3d ago

How I’m Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech

www.joanwestenberg.com How I’m Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech

The world can no longer trust American tech. If that sounds dramatic, take a step back and consider the facts. The United States is a nation in the thrall of authoritarianism, owned and operated almost completely by a far-right doomsday cult intent on betraying every alliance, every contract, every...

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Just a fair warning to other people navigating the page, the links the article provides all contained referral links. Not that it matters too much, but it put a sour taste in my mouth that a privacy oriented post would contain these without prominently disclosing them
edit: looking again they do somewhat disclose they are there, but are insistent that they don't have anything to do with affiliation, so not as bad but, I still don't like that they are there.
- Instantly, I don't trust whoever this is. That's a red flag. Matters a great deal to me, thanks for pointing it out so I don't give the site a click.
  
  I just wanted to let you know, I was wrong/just blind,
  I reopened on my desktop to have it another read on an easier to use screen, and they have them listed under the list header, but it uses the term "affiliate" instead of referral, and claims they make no money on the links.
  I don't fully understand why referral links are necessary if they make no money off of it though, so I'm still on edge about the integrity of it.

While [Trump-supporting] CEO Andy Yen's recent public statements have raised my hackles more than a little, Proton remains structurally committed to privacy, encryption, and user control, ensuring its ecosystem stays independent of political shifts.
That’s a pretty weak definition of “Trump-proof”.

I’m also trying to avoid as much American tech as possible.
Vivaldi/qwant instead of Firefox/Google
Proton instead of gmail
Waiting for WERO impatiently until then virtual card from wise instead of PayPal
Void Linux instead of windows/macOS
Surfshark for VPN
Can’t change everything though. I have a company phone. I could get an extra private phone, but I’d still need to use the company phone for company related stuff. Same is true for the company laptop, but I do have my own computer.
It’s not perfect, but the important thing to me is trying as best as I can.
- Chromium forks are troublesome. I'd suggest Mullvad Browser or LibreWolf instead.
  Qwant is nice, but SearXNG aggregates qwant together with several other engines. Then there's a new up-and-comer called Mwmbl.
  Proton is yet another ecosystem that pretends to be for privacy while actually doing the opposite. Instead, Tuta or Mailbox (only downside to mailbox is no free accounts).
  No comment on payment systems, I don't trust any of them except maybe a local Credit Union.
  Practically any Linux, don't limit suggestions to one distro when there are many with varied support and out-of-the-box options.
  Mullvad VPN + Mullvad Browser were made for each other, browser being co-developed with Tor Project, and is the highest rated in terms of defeating browser fingerprinting (even over Tor), and they have pioneered DAITA. I see many, many mixed thoughts on Surfshark. It is mainly a cheap and better alternative to Nord or Proton, but Mullvad is only $5/mo and you get so much more.
  None of the above are USA-based apart from Mwmbl, but it is non-profit and wholly FOSS.
  Test your browser fingerprints:
  https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
  https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/
  
  I listed the stuff I use and what I changed. There’s also a reason why I chose this specific Linux distro as I try to avoid as much as I can with the jurisdiction in the US, which means a lot of Linux distros are not an option anymore.
  But that does not mean everyone needs to do the same. Do whatever you think is best.
- Im trying to find a replacement for Proton, as the new CEO likes trump and seems pretty far right..
  I am afraid that they will start enshitification soon
  
  I’m also not that happy with proton. Maybe tuta could be a replacement.

It's Trump-proofish
I approve of Matrix and Nextcloud.
Proton unfortunately is probably the easiest option for now. We need better self hosted / anonymous email servers, but spammers and scammers have probably ruined that for everybody forever and fuck them all to hell for that. Best option is to just abandon email for anything sensitive.
All the alternative social media is better, but they can still absolutely feed the lot of it into an LLM and then ask the LLM to print out a list of "likely dissidents." I would be shocked if this isn't coming soon to a United States near you - then again, I'm one to talk posting this on Lemmy, using a username I've used for close to two decades, from an instance that runs on a server I rent from a corporate cloud host.
OS should be Whonix, Tails or Qubes.
Browser should be Tor Browser (or at least get a mention). PRACTICALLY, for most people, I would recommend Brave over LibreWolf (for reasons of stability, compatibility, more frequent security patches and the fact that the Mozilla project has been unfortunately going to shit lately). Yes the company sucks, but the browser consistently scores top marks on real world privacy and security tests.
No mention of FDE or post quantum crypto. Quantum chips are coming effing fast, if they're not already here. I have reason to believe both the US and China can currently make practical use of Shor's algorithm, although only in a targeted and VERY expensive way... but Moore's Law man, plus I can't prove it and I can't say more. Post quantum doesn't seem to be on most people's radar (most troublingly, the Tor project).
Anything to do with phones is literally fucked, like "This is fine" dog level fucked. If you MUST be mobile (like basically everybody trying to do basically anything), you must accept you're probably NOT really fascist proof, unless you go to some pretty extreme lengths and REALLY know what you're doing.
As far as your average normie (or even above average competence tech saavy user) goes, this is close to as Trump proof as you're likely to get right now without help and support. So great, but it has holes in it a fascist regime could drive a brigade of tanks through, and unless you EITHER have that help and support OR really know what you're doing, you should be thinking about that REALLY hard, every day.
We collectively decided decades ago that centralized services are more convenient and better able to connect us to the people and content we want to be connected to (although we were very deliberately herded in that direction by oligarchs). Now we will pay the price.
tl:dr; The only infrastructure we can trust is our own. Not liking that, and not having the skills or resources to do anything practical about it (tragically, terrifyingly) doesn't make it not true. Plus needing to stay connected to the people and resources we can ONLY access through third party services and infrastructure, continues to make us reliant on those services and infrastructure, unto our own ruin.

Eh, better read would be https://privacyguides.org/

- That right there is going to kill any chance of me getting any of my friends to use it. Which is unfortunate and a side effect of not having a centralized server.
  But when you're trying to get someone to start using your app, trying to convince them to at least open the app once a day to make it so it's able to be open in the background is a pretty hard ask of a lot of people

Proton?

This relies on a ton of private companies in countries with even weaker consumer protections than the US in many cases. Like if you criticize Israel on pretty much any EU platform, they'll throw you in jail if located there.
- I can see you’ve spent a lot of time in any European country
- Like if you criticize Israel on pretty much any EU platform, they'll throw you in jail if located there.
  Is there any merit to this claim?
  
  no

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