want to call it because I do things differently, my home CCTV runs local, I don't run any AI or assistants on my devices, I don't have a smart home, if it doesn't need to connect to the internet then it simply doesn't and if it does it's sand-boxed by itself so that nothing can go in or out unless I give it explicit permission to do so. I don't use SMS/RCS and I don't use regular phone calls unless absolutely necessary i.e. work otherwise everything is encrypted. I don't use 2FA apps on my devices I use physical hardware keys and store all passwords offline in a vault that only I can access. I also have my data backed up off site on SSD drives along with storing in a zero knowledge end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service. Essentially if you ever find one of my devices lying around without the hardware keys it's an expensive brick.

Why I don't use mainstream media

As a privacy advocate they take so much of your data not just for targeted ads but everything, location, name, date of birth, ping time, IP address and so much more I have to accept this to run my podcast but I don't have to accept these services that disrespect privacy for my day to day digital life.

If you use mainstream media for your podcast how do you use it aren't you just inconveniencing yourself?

I have two mobile devices my main device with an unlimited call, text and data cap along with a cheap device with a small prepaid recharge and few gigabytes of data that I use with stock android OS from Google as they're the ones who make the software and are first to push vital security updates to their devices before other vendors patch it over their user interfaces. I essentially carry two phones with me when at work as I also like to keep my work and private life separate one major benefit of this is that my podcast has one set of contact information and my private life another. There is a small inconvenience in being able to access mainstream social media I need to use another device but if I ever want to take a break as life can get busy even with almost all dedicated free time towards the podcast I don't have to mute notifications or do anything I just leave the other device at home or not on my person and get back to it when I can/feel like. Sometimes we all need a digital break for our own well-being and mental health.

Why I don't run stock android software from a vendor like Samsung, Google, Oppo etc...

Features like virtual assistants and AI have to have deep root access to perform the tasks they can do such as screen calls, hold for me, make calls and send messages on your behalf but that also means they can call upon and activate sensors like location, camera, microphone remotely and abuse that sensitive data. I turn all my sensors off unless I'm actively using them and I much trust projects like CalyxOS, GrapheneOS and LineageOS with source code that I can vet and look at anytime to see if they're doing anything shady with my device. I trust projects like these more than I do proprietary code from the likes of surveillance companies like Google plus the above are either non-profit or foundation companies which aren't for investors they have their users at the heart of everything they do.

Can you recommend me some more privacy respecting things for mail, passwords etc...

Of course but if you want to de-google and not use their services expect to be inconvenienced Google does make great products but at the cost of your privacy. Check out this post COMING SOON on what services are more private and if you want to de-google which steps to take it's a slow service by service process, you don't even need to give up your stock mobile operating system if you're okay with Google taking lots of data you can limit what they take and slowly move to other services.