GMAIL free life?

[bd139]

Indeed.

Best thing is carry on and boringly be normal. Do normal things. Be a boring median not an outlier.

At least as far as any data collection is concerned that is.

If you think the correlative ability of the agencies goes past basic surveillance then you give them too much credit.

[jmelson]

I do keep a local backup. I have a script that wraps up isync (confusingly aka mbsync): http://isync.sourceforge.net[/u

I own my own domain (through Network Solutions, but getting a bit expensive) and run my own web and mail servers (at home).
This way, I can change ISPs and nobody has to ever know, or change the email address they use to contact me.  Also, I am immune to any crazy filtering they might implement on email.  (I do a fair amount of international business, so if they cut off emails from some country, it could lose me business.)  I have it set up through Charter (Spectrum) that they allow me to send and receive email under my own domain name, although their reps say that is not permitted.  But, it just works.

One issue is I can't send email through that route when traveling!  So, I have to have a gmail account so I can do that.

Jon

[vtwin@cox.net]

Yes, that's pretty much what everyone says.

So, it's your assertion Mr. Google and his plethora of ads for cribs made out of pine and MDF are going to sway me into purchasing a substandard product rather than a crib made from maple or oak?

[bd139]

I do keep a local backup. I have a script that wraps up isync (confusingly aka mbsync): http://isync.sourceforge.net[/u

I own my own domain (through Network Solutions, but getting a bit expensive) and run my own web and mail servers (at home).
This way, I can change ISPs and nobody has to ever know, or change the email address they use to contact me.  Also, I am immune to any crazy filtering they might implement on email.  (I do a fair amount of international business, so if they cut off emails from some country, it could lose me business.)  I have it set up through Charter (Spectrum) that they allow me to send and receive email under my own domain name, although their reps say that is not permitted.  But, it just works.

One issue is I can't send email through that route when traveling!  So, I have to have a gmail account so I can do that.

Jon

You are not immune to some of the nasty upstreams like Yahoo deciding to black hole you for 6 months however. Also your “home” IP address probably has a high risk rating with the RBLs which means you may suddenly get silently discarded by big providers like Google and Microsoft. Also you have to piddle around setting up domain keys now.

I spent a long time running mails servers for people and I wouldn’t bother any more. It’s just hell when it goes wrong.

[NiHaoMike]

It's probably naive to think modern data mining algorithms don't cut through this type of noise. That's one part of the problem. People consistently underestimate how sophisticated data extraction has become and how fast it's still evolving and adapting.

Increasing the chance of real data being discarded is a step in the right direction, even if not perfect.

[bitwelder]

3. DNS server? There are probably better choices than what your ISP offers, or god forbid, Google.

Thanks rdl I agree on everything, for DNS I use quad9:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/httpswww-quad9-net-dns-safety-layer-driven-internet-security-for-free/msg1881236/#msg1881236

You might want to try as DNS 1.1.1.1 ("quad 1"), by Cloudflare. In some cases their RTT is shorter than your ISP DNSes.
If you just access https://1.1.1.1 from the browser of your Android/iOS mobile you can also download app (or rather, a configuration) to VPN all your DNS traffic.

[Zucca]

Thanks.

From Mexico and Germany I see 1.1.1.1 two time faster than 9.9.9.9 . Very cool.

I did not moved everything on 1.1.1.1 because it lacks on security, privacy is OK!

https://www.quad9.net/faq/#Is_there_a_service_that_Quad9_offers_that_does_not_have_the_blocklist_or_other_security

The primary IP address for Quad9 is 9.9.9.9, which includes the blocklist, DNSSEC validation, and other security features. However, there are alternate IP addresses that the service operates which do not have these security features. These might be useful for testing validation, or to determine if there are false positives in the Quad9 system.

I don't see such services in 1.1.1.1 .

I will now investigate the DNS change on my phone, very interesting stuff.

[EEVblog]

Given that I've had a gmail account almost forever, am obviously a Youtuber who need a google account, and there are other engineering Youtubers who talk on a private gmail group, and I use Google instant message thing all the time, it would be almost impossible for me to change.

[Zucca]

Yes clearly you can't switch and jump off the Gmail boat,

PS: You have not only Gmail but also the EEVBlog Mail server... use it wisely as you already doing for sure. 

[Zucca]

Also your “home” IP address probably has a high risk rating with the RBLs which means you may suddenly get silently discarded by big providers like Google and Microsoft

And if you go public through a VPN service, is the public VPN IP considered more risky or not?

[Mr. Scram]

So, it's your assertion Mr. Google and his plethora of ads for cribs made out of pine and MDF are going to sway me into purchasing a substandard product rather than a crib made from maple or oak?

No, my assertion is that a lot of people thinks they are immune or smarter than advertisements when research indicates it isn't so. It's an unfair contest to begin with, so it's really not surprising.

[Mr. Scram]

Increasing the chance of real data being discarded is a step in the right direction, even if not perfect.

The problem is that the chance is tiny tot non-existent, as it shouldn't be too hard to filter this kind of noise out. The net result is that you put time and effort into something that's not effective, and are not putting time into something that is. You're essentially performing security theater for your own benefit. You feel like you're doing something while nothing's happening.

[NiHaoMike]

I wonder how much fake data has to be sent for them to discard all data from the IP as fake. At some point, it would be better to just discard the data rather than spend resources trying to pick out anything that could possibly be real. Maybe it would be best combined with not actually using the service so they actually won't get any real data.

[Mr. Scram]

I wonder how much fake data has to be sent for them to discard all data from the IP as fake. At some point, it would be better to just discard the data rather than spend resources trying to pick out anything that could possibly be real. Maybe it would be best combined with not actually using the service so they actually won't get any real data.

That honestly sounds like a somewhat simplistic view of how data mining works. It's unlikely all data from an IP address gets discarded. "Spending the resources" sounds dramatic, but it just gets pushed through the same algorithm as everything else. The internet is full of noise, so that needs to be filtered out anyway.

Like I said before, people seem to mostly underestimate how refined modern algorithms have become and are still becoming. What not too long ago was seemingly unrelated information can now be tied together with near certainty. Data thought of as anonymous turns out to be not quite that as we learn more tricks.

https://www.wired.com/story/genome-hackers-show-no-ones-dna-is-anonymous-anymore/

[NiHaoMike]

What's difficult about generating fake patterns that look real? Or even basing them on a subset of real data? Maybe send your actual searches through the search faker.

[MT]

I am not a youtubber (would love to become one), don't use Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (and I will never do, I hope). I use every day Whatsapp and dropbox only sporadically for not critical data.
I use GMAIL with Calendar and Contats.

Lately (don't ask me why), I got more interested to understand how my privacy and data in the internet are protected.
10sec later I realize that all my emails, contacts, calendar are in Google hands in some server on this planet. I don´t believe Google will cause damage to me, and it never did in the past (at least I did not notice that...).

What now what bothers me is the feeling there is someone (who could/can/is) always watching me and maybe keeping track of all my activities... I don't like it.

Please I don't want to start a political or ethical privacy discussion here (thread will be locked in hours, I believe), I just want a nice technical discussion what make sense to do in order to protect our privacy.

That says what I did so far....

1) At work only Chrome is allowed, so I have there 100% incognito on with uBlock Origin on. When I get home end December I will install Mozilla with noscript and auto cookie delete.
2) Use duckduckgo.com instead of google.com
3) On my Android Phone (yes I know... don't tell me) I installed the excellent Firefox Focus/Klar.
4) Pfsense with pfBlockerNG on (<-- This is very cool and stable! I love it)

Next on my list (with a very relaxed timeline/schedule) is to get rid of GMail.

I spotted this:

https://kolabnow.com/

which seems to be okay. (PS: Switzerland was famous to keep the bank info secret, now they want to keep the data secret?  )

Another attack plan (much more time and money cosuming) could be to buy a domain and have a nice server at home which runs IMAP email, ownCloud, Roundcube and Z-Push.
I am considering to buy a VPN service, but it is just shifting the problem I think. TOR is also on my radar, but I read it is slow.

I don't think I will ever be protected in the internet, but at least I want to try to rise the bar a little bit, right now I am just walking with my pants down and a smile on my face I think.

What you smart guys do? Do you have a private server at home? Thanks in advance for the suggestions.
Again please keep it technical, thanks.

TO MOD/ADMIN: IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS POST FEEL FREE TO LOCK IT IMMEDIATELY. MY APOLOGIZES.

Whatever you do on the internet is tapped off by NSA and stored at Forth Mead, Bluffdale etc and other sites.
End of story and your security start point.

[Mr. Scram]

What's difficult about generating fake patterns that look real? Or even basing them on a subset of real data? Maybe send your actual searches through the search faker.

Fake patterns won't look like real ones. Basing them on real data generates repeating or known patterns. As with most things, mimicking human behaviour in a sensible way or one that's believable to a regular human is very hard. Mimicking them in a statistically indistinguishable way is nearly impossible. As technology to do so improves, the methods of detecting it do so too. Considering the mimicking is an amateur effort at best and the analysis is done by armies of skilled professionals, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[NiHaoMike]

And what about making the real data look fake?

[Mr. Scram]

And what about making the real data look fake?

How would you propose to do that?

Of course, whatever it is it will only work when a very limited number of people do it.

[NiHaoMike]

Use it to "seed" the generation of many searches, just like how the fake searches are generated.

[cdev]

Resistance is futile.

Your data will be assimilated. (Really)

[Zucca]

Still, I think we can defend from some bad guys out there.
Investigating a VPN Tunnel right now....

Even if I know now I will never be 100% secure, it's very interesting to learn how the internet net works.
Thanks for all your posts I am learning a lot.

[Mr. Scram]

Use it to "seed" the generation of many searches, just like how the fake searches are generated.

You can't exactly seed searches, as they need to be coherent. Besides, it's also about the when, how and where. Just plunking sensible searches into a search box isn't enough.

[hammy]

Investigating a VPN Tunnel right now....

NordVPN or PIA

[Mr. Scram]

NordVPN or PIA

Based on what?