freddyym

It would appear that you suffer from acute privacy nihilism [0].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/the-a...

Privacy Guides | https://www.privacyguides.org/ | Remote | Full Time

Privacy Guides is a socially motivated website that provides information for protecting your data security and privacy. We are a non-profit project with a mission to inform the public about the value of digital privacy, and about global government initiatives which aim to monitor your online activity. Our website is free of advertisements and not affiliated with any of the listed providers.

We have a small, remote team of privacy researchers and advocates working to further our mission of protecting free expression and promoting privacy-respecting technology. As a non-profit, we are expanding very slowly to ensure the project is sustainable in the long term.

Interested in making people more private online? Have a look at our open roles:

- Content Creator

- Journalist

- Intern - Community/News

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/about/jobs/

And also an archived one. Large portions of the list are out of date and, in some cases, frankly unsafe. Moreover, the notion of degoogling is misguided: privacy should be the aim, not eradicating Google.

From the article:

> Yes, I understand that Wilbur also sued people. I’m not claiming that he was a good person. My point is that in a humane world, no part of this story would even be possible.

Great story related to a great show, thanks for sharing!

It's admirable elegant variation. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation

In some ways, we did. 0 hour contracts have been on the rise for a while [0] and these can result in drastically varied shifts. One day you could be working for seven hours, another for only four. You could be set to work from 9-5 and get sent home at 3 because you weren't needed. It probably happens more than most expect...

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/414896/employees-with-ze...

Have been using this for 7/8 months and its honestly great. The community is really wholesome, the admin is very helpful and the product is far more than just a silly webpage. Glad to see it getting attention on HN!

Orwell's Politics and the English Language is a masterful essay. Forget that he gets his own rules wrong when setting them (twice) - but it rarely fails. It also happens to be the basis for the Economist's style guide...

> We also drink an absolute shit load of black tea.

And notably little green tea.

> Tea is superb on a hot day and we have had quite a few recently.

This is because tea is generally superb. It is the solution to all problems. 'Put the kettle on' is often the first thing said after anything goes wrong.

A large portion of blurb quotes come from people who haven't read the book... [0]

0 https://www.the-fence.com/issues/issue-9/in-the-beginning-wa...

> Nice up-to-date collection. I'm tired of finding old lists like this but filled with legacy, unmaintained programs.

It doesn't seem very up-to-date even if the last update was only three hours ago. It still describes Element as 'Matrix + Riot client' even though this changed in 2020. [0]

> I like these little interjections to explain things for beginners.

These are nice, however a proper criteria would be even nicer. Currently it is just a list of vaguely private and open source software.

0 - https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/

They're also very transparent [0] which is awesome. I know the developers, who are great as well.

[0] https://safing.io/ownership/

Meta is Facebook, but worse. As this article elucidates, Meta is not providing anything novel. It will still be violating our privacy, daily, on an unprecedented scale - it is now just dressed up as a playful holographic universe rather than a soul-destroying mega-corporation.

I've always been a fan of Write.as when it comes to newsletters [0], and everything they do honestly. Great company and great products.

[0] https://write.as/letters

Holy shit: https://about.facebook.com/meta/

From my experience, its the speed that a post gets points/comments that matters. If you get three quick enough you should get on the front page.

A recent study found that younger generations said that it was easier to leave their partner than to leave a company that did not respect their privacy [0]. It is easy to adopt the mindset of 'privacy nihilism'[1]: your data is out there and you cannot escape it. Yet that same aforementioned study also noted that 75% of Americans were concerned about online privacy.

And there are more reasons to believe that attitudes to privacy are changing for the better. Research by Demos found that half of young people in the UK said they were either extremely or very concerned by 'online privacy'.[2]

Arguably the biggest obstacle to privacy is the effort it requires. People perceive reclaiming privacy to be far harder than it actually is. But for most, privacy is achievable. As individuals, we have the ability to chose which services we use. You might just want to switch to a few more privacy respecting alternatives, using Startpage instead of Google, or ProtonMail instead of GMail. Sites such as Privacy Guides, of which I am a team member, showcase tools and knowledge to protect your privacy. It is surprising how few steps it can take to massively increase your privacy.

[0]https://www.securitymagazine.com/gdpr-policy?url=https%3A%2F...

[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/the-a...

[2]http://demos.co.uk/press-release/demos-young-voters-concerne...

"Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world" ~ Eric Hughes

The question about privacy is not about hiding, it is about sharing. It is not that I have nothing to hide, I just do not have anything I want to share, especially unknowingly.

The best agrument is that privacy is power.[0] It is the power to influence you, show you adverts and predict your behaviour. Our personal data is being used as knowledge against us - as power against us. It is used to make us do things we otherwise would not do: to buy a certain product or to vote a certain way.

As companies share more information with governments, they are able to learn more and more about their citizens. Take Facebook, a company that Laura Poitras described as 'a gift to intelligence agencies'[1]. Facebook allows governments to arrest people planning to participate in protests before they have even begun. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our privacy is eroding. As a society, we are beginning to accept this lack of privacy as normal: and this is extremely dangerous. Privacy provides a place for us to be ourselves, to express ourselves in new ways without fear of being watched by preying eyes. If we lose privacy then we lose this ability to experiment, and, more importantly, we lose our power.

[0]https://aeon.co/essays/privacy-matters-because-it-empowers-u...

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/10/23...

Welp.

> I miss the old version of PT where everything was all on one page, and I could just save the page for some offline reference.

See here: https://privacytools.io/classic/

One of the first things we plan on doing with the new organisaion is creating a criteria for each section. (We already do this for some sections, e.g. email and vpns). That way we can just judge each software suggestion against our guidelines and bypass all the fuss. And then we can focus on more exciting things like expanding the site and working on the community.

Currently it is a not-for-profit organization, though we plan on creating a new legal organization designed around the community to ensure our long-term sustainability.

If you wait until the new name is decided, then you can get in contact with me via email: hello [at] freddym [dot] xyz

Glad you like the site!

I'm sorry you think that we are just one of 'those spam VPN review sites'. As a team member, I can assure you that we hate them just as much as you. [1]

VPNs used to play a large role in the site (they no longer do), but we've never accepted any affiliate requests. (We do however operate a sponsorship programe which we are working on making a criteria for). [2,3] We have a strict criteria for the few VPNs we do list on our site. [4] We strive to educate users on the purpose of VPNs [5], and try not to recommend when there are other options.

[1] https://blog.privacytools.io/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privac... [2]https://www.privacytools.io/sponsors/ [3]https://github.com/privacytools/privacytools.io/issues/2134 [4] https://privacytools.io/providers/vpn/#criteria [5] https://blog.privacytools.io/understanding-vpns/

We haven't had proper contact with him for a while. And even when he was "available", it was so intermittent that he may as well have been absent. (I've been in the team for a year and they have logged on to our Matrix chat about three times). This affected fundamental tasks like updating the site and having our servers for our services work.

I'd advise reading pretty much everything that they write on privacy, its all very worthwhile.