Image credit: “Lets leave planet GAFAM NATU BATX” by David Revoy for Framasoft − CC-BY 4.0

Why Privacy & Security Matter

This is a fairly old topic - bu Internet standards and some very good people have already written a lot about it, so it is now very well documented. Here are some of the most famous quotes:

Parce que vous vous foutez de vos libertés, ce sont les miennes qui disparaissent – @aeris, 2014.

Everything Is Broken – Quinn Norton, 2014. En français ici.

Most of us have nothing to hide but we all have something to lose – Tommy Collison, 2014.

I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are – u/starrywisdomofficial (alledgelly)

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as “security versus privacy.” The real choice is liberty versus control. – Bruce Schneier, The Eternal Value of Privacy, 2006.

Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’ – Daniel J. Solove, 2011.

This is a fairly old topic - by internet standards - and some very good people have written a lot about it, so it is now very well documented.

The lesson here is that there are three areas that need to be protected at all costs:

• The confidentiality of the exchange - we don’t want everyone to know who we’re talking to;
• Trust in the network - we want to be sure we’re talking to the right person;
• The security of the data itself - we don’t want our data to fall into the wrong hands.

So we want to guarantee the confidentiality, the integrity, but also the availability of the data that we use. Fortunately, the US cybersecurity community has come up with a cute anagram for us mortals to remember: C.I.A. (too bad, NSA¹ was already taken).

Software I use

My privacy-focused tools are selected primarily on the basis of their security features, with an additional emphasis on tools that are decentralised and open source. They are applicable to a variety of threat models, from protecting against global mass surveillance programmes to avoiding big tech companies to mitigating attacks. But only you can determine what works best for your needs².

Finding the right balance between Security, Privacy and Usability is one of the first and most difficult tasks we need to face as we strive to protect privacy. Security, in particular, is a process rather than a product, and there is a trade-off: the more secure something is, the more restrictive or inconvenient it usually is.

Here are some sample questions to help you familiarize yourself with the concept of threat modeling³ before you make your own decisions.

• What do I want to protect?
• Who do I want to protect it from?
• How likely is it that I will need to protect it?
• How bad are the consequences if I fail?
• How much trouble am I willing to go through to try to prevent potential consequences?

Once you’ve completed this quick assessment, you’re free to choose the software that you feel is best for your specific use case.

Mobile Web Browsers

See a Browser Comparison Table by DivestOS to understand the key differences between all the mobile browsers available for Android.

Mull for Android

Mull is a Gecko based privacy hardened fork of Firefox developed by DivestOS, with proprietary blobs removed. It enables many features upstreamed by the Tor uplift project using preferences from the arkenfox user.js project.

Warning: Firefox-based browsers on Android lack per-site process isolation.

Cromite for Android (Chromium based)

Cromite is a Chromium fork based on Bromite with built-in support for ad blocking and an eye for privacy.

Desktop Web Browsers

Firefox

Firefox, Open Source, independent browser. It requires some hardening and tweaking using preferences from the arkenfox user.js project to achieve better privacy.

Tor Browser

Tor Browser defends against surveillance by preventing anyone monitoring a user’s connection from knowing what websites they visit. Blocks trackers by isolating each website visited so that third-party trackers and ads can’t follow. Resists fingerprinting by making all users look the same, making it difficult to be fingerprint users based on their browser and device information. Multi-layered encryption, the traffic is relayed and encrypted three times as it passes over the Tor network.

Web Browser Extension

I follow Arkenfox’s position which recommends keeping extensions to a minimum: they have privileged access within your browser, require you to trust the developer, can make you stand out, and weaken site isolation. Therefore, I only use uBlock Origin.

uBlock Origin is an addon to Firefox (mobile) and Chrome/Chromium (desktop). It blocks ads, trackers and malware sites while conserving CPU and memory. Please read about what the addon does before installing, then choose one of the recommended modes to increase your privacy. If you don’t understand what you’re doing you could end up compromising your privacy.

In addition to the various blocklists that come pre-installed with the addon, I specifically use the DNS Block List maintained by Seb Sauvage, which is available in several formats:

• hosts format (0.0.0.0 hostname) https://sebsauvage.net/hosts/hosts for Android and computers. This hosts file can be used as is in Windows, Linux, MaOSX and in personalDNSFilterr and DNS66 on Android.
• AdGuard/uBlock-Origin format (||hostname^) https://sebsauvage.net/hosts/hosts-adguard , for Android and computers. This list can be used in AdGuard Android and uBlock Origin.

Email Services

According to your threat model, understanding the key disclosure laws for Belgium and Germany, also known as mandatory key disclosure, the laws that require individuals or businesses to surrender cryptographic keys to law enforcement, could enter into the equation when it comes to choosing an email provider. The two providers I have been long using - Mailfence since 2016 - support PGP/GnuPG encryption and two-factor authentication (2FA), custom domain names and aliases and are fairly privacy-friendly.

Mailfence

Mailfence is an email services based in Belgium
About // Privacy policy // Transparency report

Mailbox

Mailbox.org is based in Germany
About // Privacy policy // Transparency report

Email Clients

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a free, open-source, cross-platform email, newsgroup, news feed, and chat (XMPP, IRC, Matrix) client developed by the Thunderbird community, and previously by the Mozilla Foundation.

GNOME Evolution

Evolution is a personal information management application that provides integrated mail, calendaring and address book functionality. Evolution has extensive documentation to help you get started.

Fairemail (Android)

Fairemail is a fully-featured and easy mail client for Android, open-source email app, using open standards (IMAP, SMTP, OpenPGP). Supports unlimited accounts and email addresses with the option for a unified inbox. Clean user interface, with a dark mode option, it is also very lightweight and consumes minimal data usage

Encryption Tools

GnuPG/OpenPGP

Tools for signing, verifying, encrypting and decrypting text and files using GnuPG standard

GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is a GPL-licensed alternative to the PGP suite of cryptographic software. GnuPG is compliant with RFC 4880, which is the current IETF specification of OpenPGP. The GnuPG project has been working on an updated draft in an attempt to modernize OpenPGP. GnuPG is a part of the Free Software Foundation’s GNU software project and has received major funding from the German government.

OpenKeychain (Android)

OpenKeychain is one of the very few an Android implementation of GnuPG/OpenPGP. It works flawlessly with mail clients such as K-9 Mail and FairEmail in providing encryption support.

Veracrypt

Veracrypt is a free open source disk encryption software for Windows, macOS and Linux. You can use it to either encrypt a specific file or directory, or an entire disk or partition. VeraCrypt is incredibly feature-rich, with comprehensive encryption options, yet the GUI makes it easy to use. It has a CLI version, and a portable edition. VeraCrypt is the successor of (the now deprecated) TrueCrypt

LUKS

Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) is the default full disk encryption in Linux using dm-crypt. Securing a root file system is where dm-crypt excels, feature and performance-wise. Unlike selectively encrypting non-root file systems, an encrypted root file system can conceal information such as which programs are installed, the usernames of all user accounts, and common data-leakage vectors such as mlocate and /var/log/. Furthermore, an encrypted root file system makes tampering with the system far more difficult, as everything except the boot loader and (usually) the kernel is encrypted. I use LVM on LUKS with Arch Linux.

Password Management

KeypassXC

KeepassXC is a hardened, secure and offline password manager. Does not have cloud-sync baked in, deemed to be gold standard for secure password managers.

KeypassDX (Android)

KeepassDX is the Android client.

Search Engines

Startpage

Startpage is a private search engine. One of Startpage’s unique features is the anonymous view, which puts forth efforts to standardize user activity to make it more difficult to be uniquely identified. The feature can be useful for hiding some network and browser properties. Unlike the name suggests, the feature should not be relied upon for anonymity.

Warning: Startpage’s majority shareholder is System1 who is an adtech company although they have a distinctly separate privacy policy.

SearchXNG

SearXNG is a metasearch engine that aggregates the results of other search engines while not storing any information itself. You can either self-host or use any of the multiple public instances of SearXNG.

I use searx.envs.net.

VPN Service

Mullvad is a Swedish based VPN provider that retains no logs, and uses a mostly open source and transparent infrastructure available to the public. Mullvad is one of the best for privacy, they have a totally anonymous sign up process, you don’t need to provide any details at all, you can choose to pay anonymously too with Monero, BTC or cash.

Collaborative Tools

Nextcloud

Nextcloud is is a suite of free and open-source client-server software for creating your own file hosting services on a private server you control. It’s a feature-rich productivity platform, that can be used to backup and selectively sync encrypted files and folders between 1 or more clients. A key benefit the wide range of plug-ins in the NextCloud App Store, maintained by the community.

Cryptpad

Cryptpad is a zero knowledge cloud productivity suite, alternative to popular office tools. All content is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE)⁴ and can be shared with other users easily. Provides Rich Text, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Kanban, Paint a code editor and file drive. All content is encrypted by default and can be accessed with specific URL. CryptPad is entirely web-based ans works in any browser, desktop and mobile. You can use their web service, or you can host your own instance.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite with extensive functionality.

Send

Send is a fork of Mozilla’s Firefox Send that Mozilla discontinued. It’s actively maintained. Self-host or public instances including the maintainer own public instance.

PrivateBin

Privatebin self-hosted and public instances is minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. Data is encrypted/decrypted in the browser using 256 bits AES.

Real-Time Communication

Signal (centralized)

Signal has developed what’s become the Gold Standard in message encryption. Developed by Signal Messenger LLC. The app provides instant messaging and calls secured with the Signal Protocol, an extremely secure encryption protocol which supports forward secrecy and post-compromise security.

Warning: requires a phone number for registration

Element/Matrix (decentralized)

Element is the reference client for the Matrix protocol, an open standard for secure decentralized real-time communication.

Messages and files shared in private rooms (those which require an invite) are by default E2EE as are one to one voice and video calls.

Warning: No PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) and metadata-chatty

Sources:

• Framasoft - a 23yo French Non-Profit Association fighting against surveillance capitalism and promoting the use of Free Software
• Catalogue des logiciels libres - Socle Interministériel des Logiciels Libres (SIIL), Recommended Free Software for French public agencies
• Awesome Privacy List by Pluja - Github (11.8k stars)
• Awesome Privacy List by by Lissy93 - Github (5.9k stars)
• Awesome Privacy List by Nikita Voloboev - Github (1.9k stars)
• De-Google-ify Internet - Framasoft (multilingual)
• The guide to restoring your online privacy - Privacyguides (multilingual)
• Manuel du parfait petit crypto-anarchiste (1/3) - @aeris
• Manuel du parfait petit crypto-anarchiste (2/3) - @aeris
• Manuel du parfait petit crypto-anarchiste (3/3) - @aeris
• Librezo.fr - A group of digital artisans offering an alternative to the big online services by promoting self-hosting, individual support and free software solutions installed on your own server.
• Recommended apps for Android - DivestOS
• Instant Messenger Comparison Table - DivestOS
• Mobile Browser Comparison Table - DivestOS
• Ethical Alternatives & Resources - Ethical Networks
• Privacy and Tools - the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Surveillance Self-Defense Tips, Tools and How-Tos for Safer Online Communications - a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Ethical, easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software - switching.software
• How to configure Firefox to enhance security and privacy - Arch Linux Wiki
• Arkenfox user.js for Firefox (releases) - Arkenfox user.js is a template which aims to provide as much privacy and enhanced security as possible, and to reduce tracking and fingerprinting as much as possible - while minimizing any loss of functionality and breakage.
• The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism - “Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. The company is creating a wholly new genus of capitalism, a systemic coherent new logic of accumulation we should call surveillance capitalism” – Shoshana Zuboff
• Edward Snowden on Substack
• Bruce Schneier, cryptographer, computer security professional and privacy specialist
• Thaddeus E. Grugq on Medium, Substack, Fediverse