Become Anonymous: The Ultimate Guide To Privacy, Security, & Anonymity

[Music] every day your privacy is being invaded from websites you visit tech companies people around you governments and the list can go on forever it may feel impossible to regain your privacy and security on the internet but that's ridiculous it is possible today i'm going to show you how to regain your privacy on the internet what becoming anonymous really means boost your security and most importantly be able to spread what you do to other people you know to make a much bigger impact i have one disclaimer for you the more private insecure you want to become the more inconvenient your life will be this is just a sad reality to address this issue we've split things up into three zones the first is zone one which is your starting point and what we recommend everybody implements zone two will be a bit more intense and expand on things from section one zone three will expand more and introduce some of the more extreme solutions for those of you looking to truly disappear as much as you can these zones are inspired from a traditional threat model and we recommend everybody listening develops their own threat model if they don't want to use our zone system again your privacy matters likely by the end of this video you'll be spammed with great information so feel free to use our checklist and scoring pdf in the description to help yourself keep up at the end of the video i'll also have a fun test you can do to evaluate how private and secure you are which will reference that pdf without further ado let's begin with zone one you should be avoiding your browser or operating system's password manager bad passwords or even worse reusing the same password on several sites as one breach can lead to any account with the same credentials being reached as well the best thing to do is use a password manager that is all protected with a strong master password the simplest recommendation is bitwarden a cloud-based manager and there's also keepass which is more designed for local password storage aside from passwords do not answer security questions truthfully as these are painfully easy to guess even for a stranger we recommend generating random answers inside of your password manager the passwords on your device are important as well make sure these are long complex passwords that you're able to memorize there are easy ways to do this as demonstrated very well by mr edward snowden margaret thatcher is 110 sexy wow additionally your router is what all of your devices connect to and that needs a strong password as well generate your router password in your password manager to ensure it is very secure also set an admin password to access your web portal and ensure you're at least using wpa2 for the utmost security and finally biometrics these are almost universally less secure than a good password you also carry the risk of being forced to unlock your phone with biometrics which can't as easily happen with a password in certain countries like the us ensure at the very least that you're disabling biometrics when entering high-risk areas like airports protests and other places with heavy law enforcement 2fa is that text message you receive when logging into a service to add additional protection to your account 2fa through text messages is better than nothing but we recommend using a local authenticator app for ios there's tofu and authenticator and android has and otp and aegis authy is a more convenient cloud-based solution but it is closed source there are also hardware based keys you can utilize don't forget to back these up no matter what you choose somewhere separate from an account that requires to a phase so you don't get locked out from your 2fa because you don't have the 2fa to unlock the 2fa vault all of us have a digital footprint which is any piece of data on the internet tied back to you as an individual between all of the data about you there's likely enough information to understand you better than you understand yourself and this is all unregulated to minimize this issue we need to make our footprints as small as we possibly can for part one we immediately recommend starting with google go ahead and disable everything in the google my activity page and ensure you're using the least amount of personal information necessary for other services if even one of the dozens or hundreds of accounts you own experiences a breach your information is now publicly online you should dive into every service you've ever signed up for and for the ones you no longer need fake personal information including the email with something like gorilla mail and delete it a good place to find services you've signed up for is digging through those old verification emails as well as sites like just deleteme.xyz here are some social media rules for part one first make sure to utilize the basic privacy settings given to you within your accounts second don't talk friend or follow strangers use it strictly for people you know third avoid commenting or responding to public posts that are outside of your group fourth do not hand over any personal information or permissions that websites or apps do not need facebook doesn't need your home address and snapchat doesn't need to track your location all day a vpn will encrypt your traffic inside a tunnel to prevent all people between you and your vpn from snooping on your traffic additionally a vpn will mask your ip address which sites use to track and invade you and even sometimes serve you different prices when shopping based on your location the main drawback to vpns is you're transferring trust to a central entity to handle your web traffic luckily picking something trusted doesn't need to be too much of a guessing game we do vpn reviews on our channel using a systematic community driven process to keep things as transparent as possible our current top recommendations are a proton vpn movad ivpn winscribe and surfshark i'll leave all of those in the description as well as their reviews so you can compare what works best for you the internet exists i mean more or less so you can communicate right and you can do everything in this video and still be communicating insecurely the first and most important thing is to ensure you're using encryption this means avoid sms aka the green bubbles and move to things like imessage or preferably signal which is an easy cross-platform messenger that includes encrypted phone and video calls all with minimal tracking there are other messengers as well to try out listed on privacy tools io outside messages email is a privacy and security nightmare the easiest thing to do is to move over to services like protonmail and to noda these don't require any personal information and will fully encrypt your emails even when being sent to people using other email providers you do have to select that specifically when sending the messages we also covered other options in our recent top five email providers videos so check that out 33 mail gorilla mail and techmail are all great services to utilize for disposable emails browsers are what connect you to the internet giving them a huge level of control over your privacy and security for zone one ensure you're only using trusted extensions from original sources next change your search engine to something privacy respecting duckduckgo is a default option in most browsers if you're a fan of google results then start page will give you google results privately and if you want the most open and transparent search engine check out search.me lastly cookies and other data stored by your browser are instrumental tools used to track you ensure you're clearing them frequently using incognito mode when necessary as well as enabling some of the basic security and privacy precautions your browser may offer nowadays all of us have a tracking device on us 24 7 aka our smartphones these devices have powerful sensors and technology that are constantly active and collecting data shared with companies individuals and governments alike for zone one opt out of the options you're given in your settings disable analytics telemetry data collection usage data go through each app and ensure apps only have permissions for things they need to function also disable radios like wi-fi cellular data nfc apple pay and especially bluetooth and gps when not in use on a similar note to disable as many features and settings as possible especially within your applications and ensure you're removing things you don't need less is more as each app and feature is an additional threat make sure you're using a vpn we already covered that your mac address is a unique identifier that helps identify your device on a wireless network lucky for us ios 14 and android 10 now include mac address randomization so make sure that's enabled lastly make sure you're using automatic software updates for both the operating system and applications so you're receiving the latest patches and security improvements for your device disable the options you're given like analytics usage data app settings and permissions and disable your radios when not in use features as well should be disabled if you don't use them and you should uninstall all apps and programs you don't use especially the bloatware that comes pre-installed on windows a vpn on your computer is also important along with automatic software updates for your programs and operating system your files are at the root of what you want to protect both sensitive files like your documents photos and memories but also the temporary files like cookies that can all paint a pretty clear picture of who you are in zone 1 remove and clear temporary data as frequently as you can like logs on your system temporary data from your web browser and really anything else that is just passively collected from your usage you can do this with a tool like bleach bits and built-in tools within your browser and operating system as for deleting your sensitive files just recycling a trash bin doesn't actually delete your files for good this is a giant misconception you have to shred your files bleachbit is a simple way to do this last and this is just for anything related to storage make backups we'll talk about private and secure solutions in zone two and three but for now it can be a hard drive you keep at home in the cloud anything i don't really care just back up your stuff it's really important the bare minimum is to have an on-site backup and an off-site backup something we often forget when talking about digital privacy and security is the real world which can directly feed the digital world as the relationship between them becomes closer every day for zone one never input personal information on a public computer for personal devices we recommend being wary with things like smart watches and fitness trackers that collect data about you and can be disastrous for privacy we have talked about the options available to you more thoroughly in our privacy health tracking video on a similar note the less iot or internet of things devices you have the better alexa does not need to be in every room of the house these devices are grossly insecure and are only built to track you within your home we do recommend safes and shredders two things every person should own we'll leave some options in the description for you to look at for both of those and that was the end of zone one if you completed everything here you're already much better off than most people and it ideally shouldn't have been terribly difficult to implement [Music] zone 1 covered the main things you should know about passwords zone 2 is just a bit higher up in that we'd say to disable biometrics at all times we talked about the legal differences as well as how it's less secure so maintain a higher degree of security all day is where we're going to stand in zone 2. going back to your footprint we're going to minimize this even more we're going to make you so small step one and this is a big step but we'd recommend deleting google altogether getting away from a privacy intruding data hungry company by full out deleting your account is something that will do you wonders i laid out my whole journey and the steps you can take to delete your google account in its own video it's not easy i'm warning you so just be aware it can be challenging and no one expects this to happen overnight the second step is to create accounts separate from your main identity or pseudonyms you can set these up for specific tasks like shopping social media dating or more and you can get started with just an email and other pseudonym specific information we will cover other software and tools you can use to take your pseudonyms to the next level throughout the rest of this guide voip is the simplest option think of it as just a phone number you own digitally google voice burner hushed my sudo are some options with a fee only problem is some sites will flag these virtual numbers prepaid phone sims can be obtained from your store or ordered online with something like mint.com you'll own a physical number that shouldn't give you any issues for a relatively cheap cost no matter what you pick the most important thing is figuring out what each number is tied to try to have a method be it identities or use case at this point you should not have any of your real personal information accessible on social media you're using the service more or less as just a non-personal account that your friends and family know is you or this may not even be for your friends and family and it's just a casual account for yourself to go along with this you shouldn't be posting images of yourself clearview ai is a perfect demonstration of how an anonymous account can seriously just go to waste if you just upload your face so either obfuscate your face or don't post any personal photos lastly social media apps tend to be extremely intrusive we recommend keeping as much social media as you can within progressive web apps there are other apps on android that do this or just use the add to home screen option within your web browser on both android and ios in zone two your browser is going to be something we can play a lot more with first avoid just using one browser as most likely there are reasons to use specific browsers for different use cases for desktop tor firefox brave and safari are all browsers we recommend each with specific use cases tours for anonymity so not your personal accounts firefox is best hardened and is considered a great private browser for personal usage brave is out of the box and ready to go with great security and privacy based on chromium which may be better compatible with sites than firefox go incognito has a quadrilogy that covers all of this much more thoroughly that we'd recommend watching that will also give you a better idea of how to separate browsers properly for mobile check out tor firefox focus duckduckgo and bromite for android as some things you could look at for different use cases those go incognito lessons would apply to mobile as well free and open source software allows everyone to view and contribute and it's what we generally consider the standard for privacy and security try to move as much as you can over to foss to start look at what you use day to day then use alternative2.net and sort by open source to find recommended alternatives if you're on an android device f droid is a simple way to immerse yourself with the foss community for ios there's alt store but this is nowhere near as developed as f droid or as officially supported apple uh doesn't really like that kind of stuff lastly linux is your main go-to foss option for a desktop os we'll talk more about linux in zone three but for some of you open to it in zone two give it a shot so there's ios android and linux which is best for your security and privacy to start we classify android into three types type one is what you likely think of a standard android device from samsung htc lg and other manufacturers these are lockdown google the phone manufacturer and likely your carrier all track you and these devices tend to have really poor security update support type 2 is stock or close to stock android google is the only sole predominant company tracking you and has much better security update support already offering us a huge improvement over type 1 android on almost all fronts ios crushes type 1 android devices if we compare something like a pixel to an ios device it's really kind of a toss-up on all fronts trading blows in general though we'd still likely recommend ios over type 2 android as apple is more privacy friendly than google type 3 android is custom roms linux os is an option but will lower your security of your device we recommend graphene os and calyx os as it'll be the most private device you get beating ios while competing with ios in the security front as well these are currently your best bet as for linux phones we don't feel comfortable recommending linux phones as they're not really ready for mainstream use and calyx or graphene we consider stronger and both security and privacy with better software compatibility so to put it simply ditch your samsung phone please or whatever else you bought from your carrier that's locked down into its own ecosystem if you want something out of the box decide if you'd like ios or android then get an iphone or a type 2 android device if you want to explore better options get a pixel and flash something like graphene or calyx over to computers part two first we recommend password protecting your bios and encrypting your drives with full disk encryption encrypting your drives prevents someone from powering on your device and accessing files or pulling the hard drive out and accessing them without needing a user password mac os and linux have great built-in tools windows doesn't tow unless you pay for windows pro because apparently basic security is paywall but veracrypt works on windows and we do have a guide covering how to set that up you can also implement file level encryption for your individual files and folders that need protection veracrypt works well for this on any platform as well you can spoof your mac address at this point and there are several tools and methods on different operating systems we recommend checking out windows does a lot of tracking on its users even with everything disabled in the settings it's kind of terrible tools like w10 privacy aim to dig deeper into the os and disable things you couldn't normally disable warning this may break some stuff so be cautious as it's not guaranteed to stop everything zone three will cover what operating system to choose but for now mac os will beat windows on almost all fronts so if you're making that decision between the two big competitors mac os will win at least for the price of security world at this point we recommend enabling full disk encryption on your drives like we just talked about metadata is another problem every file contains something called metadata which offers you information about the file this can be incredibly sensitive as images for example can include the location of where the photo is taken metadata nowadays can not just expose you to others on the internet but even services that strip the metadata before publishing your content can abuse it as imger recently proved there are several exif the metadata in photos removers as for other files the best method is using a tool like matt2 which strips this data and finally disconnect from your screen a bit let's go into real world part two you should have some kind of home security solution whatever that means to you at the very least have security cameras ideally not fed to some company managing the footage there are some diy methods you can look into you should have alarms in place on windows and doors and especially have plans on what to do during break-ins and other intense situations for tech within your home there are cable locks you can buy for your laptops there are also intrusion kits for certain desktops we'll leave links below for these locks and intrusion kits by now you shouldn't have any iot or smart devices seriously lastly for your mobile devices especially look into getting privacy screen protectors to hide your screen from side angles as well as covering the cameras on your webcams and computers there are sliding camera covers to still keep functionality while blocking them when not in use we'll leave links to this in the description you are such a stud muffin if you got this far but sun threes for the legendary folk so let's go into zone three you don't need to delete everything but you should have as clean of a slate as possible which is possible to do and we've thoroughly laid out how and go incognito 2.4 this is extremely difficult and it will take time but be assured it is possible and we believe in you i hate to be the bearer of bad news but you need to stop your internet addiction you need to stop looking at it social media better yet delete it all together that lesson of go incognito covers this more thoroughly but exporting your data deleting your data falsifying your information and then deleting your accounts is the way to go we get it it's hard but it really is necessary if you're in zone three and your utmost goal is privacy back to your browser at this point we're going to cover the more advanced techniques to take your browsing to the next level for your personal accounts your best bet is to use hardened firefox meaning you're configuring the browser for the utmost privacy and security there are stock settings scripts extensions and more tweaks to make that is all laid out on the privacy tools io website as well as by us in go incognito 3.7 to 3.10 ironically if you hardened your browser your web fingerprint is now unique which in itself can be used to track you and decrease your privacy however this isn't fully a con but more importantly it's something you need to remember when deciding what the browser is used for for a hardened firefox which would be extremely unique this is for personal accounts and things that are directly tied to you making the fingerprinting really not much of a concern push the casual stuff though through something like tor which will have a very common fingerprint and that will not be tied to you through these techniques behavioral analysis is another tracking technique abusing things like the way you type what you type and how you move your mouse as just a few examples no matter what browser you're using this is hard to guard against and lastly social engineering is becoming more prominent in a nutshell this relies on abusing the natural trust humans have for each other phishing emails that disguise themselves as real emails are a form of social engineering but this can get a lot more complex as someone could call your number requesting information that may seem harmless but it's actually something important this is actually a technique used by the magicians in now you see me to get the answers to security questions of a bank account there's no simple way to stop this if there was a lot of problems would be solved in our world but being aware of it is vital as well as keeping up with the newest attacks and trends for an easy recommendation tour again for anonymity pseudonyms and casual and non-personal usage hardened firefox for your personal accounts then maybe something like brave as a chromium-based backup with decent privacy and security for things reliant on chromium for smartphones part 3 the first thing is to ditch smart dumb phones are great because they don't track you but they're so dumb you won't be able to do basic things like encrypt your messages they're also not immune to location tracking through cell tower triangulation aside from dumb phones at this point we'd recommend graphene os or calyx os we've reviewed graphene on our channel and we'll be reviewing calyx soon subscribe to catch that the last option is to not have a phone at all there are people who rely on a voip through their computer alone which is an option lastly there doesn't need to be a single choice you can have a custom rom an iphone and a flip phone you rich person all with different use cases designed around your threat model the possibilities are endless and fully aimed at what you're trying to accomplish so make the best out of what you have let's talk about your computer's operating system we already talked about mac os beating out windows in almost every regard linux though has the ability to make things a step further the ability many security researchers actually criticize linux for not implementing quite as strong security as something like mac os but this is very nitty gritty and the debate is on going where linux wins hands down is offering a universally more private option as it's open source and the community can view everything happening within the os here is the hierarchy of what os to choose based on privacy security oversimplified windows is on the bottom as the most privacy invading followed by mac os generic linux distros like linux mint fedora debian etc then come to more specific operating systems like tails os huniks and cubes tails os and huniks are built mostly for anonymity by utilizing tor whereas cubes is built for security and delegates anonymity to the hunix virtual machine there is no right answer on what os to pick each has pros and cons including windows so it really comes down to you understanding why you're on an operating system and being aware of its limitations you may be asking yourself how do you buy things both online and in real life anonymously in person the easy and obvious answer is cash the internet though will complicate things the first option on the internet is mail in cash which is rare but i have seen it the second option is using gift cards you got in person with cash like maybe amazon spotify and other retailers the third option is getting a non-reliable visa gift card in person with cash that should work with most sites the fourth option is cryptocurrencies you have a few options within this first you can use non-private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin obtained privately through either mining or locally with something like local bitcoin second is using a mixer but these aren't very proven and can be sketchy so be wary and third the recommended crypto option is using a currency built for privacy like monero fifth there are sites like privacy.com that proxy your card information from sites and your purchase information from your bank which is pretty neat to recap you do have options to buy things anonymously both in person and online it just takes some extra effort but you can do it we believe in you it always ties back to the real world first at this point you should physically remove cameras and microphones from being accessible utilize external cameras like a plug-in webcam or external mics like the one on your earbuds second while this is not realistic for most people and their threat models avoid things like facial recognition ai and other public surveillance wearing sunglasses a face mask a hat are all things that help and there are some products online that aim to help thwart these technologies that is the end of zone three but there is actually one last point i want to make advocacy is just so important as just you implementing stuff in this guide won't make as much of a difference as getting all of your friends and family to simply change their search engine to something private or get them to be aware of what privacy even is and why it matters your job as a privacy advocate is to not just look after yourself but everybody else think about the other 99 who don't care and how we can help educate and advocate to them normalize privacy add tour to your desktop get eff and other privacy stickers clothing and merchandise do school projects on it ask your boss about it just talk about it learn why it's important have arguments ready for when your friends say they have nothing to hide there's no right way to solve the issues of privacy or else well we wouldn't have such a big privacy concern so get out there make a difference and seriously just come on advocate let's do this before wrapping up the video let's not forget about testing where you are on the spectrum of privacy and security first do a quick search with your name phone number address and any other personal information within search engines and see if anything comes up second go to some people searching websites like my life and the countless others and see if anything comes up third have you implemented everything or close to everything in zone one we have a much more thorough scoring system in our pdf in the description that we encourage you utilize to help yourself get started on your privacy journey everyone has different threat models and you should pick which one you want to be in beforehand but the goal is for everybody to be at least tech lore approved and then obviously you can go above and beyond but let's everyone get to tech lore approved and you will be solid and that was the end of this video i want to thank you for watching and especially everybody who made this video happen including our editor those who helped proofread the script everyone who gave feedback on our old video from our telegram community those who voted for the best title and thumbnail and especially our patrons who fund our work you can join that community as well if you want to support what we do for some extra perks on your end we really appreciate all the help and we're trying to hit that 500 a month goal seriously any dollar you have brings us closer to that goal so support what we do we also ask you to like this video subscribe for our future content like our weekly privacy and security news check out go incognito like the shirt says our full free in-depth course taking you from start to finish we have device specific versions of this guide for a more thorough look at each device currently ios and android with more like windows mac os and linux coming soon and do not forget to share this video that is something huge that really helps us but especially the privacy community as the more people who watch this kind of content the more we can spread our message thanks for watching and if there's two words that you should remember leaving here today just two normalize privacy see you all next time hey everybody again this video is probably not just one of the most fun ones to make but it's also very time consuming so we really do appreciate any support you give us peace out and i hope you enjoyed this guide

Channel: Techlore

Views: 311,424

Rating: 4.9500637 out of 5

Keywords: how to become anonymous, become anonymous, techlore, go anonymous, CalyxOS, how to be anonymous on the internet, how to browse the internet anonymously, how to be anonymous, privacy, security, anonymous, 2fa, footprint, identity, pseudonym, social media, VPN, Tor Browser, dark web, deep web, encryption, Firefox, Brave, GrapheneOS, LineageOS, Linux, MacOS, Android, Windows, FOSS, open source, go incognito, surveillance report, monero, best vpn, browser, cybersecurity, infosecurity, online, linus Tech Tips

Id: a1i-3xwcSGA

Length: 28min 58sec (1738 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/AutoModerator]

Congratulations on your first post in r/opsec! OPSEC is a mindset and thought process, not a single solution — meaning, when asking a question it's a good idea to word it in a way that allows others to teach you the mindset rather than a single solution.

Here's an example of a bad question that is far too vague to explain the threat model first:

I want to stay safe on the internet. Which browser should I use?

Here's an example of a good question that explains the threat model without giving too much private information:

I don't want to have anyone find my home address on the internet while I use it. Will using a particular browser help me?

Here's a bad answer (it depends on trusting that user entirely and doesn't help you learn anything on your own) that you should report immediately:

You should use X browser because it is the most secure.

Here's a good answer to explains why it's good for your specific threat model and also teaches the mindset of OPSEC:

Y browser has a function that warns you from accidentally sharing your home address on forms, but ultimately this is up to you to control by being vigilant and no single tool or solution will ever be a silver bullet for security. If you follow this, technically you can use any browser!

If you see anyone offering advice that doesn't feel like it is giving you the tools to make your own decisions and rather pushing you to a specific tool as a solution, feel free to report them. Giving advice in the form of a "silver bullet solution" is a bannable offense.

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