Customer Privacy Guide

🔔This is a user-submitted guide

This article is a guide.

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🔔 Notice

This guide is meant for, either internet online consumers, or people looking for an alternative. I (the original author) do not endorse any sensitive activity and is not responsible for any damages that may have caused. This is meant to be a longer and insightful version of the one found in the Main_Page that needs improving. It can go separate ways.

Introduction One (1) - Why was this made?

Simply because of the lack of new guides being added, or simply, because other guides on the clearnet are, most likely, unreliable. There are many reasons why, however, I (The original author, aka contributor) want to make it clear that this is simply a guide for anyone seeking privacy, and/or anonymity, even though we (The Consumer Rights Wiki) already have a page dedicated to this in the main page, but that is a issue on it's own as it isn't universal. It was made, and in summery, to provide an alternative to other mainstream platforms such as PrivacyGuides.org and PrivacyTools.io, to improve on those ideas and to provide basic to advanced consumer-level privacy and anonymity services, and software, that I (Original Author), recommend based on my (Original Author) experience and other sources that I may have viewed on the darknet (Which may be depending on the credibility on the sources, it still provides the valuable information out, as of current writing).

Summary: It was made to provide an alternative to popular mainstream privacy sources such as PrivacyGuides.org and PrivacyTools.io, to combat inaccuracies and misleading information. While there is a Consumer Tools page, it is not universal and is short to be fully used for consumer privacy and security, which is lacking. This guide is designed for average daily consumer that just wants to get away with Big Tech, or consumer violations.

Why not security? Why isn't it mentioned?

It can go both ways, either you use a Operating System (E.g MacOS) that is still maintained and is considered the "best of the best" in terms of security, while it is moderately privacy friendly, it still can perform actions actions that may be considered "Privacy Invasive" or "Surveillance Software" such as scanning your files such as documents uploaded to cloud for example, or having access to your local files.

Either way, security is also important in this guide, also. But, what is important is you, the consumer, should understand that, while it may become popularized in the future (Privacy & Anonymity), there are other software services that offer security (Maintained, or Design) such those that are still updated or have by-design features such as plausible deniability or virtualization. Either way, any software listed here is maintained, and those that are not are removed and instead replaced with a up-to-date version.

Why should I read this guide? Why should I trust it?

Because whatever we (Author or contributor) say in this guide does or does not have a merit on its own. So it is recommended to research it yourself if it contains inaccuracies or out of date information that does not fit well in this said guide, as we (Author or contributors) are trying our best to find information that is important for you, as a consumer or somebody online looking for an alternative, to be introduced with software and information that we may see fit, whenever relevant or not. Also, the trust thingy, take things with a grain of salt, whatever we say (Contributors) may be inaccurate or out of date, and in some cases, misleading. However, this one should act as a form a recommendation base, and especially a knowledge base, for many reasons that we may include here. We are also trying our best to be wiki-friendly when possible, and for that, this guide does not fit the wiki in of itself, as it requires a separate domain, which by the way, the author himself, does not have money to afford a server to self-host it himself.

Introduction Two (2) - Recommended sources

While it may be irrelevant, it is important to read other sources that we may list here (Credibility varies, excluding PrivacyGuides or PrivacyTools). The sources I or we will list is as follows:

• Dark Web Daily (Tor Browser required) - While it is imperative that we do not endorse any sort of sensitive activities, it is a place for you to explore vast majority of those onion sites.
• The Nihilist OpSec Guide (Onion Address, Tor Browser required) - The alternative to "Hitchhikers guide to anonymity" but on a dark net. It serves as a knowledge base for anyone looking to stay anonymous and private online. Be warned, some blog posts there are vague, such as, questions that you may be asking "How do I manually exam the source code for malware?" which does not explain (In my own research).
• The OpSec Manual (Onion Address, Tor Browser required) - The recommended guide for anyone looking to educate themselves on Operational Security, however, this also vagueness inside of the website itself, but it is still valuable it seems to be "recommended" by Dark Web Daily.
• PRISM Break (An actual clearnet site) - An 1 year outdated website, however, it is revealed that there will be revamp soon according to a closed issue.
• Hidden Services Today (Clearnet, darknet available here) - A somewhat interesting website, however, his guides and other resources he lists are something worth considering (Be aware of misleading information, especially PrivacyTools.io being listed as "recommended").

Introduction Three (3) - Clarifications & Explanations

Why should I not trust big tech? (Software/Hardware wise)

Because many of us (you the viewer and the wiki contributors) know that they simply cannot be trusted, no matter what. You may have seen that Google is introducing an Android "certified devices" update regarding Google Play when developers have to verify themselves and to prevent side-loading. Which, in the process of verification, it can lead into de-anonymization. Another one, Microsoft acknowledged the fact that what Windows 10 is doing is illegal in terms of privacy. Or how about Mozilla, having their firefox to have a terms of service (2) because they are an advertising company. How about Apple having their MacOS having an increased surveillance capabilities. There are many examples of this and honestly, there are many reasons why you should not trust big tech corporations like these.

You might ask yourself: "Which one should I trust?" The answer depends, and will most likely lead to it being no. But the issue itself is that, while you may have seen Proton advertised everywhere, including their sponsors online, such as ProtonVPN, or their password manager Proton Pass. However, nobody should be trusting an marketing strategy. But for now, they should be "trustworthy" as of the current writing.

For now this will be a list of "trusted*" corporations that we the contributors put into.

• Proton AG
• Tuta

Why should I not trust Governments? (Anywhere, technically)

There are many reasons why, for example, The United States of America, their National Security Agency, back in 2013, When Edward Snowden leaked classified information regarding the active surveillance that was deemed unconstitutional, according The Guardian. Another example, China, anything established or headquartered in China must provide data to intelligence agencies, which may include Bytedance such as TikTok. In Russia, there is a new app call "Max" that is made by the state government, and is considered as a replacement to the "VK" messenger, what's concerning, for now, is that it may track Russian citizens. In the European Union, in the year 2022, the "ProtectEU" project, they wanted every encryption to be backdoored, and nowadays, it is supported by 15 member states.

The issue is that we shouldn't trust our own governments just because they are 'honest', which they aren't, we gotta be speculative on the things that they pose a danger to. Do note that we do not endorse any sort of sensitive activity when it comes to, say, endorsing or promoting anarchism, that is a separate issue that you must figure it out. Ideally, there is no such thing as a true good government.

Manual One (1) - The basics

let's start off with the things you use.

Google LLC

We all know why, but let me list some reasons why not to use them and list some adversarial traits that may have been documented.

Google Adversarial Attack Tree

Traits	Aftermath	Mitigation's	Notes
Advertising	Selling your data to third party data brokers	Opt-out, Adblockers.	While opting out maybe isn't as effective as it should be, but it will do the job.
Backdoored Software/Services	Law enforcement (or your government) can actually subpoena your data to be handed over, soon, you might get arrested for something you didn't or did do.	Keep illegal activities away from Google, Create a purpose for a Google account, keep it minimal as possible, aka low profile.	Do not put all eggs in one basket, keep them in a separate account and do not defeat the purpose of such accounts, do it somewhere else.
Remote installation of what was once disabled (Systemic issue, check google play store for further details)	Once you have disabled or uninstalled a google software from your phone, it can be re-enabled and/or reinstalled by tomorrow.	No new information is available on how to mitigate this issue.	While invasive, there are some apps that cannot be deleted whatsoever, which is just another example of what will happen if it becomes the next Apple.
Location Tracking (Many sources)	It can profile and track whenever you go, full surveillance on your habits when going outside.	Turn off location tracking (Ineffective because of dark-patterns)	Not exactly sure if turning it off is good or not, as we can agree that it does have dark-patterns in many ways.
The walled garden	It makes you tightly integrated into the Googles ecosystem, in any shape of form of escaping this walled garden, it becomes impossible, due to laziness or highly dependent on.	Breaking out the habit of staying in one ecosystem. Break the laziness and start working on removing yourself from it, and look for other options instead.	None. It is obvious.