Does the Proton VPN iOS app route all DNS queries through the tunnel, and ultimately to their DNS servers, on both cellular and Wi-Fi?

I figure WiFi will for but I only have a very basic understanding of how cellular data works and I am pretty new to the privacy conscious networking game. So maybe this is a stupid ass question but I’d appreciate any insight!

P.S. this is my first real post into the fediverse! Be gentle.

On Linux and Android. What are privacy oriented alternatives to Firefox now that it's no longer trustworthy?

The ability to sync between devices would be a huge bonus, even just on a local network.

They have several apps on F-Droid, which is usually a good sign . . .

EDIT: But try to sign up and they want your name, address, and phone number. Forget it!

A common situation in my life is the following: a small-ish organization consisting of somewhere from 3 to 50 people need some type of way to be reached as a group. The current solution is to have an email adress, normally with a password that is shared in some way among the trusted subset of members that need to be able to access the email directly.

The solution isn't great for multiple reasons:

• Sharing a password among multiple people isn't great, 2FA is tricky
• Most email communication are readable by the email provider, unless PGP is correctly used. For most people, PGP is non-trivial to use correctly, and meta-data will not be encrypted even with correctly used PGP.

But it has the following upsides:

• A single stable address to reach the group
• Communication is gathered in one place, searchable, possible to for multiple members to track communication with someone that has reached out.
• Easy to use from any device anywhere

Ideally we'd like all of these things: sensible access controls, some level of transparency within the org regarding who has responded to what messages, an address that is easy to share with people outside the group, minimal (meta)data accessible by the providers, and easy to use across devices.

How do you handle this? What would your recommendation be? I have considered setting up a Signal account, but having multiple signal accounts on a single device is non-trivial, as is setting it up on a new device, meaning that probably each group would need a single dedicated device, which isn't super practical.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/24809302

also i can't self-host.

Opting out of ATT seems like the most obvious no-brainer, but are there options for phone service that are actually halfway decent?

Or as an alternative, would it be feasible to get some kind of internet phone/texting service, use that over wifi, or maybe have a basic data plan to go with it at most?

https://archive.ph/ein6g

The video presents how far British government has come to spy on its citizens and some call for them to wake up and fight for their privacy!

Does the school you go to need to know that you have the Signal app installed on your phone, checking with the Signal servers in the background for new messages? Even if you chose to use a VPN to tunnel your traffic entirely, is there no other option but for your employer to witness you connected to a foreign VPN server? If you connected to a point at your home, even that could be interpreted that you have something hide.

You could have two phones with different sets of apps in your pocket (one for “business” and one for everything else), but you if you don’t want that you have to ask:

Is there a firewall for Android that can block your usual traffic from leaving the device, by turning on a specific profile based on something like the Wi-Fi name? There are quite a few traffic blockers, such as RethinkDNS, Netguard, or personalDNSfilter, but they assume you want to block the same set of traffic regardless of time and place.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26233189

"Android System SafetyCore’ claims to be a ‘security’ application, but whilst running in the background, it collects call logs, contacts, location, your microphone, and much more making this application ‘spyware’ and a HUGE privacy concern. It is strongly advised to uninstall this program if you can. To do this, navigate to 'Settings’ > 'Apps’, then delete the application."

If you don't want to navigate android settings you can also simply uninstall it from the Play Store https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.safetycore

Additionaly you can install this placeholder app to prevent Google from reinstalling it every time it updates: https://github.com/daboynb/SafetyCore-placeholder

ive been using expandroid, but sadly it stoped working for the stuff i most need it for.

now i found texpandapp(.)com. its really nice cuz it works my browser and note taking app.

most home calling can be stopped via dns blocking i guess (?), but it still has those questionable permissions:

• view network connections 😒
• use fingerprint hardware 👌
• run foreground service with the type "dataSync" 🥱
• run at startup 👌 -ask to ignore battery optimizations👌
• have full network access 😳😳😳
• prevent phone from sleeping🤔
• Advertising ID Permission 🙄
• run foreground service 👌
• Google Play billing service 👌
• Play Install Referrer API 🤔

how bad is all of that? keylogger-level bad?

(cannot block all internet access, bad phone and the vpn slot is occupied)

edit: turns out split tunnelling with "block all connections without vpn" does the job, nice.

I live in Canada, and I am figuring out a way to get a "registered" phone number from a cell company just for SMS verification texts. However, I am wanting to find out if there is a service that would do the same thing (and potentially cheaper: the lowest plan I found from a carrier is CAD$15/mo). I would be using it just for SMS verification texts (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.).

Might sound a bit of a silly question. I see people talking about threat models, and privacy guides which say things like "if this is part of your threat model, do X Y Z". I'm just not sure if it's a general "this is what I want to protect myself against" or if there's more to it.

So, I've been using keepassxc for some time now, but I wanted a viable alternative for command line usage (there is keepassxc-cli, that I use, but it is really a pain in the ass). So, I searched and found pass and gopass.

However, I've seen that they store each entry in a gpg encrypted file, inside a plain directory hierarchy. And, don't get me wrong, I believe that there are use cases for this, but if someone got their hands in your password_store, they would know every single login that you have (the only information that is protected is the password, or whatever is in the gpg file).

So, my question is, there is a password manager, cli based, that encrypts the whole database, and not the single entries?

Update: there is a pass extension made specifically to address this issue

Hi, I've read a lot about different browsers for both PC and android but I just can't seem to find whether disabling JavaScript on firefox (in my case ironfox on grapheneos) actually makes firefox's security acceptable/good compared to chromium based browsers (in my case vanadium) I don't want to support google's browser dominance nor do I trust them to make the browser without intentional privacy risks. (I'm sure the GOS team will or have removed any obvious privacy invasive features if any exist.)

I assume vanadium without JavaScript would be safer than ironfox without JavaScript but is ironfox without JavaScript actually safe enough for daily use and random website visits?

PS: my threat model is that I'm probably not in danger but want to limit all data collection as much as possible. I don't have anything to necessarily hide but I still care about privacy.

Like many others, I’ve been looking into internet browsers lately. This guy has put together a pretty extensive comparison: pctips.com/best-browsers

#privacy #browsers #firefox #firefoxgate

What are the domains, and how do you find them? Can I use a wildcard like *.mozilla.net and still firefox/thunderbird works?

Thanks!

Did the others all decide to quit or is there a practical reason?

So, I have always just used one browser, Firefox, with javascript and cookies turned off and whitelisted sites that I needed to use that required javascript or cookies or both to actually work.

My threat model isn't the tightest and could best be described as "I don't see why they should have my data if I am blocking the ads they use it to try to deliver to me". This browser setup coupled with tracking blocking at the DNS level has made me feel comfortable that while some of my data is being collected I am stopping most of the collection.

With the advance of fingerprinting and the recent change of a certain browser's terms of use it is probably time to review this setup.

I believe that it is usually advisable to use two different browsers. One where you are identifying yourself by logging in and one where you are just browsing. As logging into sites usually involves javascript and cookies I was going to use Librewolf with javascript and cookies turned off for general browsing and Mullvad browser as it comes for sites that require javascript and cookies.

I feel as though I have read a thousand discussions on this subject over the years so I apologise. Does anyone have any suggestions for a more private setup browser-wise? Tracking blocking at DNS level will continue and I'm on debian-based linux.

Thanks for any help in advance.

This post is long and kind of a rant. I don't expect many to read the whole thing, but there's a conclusion at the bottom.

On the surface, recommended security practices are simple:

• Store all your credentials in a password manager
• Use two factor authentication on all accounts

However, it raises a few questions.

• Should you access your 2FA codes on the same device as the password manager?
• Should you store them in the password manager itself?

This is the beginning of where a threat model is needed. If your threat model does not include protections against unwanted access to your device, it is safe for you to store access your 2FA codes on the same device as your password manager, or even in the password manager itself.

So, to keep it simple, say you store your 2FA in your password manager. There's a few more questions:

• Where do you store the master password for the password manager?
• Where do you store 2FA recovery codes?

The master password for the password manager could be written down on a piece of paper and stored in a safe, but that would be inconvenient when you want to access your passwords. So, a better solution is to just remember your password. Passphrases are easier to remember than passwords, so we'll use one of those.

Your 2FA recovery codes are something that are needed if you lose access to your real 2FA codes. Most websites just say "Store this in a secure place". This isn't something you want to store in the same place as those (in this case our password manager), and it's not something you will access often, so it's safe to write it down on a piece of paper and lock it in a safe.

Good so far, you have a fairly simple system to keep your accounts safe from some threats. But, new problems arise:

• What happens if you forget your master passphrase?
• What happens if others need access to your password manager?

The problem with remembering your passphrase is that it's possible to forget it, no matter how many times you repeat it to yourself. Besides naturally forgetting it, things like injuries can arise which can cause you to forget the passphrase. Easy enough to fix, though. We can just keep a copy of the passphrase in the safe, just in case we forget it.

If someone else needs to access certain credentials in your password manager, for example a wife that needs to verify bank information using your account, storing a copy of the password is a good idea here too. Since she is a trusted party, you can give her access to the safe in case of emergencies.

The system we have is good. If the safe is stolen or destroyed, you still have the master passphrase memorized to change the master passphrase and regenerate the 2FA security codes. The thief who stole the safe doesn't have your password manager's data, so the master passphrase is useless. However, our troubles aren't over yet:

• How do you store device credentials?
• How do you keep the password manager backed up?

Your password manager has to have some device in order to access it. Whether it's a phone, computer, tablet, laptop, or website, there needs to be some device used to access it. That device needs to be as secure as your password manager, otherwise accessing the password manager becomes a risk. This means using full disk encryption for the device, and a strong login passphrase. However, that means we have 2 more passwords to take care of that can't be stored in the password manager. We access those often, so we can't write them down and store them in the safe, Remembering two more passphrases complicates things and makes forgetting much more likely. Where do we store those passphrases?

One solution is removing the passwords altogether. Using a hardware security key, you can authenticate your disk encryption and user login using it. If you keep a spare copy of the security key stored in the safe, you make sure you aren't locked out if you lose access to your main security key.

Now to keep the password manager backed up. Using the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy. It states that there should be at least 3 copies of the data, stored on 2 different types of storage media, and one copy should be kept offsite, in a remote location (this can include cloud storage). 2 or more different media should be used to eliminate data loss due to similar reasons (for example, optical discs may tolerate being underwater while LTO tapes may not, and SSDs cannot fail due to head crashes or damaged spindle motors since they do not have any moving parts, unlike hard drives). An offsite copy protects against fire, theft of physical media (such as tapes or discs) and natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. Physically protected hard drives are an alternative to an offsite copy, but they have limitations like only being able to resist fire for a limited period of time, so an offsite copy still remains as the ideal choice.

So, our first copy will be on our secure device. It's the copy we access the most. The next copy could be an encrypted hard drive. The encryption passphrase could be stored in our safe. The last copy could be a cloud storage service. Easy, right? Well, more problems arise:

• Where do you store the credentials for the cloud storage service?
• Where do you store the LUKS backup file and password?

Storing the credentials for the cloud storage service isn't as simple as putting it in the safe. If we did that, then anyone with the safe could login to the cloud storage service and decrypt the password manager backup using the passphrase also stored in the safe. If we protected the cloud storage service with our security key, a copy of that is still in the safe. Maybe we protect it with a 2FA code, and instead of storing the 2FA codes in the password manager, we store it on another device. That solves the problem for now, but there are still problems, such as storing the credentials for that new device.

When using a security key to unlock a LUKS partition, you are given a backup file to store as a backup for emergencies. Plus, LUKS encrypted partitions still require you to setup a passphrase, so storing that still becomes an issue.

Conclusion

I'm going to stop here, because this post is getting long. I could keep going fixing problems and causing new ones, but the point is this: Security is a mess! I didn't even cover alternative ways to authenticate the password manager such as a key file, biometrics, etc. Trying to find "perfect" security is almost impossible, and that's why a threat model is important. If you set hard limits such as "No storing passwords digitally" or "No remembering any passwords" then you can build a security system that fits that threat model, but there's currently no security system that fits all threat model.

However, that doesn't let companies that just say "Store this in a secure place" off the hook either. It's a hand wavy response to security that just says "We don't know how to secure this part of our system, so it's your problem now". We need to have comprehensive security practices that aren't just "Use a password manager and 2FA", because that causes people to just store their master passphrase on a sticky note or a text file on the desktop.

The state of security is an absolute mess, and I'm sick of it. It seems that, right now, security, privacy, convenience, and safety (e.g. backups, other things that remove single points of failure) are all at odds with each other. This post mainly focused on how security, convenience, and safety are at odds, but I could write a whole post about how security and privacy are at odds.

Anyways, I've just outlined one possible security system you can have. If you have one that you think works well, I'd like to hear about it. I use a different security system than what I outline here, and I see problems with it.

Thanks for reading!

Hi everyone, with the whole Firefox ToS change and it's fingerprinting I asked on mastodon if anyone could recommend a web browser alternative to Firefox and was recommend to go with Vivaldi due to their no fingerprinting, and allowing unlock to still work even though it uses manifest v3.

I am already switching to librefox on windows, and fence on android.

But I wanted to ask if the claims for vivaldi where true?

Hey everyone!

I'm considering using Privado VPN and would love to hear your thoughts on its privacy features.

Here's what I've gathered so far:

• No-Logs Policy: Privado VPN claims to have a strict no-logs policy, meaning they don't track your browsing history, traffic destination, data content, IP addresses, or DNS queries.
• Encryption: They use AES-256 encryption, which is top-notch for securing your data.
• Jurisdiction: Based in Switzerland, a country known for its strong privacy laws.
• Kill Switch: Includes a kill switch to protect your data if the VPN connection drops.
• Split Tunneling: Offers split tunneling, allowing you to choose which apps use the VPN and which don't.
• Ad Blocking: Provides basic ad-blocking features, though it may not be effective against all types of ads.

However, there are a few concerns:

• Third-Party Audit: There's no mention of a third-party audit to verify their no-logs policy.
• Malware Protection: The malware and phishing site protection could be better.

I'd appreciate any insights or personal experiences you can share about Privado VPN's privacy features. Is it as secure as it claims? Have you encountered any issues?

Thanks in advance for your help! :)

There’s a reason that cookies and privacy policies (in the EU at least) have become such an online nuisance. These assurances of your safety and privacy are nothing more than a pretext to get consent. Your “anonymised” data is sold to an infinite regress of third parties, analysed, correlated and de-anonymised again. Any smart device you use, your browsing habits, banking transactions, your GPS position are all used to deduce fine grain information about you. Then weaponised against you for as much profit as possible.

I'm looking into getting my own domain to use for email for both my partner and I. I was initially considering using both or first initials followed by our last name (example: ajsmith.tld for Ann and John Smith) but then got to thinking about it and realized that might not be best for privacy. It looks great in a professional setting (like job applications, bills, taxes, etc.), though. So I'm unsure. I'm curios what other privacy concerned people are doing. The main goal is to not have to worry about changing account emails when we change email providers.

Edit: thanks everyone! Lots more replies than I expected and lots of good advice. I ended up going with lastname.tld domain and will combine that with aliases for privacy where needed. I might buy a fun domain later as well but for now this works.