00:00 Hi all, and welcome to the second episode of Opt Out. This episode, I'm super excited to sit down with Catan and chat about privacy, free and open source software, self-hosting, and some of his favorite tools. How's your weekend, Catan? Yeah, not too bad. How was yours? It was good. It was good. A lot of cleanup around the house. Just moved into a new place, so doing a lot of pressure washing and getting rid of the dozens of sheds that the old person had.

That kind of thing. Nice, nice, nice. Yeah, nothing too crazy, though. Well, let's just get started. I know we chatted a little bit before we went live, but we've kind of been in the same circles for a while, but haven't really crossed paths and chatted a lot in the past. So if you just want to go ahead and introduce yourself, kind of introduce what you do in the space, and just let us know a little bit about you. Yep, sure. So my name is Catan. I am the co-founder of Ministry of Nodes, and we basically help people transition over to a Bitcoin standard, and we teach people how to hold their own keys and run and use their Bitcoin nodes.

And part of that, I also have a little personal blog on the far corners of the internet, which teaches the peripherals of Bitcoin. So I write up posts on privacy, free and open source software, self-hosting, digital sovereignty, those sorts of things. So that's just a little bit about me and what I do. Awesome. Well, definitely something I'm going to be asking every guest on the podcast, but what was it that initially woke you up to the need for personal privacy?

I know that's a big driver for you. Yeah. So for me, I think I can pinpoint one exact moment where I woke up. And when I was always a Windows user throughout my teens and 20s really as well. And what I was doing was just going from Windows XP to Windows 7. And then I migrated over or upgraded to Windows 10. And as soon as I upgraded to Windows 10, I was absolutely blown away with the amount of bloat. And when I opened up the menu there, it had Candy Crush and all these weird pieces of software that I really didn't want.

It felt completely surveilled. I did not feel safe whatsoever. And the point where, I don't know, I almost fell off my chair. So somewhere in between me falling off my chair and my head hitting the ground, I think that's when I literally woke up to the need for personal privacy. That was probably my turning point there. Yeah, I definitely vividly remember when they launched Windows 10. And I feel like everybody collectively lost their minds about all of the tracking and native ads and bundled games and apps that nobody had asked for and nobody wanted.

And they just stuffed it right into Windows 10. Yep. And that's probably the moment where I went, look, there's got to be something better than this. We can't just be on this. And that's when I kind of went down the path of Linux. And researching that whole segment of the market there. I had previously done a little bit of research and used a little bit of Linux throughout my teens and stuff early days. But it just wasn't ready there. It just was not as good as what it is now.

So yeah, that's when I sort of started to make changes. Yeah, it's definitely come a long way. I feel like Linux has in the last, I don't know, 10 years. It's come so far. I mean, I think Windows 10 around then was when I really started diving into checking out different Linux distros. And Ubuntu was kind of the easiest to use. I did venture down the path of Arch Linux and starting from scratch. And that lasted all of maybe two days. Yep. Yep. So I've done a lot of distro hopping myself.

I started again on Ubuntu. And then sort of I went into, you know, Arch and Manjaro and Debian. I tried that out as well. And then, you know, I kind of went into Qubes OS as well. That, again, lasted about two days. I just, it was, yeah, it was something different. And then sort of now I've kind of settled on Pop OS, which is probably my favorite Linux distribution at the moment. I think it respects your privacy. And it has all the bells and whistles of Ubuntu as well.

It's easier to use and it just has this just works factor to it that I really enjoy using. So that's where I've landed on and that's where I'm probably going to stay for a while. Yeah. When I finally circled back to trying to use Linux as a daily driver, because, I mean, normally I've been using macOS for work and then Windows for home, but really just like gaming. And I haven't really had much time to do that recently. But when I finally did circle back, Pop OS was a recommendation and I tried that out.

And I did love, it's just very simple. It kind of has the Ubuntu-esque feel of the UI makes sense. There's good bundled options. It's just a nice, smart starter OS, especially. Yeah. So for me, I'm not even running Windows anywhere. I only use it for my work laptop. But yeah, throughout the home, there are no Windows instances, which I'm pretty pleased about. And yeah, so I'm glad to have moved over to something like Linux. It feels just a little bit snappier and feels freer as well.

And in terms of gaming, like throughout my teens, I've only played one game, and that is Counter-Strike Go. And guess what? Linux works. Sorry, Counter-Strike Go works fantastic on Linux. So yeah, that's the only game that I really play. And it's been ported over quite well. So in terms of gaming, check. Everything else, check. I'm pretty much all in on Linux at this point. That's good to hear. Yeah. I use Debian for my daily driver now. I've been doing Debian testing for the last couple months, I think.

And I've been enjoying that. I just wanted something a little bit more minimal than Pop! OS. But I do love Pop! OS. And it's probably my main recommendation for people who want to start making the switch over to Linux. Yep, definitely. I like Debian as well. It was, it just, I feel like there was a bit too much configuring to be done. Whereas Pop! OS, straight out of the install, it is really nice. So yeah, a great place to start for newcomers. Yeah, yeah.

And I know that you mentioned Pop! OS a bit in your blog. And I'm curious, what was it that pushed you to start doing privacy and self-hosting education? I mean, you mentioned Ministry of Nodes as well, but your blog is the main thing I've checked out at least. Yeah, so I think education for me is bringing, privacy to more people. And what that means is it allows you to better hide in the herd. So what that means is if everybody else is doing similar activities, then it's very, it makes it difficult for someone to single you out.

And so when you have this huge amount of volume that's being driven through some sort of privacy respecting aspect, then what that means is you can somewhat protect your own privacy. That's just like a, like, I guess, like the theory anyway. But then also teaching and putting your ideas out there helps your own understanding of topics. So I, like, when I put out a blog post and I put it on Twitter and, you know, it goes out, people read it and then they give me comments.

And from those comments, I can, you know, take that on board and go into other rabbit holes that I may not have had to or had the experience of. So that's kind of the two reasons why I started this privacy and self-hosting education. But I don't do it formally. It's just a blog that, you know, I put out there and see what people think and get recommendations around bettering my own privacy as well. And also bringing along the people who want to focus on this as well.

So those are the kind of two reasons that I pushed me to do this. Yeah, that bit about learning yourself. I feel like that's something that a lot of people don't think about. And it's probably the biggest thing that I've gotten out of running my blog. I mean, I don't have a ton of blog posts, maybe five or ten. But every time I read something, not only do I realize as I'm writing it, there's a lot that I think I know that I don't actually know. Yeah, because I can't actually get it down on paper in a way that's intelligible and easy to understand.

So it helps to really flesh out my own thoughts about topics around privacy, cryptocurrency, whatever it may be. And it gives a really good space for the people within my social circles to jump in and say, hey, actually, you're doing it this way, but you could do it this way and it would be a lot quicker. Or this is actually a much better privacy preserving tool. They should try it instead or any number of things. And that process has been so, so helpful.

Yeah, never underestimate the anons in the space who will come and tell you what's better. They are fantastic and they always sort of make their point and make their, yeah, they speak their minds. And it's quite endearing, if anything. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Speaking of anons, one of my favorite articles that I checked out on your blog was how you'd start your digital identity over. And I thought that was a really fascinating topic and something me as a non-anon, I was kind of curious reading.

10:00 through that. And I just wanted to hear a little bit more from you. Why did you write out that blog? And then if you don't mind walking us through at least some of the key steps that you wrote down in that, I thought it was a really fascinating look at how someone, especially someone new to the space, kind of start an anonymous identity. Yeah. So this article is probably my most popular one. It ended up on Hacker News and there was a lot of feedback there, mostly good comments. There were also some criticisms as well. But by and large, yeah, honestly, I thought I was being DDoSed. I woke up to 50,000 views one day and it was interesting. So I thought that this topic seems like it really hit the mark on how people would start to do over their digital identity. And the reason that I wrote it or why I wrote it was I was thinking about my kids. I don't actually have kids, but at some point I will and hopefully. And so what I'm thinking here is if I was in their shoes at age 10 or 11 or 12 or

something, what could I potentially do to not be, you know, as surveilled by corporations? What could I potentially do to help me? And this could be something, you know, that teens could read as well. And if you want to start over again, that could also be a, you know, a read for you as well. So that's kind of my mindset in why, in how I wrote this and I approached this because we've all made mistakes. And I certainly have made mistakes. I'm sure you have as well. And we regret them. And what I want to do is say, okay, well, if you're a teen or if you're someone, you know, who's just starting out, here is some lessons that I've learned that you may want to consider and you may want to adopt yourself. It's probably not the easiest path or it's not the, you know, the path of least resistance.

You're going to face a lot of resistance, but I think it's probably one that is worthwhile over the longer term until you're, you know, well and ready and evolved as a human to make your own decisions. Because when you're, you know, starting off, it's, you know, and you're young, you just want to follow the crowd and just fit in. And sometimes that's not the best approach over the longer term. So with this article, I basically go through a fair few things. But the first thing that I do is promote cash, surprisingly. And so basically what you want to do here is earn money in a, you know, I guess a way that is a little bit private. And if you're going to earn money, the best way to do that, and I give some examples there, you know, you can walk dogs, do some tutoring, those sorts of gardening, all those sorts of things. And you save up a cash, like, you know, a pot of cash. And from there, you would acquire some devices. Now, the first thing to acquire a device is you're going to probably,

I would recommend a secondhand marketplace for this. Generally, older computers and older machines are generally the more privacy respecting ones, but also they are more, you know, with drivers and all those sorts of things that they're probably just a little bit easier to, you know, install things on. And, you know, it's compatible with things. So I suggest some, some form of Lenovo ThinkPad. And I also suggest a mobile phone as well. And in that I'm using, or I'm suggesting a pixel 3a, pixel 4s, surprisingly, it's a bit ironic actually, that I'm using a Google device for a privacy oriented venture. But what it is, is I suppose the Google has, or these, the hardware is actually very, very good. And so what's, what's good about it is that you can then flash the, the, the, the operating system on there into something a little bit more friendlier, like GrapheneOS, or my favorite, which is CalyxOS. So those are the types of recommendations that I'm making. I'm also making recommendations on the laptop to, to install or to wipe windows from there and start using Pop OS,

which is my favorite flavor of Ubuntu, which I think most, you know, users will sort of, will transition to easier than say another distro, in my opinion, that's all. From there, I'm suggesting potentially getting some Bitcoin and creating up a wallet and getting some Bitcoin to then fund certain exercises, things like buying an eSIM, which is a way of getting a SIM card a little bit more privately. So you're not getting a physical SIM card. You're actually just downloading or present, getting a QR code and you are just basically scanning that and that becomes your SIM card and pixels are a way of, of, of, of doing this or, or that's it's supported with that. So that's one of the cool things about CalyxOS as well as pixels is that they support these eSIM products. So that's fantastic to see. And I'm hoping that, you know, that market continues to grow. And then from there, it's more around self-hosting, getting a VPN, upgrading your home internet connection.

And then I talk a little bit about, you know, some non-negotiables like what I wouldn't do. I wouldn't, you know, sign up for a Facebook account. I wouldn't sign up for, you know, certain things and social medias. So that's kind of what the basic rundowns of, of, of what I would do in this space. I know it's probably a little bit lengthy, but I think for me, it's always been the thrill of the chase almost. I think as you do things a little bit more privately, you start to, it just becomes a hobby. I'm not doing this to really attack anyone. I'm just doing it just to defend.

And so that's kind of where I see this whole starting a new digital identities, you know, article land. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure people reading through that who aren't kind of deep down the privacy rabbit hole, it could be a little daunting. But I think you brought up a good point that it's, it's a, it's a journey and it's really a step by step process. And once you start it and you see the results of that and you start to see just how much you can improve your privacy, doing each of those steps, it becomes something that you really want to complete.

And it's, it's daunting to look at the whole of what you want to accomplish when you're kind of reorienting and maybe recreating a digital identity, or maybe just saying, I want to start over and do these things the right way. But if you really do take it a step at a time and focus on, I think you laid out in really good order where you should start in getting a physical device first and the process around that. And something you specifically mentioned was Kallax OS.

And that's something I'm kind of focusing on this week with this episode at the end, but I wanted to get your thoughts around that. I'm going to point our listeners to Kallax OS, but I was curious if you had any advice or pointers around using that. Yeah. So Kallax OS has been my daily driver for a couple of months now. I'm really, really enjoying it. I do have a couple of pointers that I think your listeners should consider. The first one is to research plexus.techlaw.tech.

Perhaps you can put that on there in the show notes, but this is a little website that is community driven that shows you app compatibility. So sometimes Kallax OS may not support the app that you are interested in. Things like banking apps, maybe things like Uber, all these sorts of apps may not be compatible. There are other alternatives, but I would strongly recommend that you check out this website, which shows you what is compatible and what the, I guess, defects are at any point in time for this particular OS.

So research that before you make the switch and see that your daily apps are all in good shape and are in working order or that you can find an alternative to them. The next thing that I would say is you will need to make a decision on whether you will enable micro G or not. Now, this is a one-time decision and you can't go back on whether or not you want it. Micro G is basically a little application that sits in the background that communicates to Google server via a spoofed account.

And what that is, is essentially it gives you a little background services, like, for example, your notifications. Say, for example, you install the ProtonMail app, for instance. ProtonMail app relies on Google messaging services or GMS. And if you don't have micro G enabled, then every time you get an email, you won't be notified. You'll have to manually check the app to see if you've received any emails. So these are just sort of convenience slash usability tradeoffs.

And I think you'll find that throughout the entire run in with CalyxOS, that it is a tradeoff with convenience and, I guess, privacy. And so what you want to do is maximize your convenience without giving away too much of your privacy. For me personally, I've enabled micro G. I think that that is, it's fair enough for me because I want certain things to work. And so that is why I have done Micro G.

20:00 enabled. Then the next tip that I've got is if you want to do this on the cheap, then starting off with a Pixel 3a using a secondhand marketplace is probably your best bet. So if you're on Apple and you want to just try this out just to see how you go, then I think buying something cheap like a Pixel 3a off a secondhand marketplace would probably be your best bet when it comes to these devices that are compatible with CalyxOS. There's only a small range. So I think the cheapest I think is the Pixel 3a. So that's probably where you might want to start off with. And it's a good device. In fact, it's my daily driver and I don't see a need to upgrade anytime soon, even though I have heard good things about the Pixel 5.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been using CalyxOS for I think three months now as my daily driver. And I've been running on a Pixel 4a. And I think the thing that people don't realize is when you go to something like this, the lightweight nature of not having all of the extra stuff that you're used to having. And a lot of times, I mean, like I didn't enable MicroG, which was a process. I definitely wouldn't recommend that to someone who's like kind of just starting on the privacy journey. It was a good chance for me to kind of go through and purge the last remaining services that are a little bit more invasive. But it is a pain because like ProtonMail, I don't get notifications, which is definitely, definitely annoying. But there are many apps that do integrate a way to do notifications without Google Play services.

Yeah. And I think ProtonMail is actually working on a way of removing their reliance on GMS. So, I mean, look, it's all coming together and it is getting better. But at some stage, you might value some of the features that MicroG has. Look, for me, I'm okay with it. But yeah, for some people, that might not be an option. Then that's fine too. Yeah. I would think for most people, probably the best approach is to enable MicroG and then slowly go through the apps that they use and figure out what they can find a false or more privacy preserving alternative is. And then hopefully that alternative will have support for non-Google Play services notifications and features. And they won't have to worry about it as much, but it definitely is quite a bit more difficult when you do disable that. But like I said, there are lots of apps that do do notifications and do work properly without MicroG. And that's something I think that Plexus makes a note on apps on whether they work or not without MicroG.

But if not, ask around the community. I've been using tons of different apps. You have recommended lists of apps. I have a lot on mine and all of mine are based on not using MicroG on my blog post. And so people can definitely use those, but there are like, like Signal works without MicroG. Element, MatrixClient works without MicroG. Telegram works without MicroG. So there are, there are a lot of things that do work, but it definitely is a little bit more, a little bit more tricky. Definitely.

While we're on the topic of FOSS, I was curious, why is free and open source software an important distinction for you? It's something you, you talk about a lot on your blog. You have a, a really helpful blog post with just some, some bullet points of, of specific FOSS software that you, you like and recommend. Um, I'm just curious what, why is FOSS a focus for you? Yeah. So the, the reason that I like FOSS, um, is that it respects the individual's right to privacy.

Um, I think for me, like privacy is something that I actually came into it because I had something to protect. Um, it was actually, most people come in because they just want privacy. Whereas I came in the other way around. I have Bitcoin. It's not something that I want to hide, but it's definitely something that I want to protect. And so having free and open source software, uh, is an important distinction for me because it allows the community to figure out if there are any vulnerabilities in this, uh, you know, uh, in the software as well as then contribute back to the code and fix it. And I think that that is an amazing distinction from the alternative, which is closed source, non-free proprietary software.

Um, this is, uh, uh, I believe it is a better way of, of doing software development. Having said that though, I'm not a software developer, but I do feel that having things that are out in the open helps to bring about changes in software and makes it better. That's why I truly believe, um, that free and open source software is the better of the, the, the two camps. Yeah. It's definitely, it's an interesting idea about it being a safer alternative. I think I'm not a software developer either. So I love the aspect that people can go and like review the code and make sure that it makes sense. Um, but like specifically, I'm not able to do that. I can kind of get a general feel for how something's written or like go through documentation, but do you have any kind of specific process you go through to vet a piece of FOSS software or? Yeah. Um, one of my biggest distinctions, um, or my, I guess, um, yeah, one of my processes would be what's recommended, but then by, by certain people that I, I trust and I, I, I, I look to, um, there are

also GitHub is probably my biggest way of finding out whether a project is worthwhile spending some time on. Um, if you look at the number of stars, if you look at the issues, if you look at the, the last modifications, the latest release times, those are some of the indicators that speak to me that this project is actually being actively worked on. People are liking it. People are enjoying it. People are using it. So those are some GitHub to me is probably one of the, you know, drivers in how I assess whether a project is worthwhile. I'll have a look at the issues. I'll have a look at some of the pull requests, see what's changed, see what's going on, uh, see the discussion. Those are some of the factors that I, how I decide whether a project is, um, worth looking or spending more time into. And then I'll sort of go around and ask friends and other people that I know in the community, Hey, what do you think about this? Um, and that's kind of how I sort of assess, uh, whether or not, um, a project could be compatible

with, with something or something that I want to bring into, into my desktop or phone. Yeah. Using community and just using people that you trust. I mean, I know that a lot of people in the space talk about like, don't trust verify, but you do need those people around you that you, you know, that they're kind of on the same journey as you, they're on the same focus as you, you know, that, that they're doing their due diligence and they're really learning as well. Um, and so having those, those people that you trust and that, that circle of community around you to help you figure out what some new tools are to help you figure out like, Hey, I found this new tool. What do you all think?

Um, that's, that's extremely valuable. And I mean, that's, that's where I've learned about most of the tools that I use. That's where I love to just drop a link and say, Hey guys, I just found this, like anybody using it. Um, so much value there. Yes, exactly. And you'll get, you'll get good feedback. Um, every time that you drop a link, I think the trust don't, don't trust verify. If you take that to ridiculous literal levels, um, you'll end up finding that you need 30 years of programming experience at age 20.

So it's just, uh, yes, it is important to, to verify, but as you say, I think the community and relying on others, um, to, or trusted people to, to vet things, uh, I think is a, is a worthwhile endeavor as well. If you're just starting out and you are just trying to, you know, as a user. Yeah. It's almost like crowdsourcing verification in a sense. That's right. Um, another thing around FOSS is that usually it's, it's pretty straightforward and there are options and there's documentation around how to self host, self host something. Um, and I know that's, that's something, again, you talk about a lot on your blog, a lot on your blog. That's something that's been a focus for me for many years. Um, just hosting stuff at home on a VPS, that kind of thing. Um, and I, I'm just curious to get your thoughts on why self hosting is a, is a focus. Um, and, and why do you think it's important that other people get into self hosting their own tools?

Yeah. So for me, uh, my journey into self hosting started very, very slowly. I was, I was actually, I had my hands tied behind my back. Um, and the reason for that is due to my internet service provider. Um, throughout my teens and twenties, I had an internet service provider that was fantastic in terms of download. So I'd get a hundred M VPS. Um, having the ability to leech was fantastic when you're in your teens and twenties, it is, it is amazing. However, my upload capacity was two immediately to M VPS. Now, if you wanted to host something with two M VPS, um, you're going to have a very, very difficult time. Um, it, it really sucked. Um, so not only that, but the ISP also blocked port 80, um, and port 443. So they obviously didn't want you to self host. Um, and that was really, really upsetting. Um, and then what happened was the, the country, uh, Australia upgraded.

I use the term loosely, but it upgraded its network to, uh, the national broadband network. And that now gives me 40 M VPS. Is it, is it great? No. Uh, but is it workable? Yes. So to that extent, um, I'm now just, you know, starting to get a handle on self hosting, um, my own tools, because now I'm able to

30:00 remote in to my own home from anywhere on the planet and be able to access the services and data that I need at any point in time. And I think that that is a valuable, valuable tool because it enables you to protect your data a little bit better. It protects you from getting deplatformed and censored. And it also protects you from having your data lost. Now, there are obviously trade-offs here. Self-hosting is a big, big topic and there are some trade-offs.

For example, whilst a company could shut you off like another provider, you now have the full responsibility of handling backups and handling your internet connection, handling power outages. All of those things now rest on you. So there are some great advantages to self-hosting and I feel like it is something that I enjoy doing. And I've written an entire article around how I get the job done. And there's multiple ways to skin this cat. But I've just found what works for me, what's easiest for me based on the computers and the hardware and the specifications that I have.

So these are some of the things that sort of why I do this. It's really important that people do host their own tools to protect their data and to protect themselves from getting deplatformed or censored or cut off. And that is kind of why you would want to use your own tools rather than using somebody else's hosted tool. Whenever you think of the cloud, think of somebody else's computer has, and somebody else has access to this data. Do you really want that? And that's the question that you need to be asking when you are going down the self-hosting route.

Yeah, self-hosting, it definitely has some of the biggest pros of all of the things you can do for privacy, especially as you find good FOSS that is privacy preserving and fits your needs. But it definitely can be tricky. I'm thankful there's tons of good educational content out there. People like you putting out content. I've put out content in the past. I'm sure that a lot of the guests that we'll have on this podcast will have put out content on how to self-host tools. But I think it's a vital thing that everyone at least try to get into, learn a little bit, maybe start with a VPS, something where you don't have to worry about power outages or internet issues, that kind of thing. Start checking out some of the simpler tools like maybe Nextcloud or trying out some bundled self-hosting services like Unihost, that kind of thing. It's something that I think everyone needs to be comfortable with. But it's definitely not necessarily the right solution for everyone. It's just, it's a very, very powerful tool.

Yeah, exactly. I think there are some people who would be into it, some people who might be happy to rely on a trusted third party. And then there's someone somewhere in the middle, like, for example, using a VPS. And I think that those are, you know, having these options and making the right decision for you is probably where you need to sort of cast your mind and cast your attention as to what you're trying to protect yourself from and, you know, what you want to achieve with your self-hosting. Yeah, so there's a range of options there and you should be able to, you know, navigate through all of them and look at the pros and cons and decide for yourself what you want to do. It is a big, big rabbit hole to go down, though. There are so many, so many interesting projects. And as you've mentioned, Nextcloud is probably one of the most regular tools that I use to opt out. And so that's, that's, yeah, it is a great, you know, starting point. Nextcloud would be a great place.

Yeah, another alternative too could be, say you have a group of friends, you have a community, and you're, some of them are into self-hosting and some of them, it just, it feels like it's too much for them. It could be an option too, to, to self-host for a trusted group of friends as well. I mean, it's something that, that I've done with friends in the past where I host some tools, they use them, and then obviously there are going to be some limits on how much data they can use or that kind of thing.

But that's also an option that maybe you have a more tech savvy friend or something like that who can self-host or is more comfortable. That could be a good option because you probably trust them more than you would trust a, like a cloud provider or trust a centralized service, that kind of thing. Yep, definitely. You did mention backups as part of that. And that's something that a listener specifically asked to learn a little bit more about. That can be one of the biggest downfalls of self-hosting. If you, if you do it wrong and you have some kind of hardware outage or lose a hard drive or hard drive fails, you could, you could lose a lot of the data that, that you've been thinking you're protecting. So do you have any tips around backups or, or how you handle backups maybe?

Yeah, look, I, I'm not one of the best backup. Um, you know, uh, it's kind of thing. It's the kind of thing that, you know, you, you think about afterwards and only until something catastrophic happens, then you start to realize, Ooh, I should have done that. Uh, but here's what I would, uh, this is what I do. I have a monthly checklist of things that I need to back up. So for example, my, uh, PFSense configs, uh, ages authenticator files, um, my, uh, virtual machines. So every tool that I host is on a separate virtual machine and what that allows me, it's not the most efficient way, but it's for me, it's the easiest way to back up. So I've set up my infrastructure such that Nextcloud goes into one virtual machine instance. And that instance, uh, I will shut down every month and I will back up all of the files on that, um, on that, that whole virtual machine hard disk, and I will put it to an external, uh, hard drive. And then that external hard drive, I will take to another trusted place like my parents' house, and I will keep it there for

safekeeping. Those that's, that's different from, for example, redundancy. So there is backup, and then there is a redundancy. Now redundancy is more along the lines of, do you have in the event of, um, uh, one hard drive going out, would a second hard drive that mirrors it have, uh, access to that? Now, what if, for example, uh, you had a power surge that absolutely blasts through both of those hard drives. Now you're left with nothing. So this is why there are two things that you need to consider not only just backups. Well, not only just redundancy, but backups as well. And you want to make sure that you test your backups every month or so, um, just so that things, you know, are, are, are well-oiled. Um, I'll give you an example of what I, uh, a recent thing that happened, um, to me.

So I post a Pleroma instance. It's a, it's, it's like a, it's like Mastodon. Um, it's a Fediverse, uh, program that allows, it's basically a Twitter alternative. It's called Pleroma. And I updated something within the Ubuntu server of that. Um, and it no longer was compatible with Pleroma. And so every time, so when I rebooted it, I lost access to my Pleroma instance. Luckily I had a backup, um, and I could revert that back to last month and still have my data there. So this is an example of where a backup could help you, um, figure out the problem and then sort of understand, okay, well, if I can't fix it, then I can go back and it's kind of like snapshotting things. So it's probably not the most efficient way of, you know, handling backups and doing it. You know, I'm sure there's automated ways of doing it, but for me, a monthly checklist put into my calendar to, to, to remind me to back up all my stuff.

Those are the types of things that I do to, to handle my backup situation. Each person is different. They probably have their own different resources and tools, but that's kind of how I do it. I do it very manually because I, it makes me aware that I need to do this. It's a pain, but I get it done anyway. And I spend, you know, a weekend just sort of, you know, a couple of hours backing all of this stuff up. Cause I need to. Yeah, definitely. I need to dig more into the backup side of things. I know that there are some good automated solutions like sync thing can be specifically useful for, for file backups. I mean, that wouldn't back up like a service that you're running. You maybe could back up the configuration file, but it wouldn't be like, you could just spin a VM backup. But that's, that's a good alternative for just simple file sync, especially cross site for redundancy. Like say your friend's house, he runs sync thing, you run sync thing and you back up each other's data to each other's house. So

you each have a copy in a, in a separate location. Yeah, that's right. Um, sync thing is fantastic. Another one, uh, is for your Linux instance, time shift is quite good. I've heard good things about it. Luckily I haven't needed to use it, but I do have it. Um, and it is restoring every day, I believe, um, onto a separate drive that I have, uh, such that if, if my, you know, the, the operating system, hard drive collapses, then, um, I've got something to recover and restore with. So that's what time shift does as well. So that's another tool for backups.

Okay. So I'll have to, I'll have to get better checkup. Um, what are some of the other tools that you regularly use to opt out that you'd recommend others take a look at? Yep. So we've discussed this. Um, the number one tool that I use is Nextcloud. I use that for my calendar. I use it for contacts. I use it for my notes. Um, and I use it as an RSS feed reader. Um, so those are the services that I use my Nextcloud for, um, and those keep me in sync. So my phone, my laptop, and my desktop are all in sync with this Nextcloud. Um, that gives me access to my calendar of what I need to do, my contacts. So it's not uploaded onto Google servers who

40:00 who are using it for various purposes, most likely. And then my notes and those sorts of things. Now, a tip that I would give you with Nextcloud is one of the things that you can do in there is, and I've got this all in my self-hosted little article write-up of how I do things. A little tip for you is instead of using the Nextcloud instance itself, what you can do is set up a specific hard drive that is available on the network to put all of your data to.

So in the event that your Nextcloud instance, for some reason or another, collapses, you don't actually have to go into the Nextcloud instance to retrieve your data. It will all be sitting in your network drive. And all your Nextcloud instance does is just reads from that hard drive. And that is the way that I like to set things up such that there's a little bit of a segregation there. So that if the Nextcloud instance, for whatever reason, you're upgrading it and the upgrade stuffs up, then you still have access to your data.

So that's one hot tip that I would give with Nextcloud. The next tool that I use regularly is something that's not really spoken about that often. It's called FreeTube. A lot of people send me YouTube links and I don't want to open up YouTube. So I open up this piece of software called FreeTube, which is a more privacy respecting YouTube, call it a browser. Now, what I've also got installed is a extension called Privacy Redirect. So every time someone sends me a YouTube link, I click on that YouTube link and it automatically opens up the browser.

The browser then opens up the application, the FreeTube application, and I am now watching it in a more privacy-oriented way. The other way that I watch videos is through RSS feeds. Now, RSS feeds are a great way in preserving your privacy in that you don't have to actually visit websites to get the data that you want. For example, I use... I like to keep tabs on releases. So I will... GitHub also has RSS feeds that you can subscribe to such that every time that there's a new release of a particular software, it comes down on your RSS feed and it notifies you, hey, there's a new release.

And so these are types of things. You can... RSS feeds are a universal way of accessing data from multiple locations. It's the most... I think it's the most efficient way of getting things done or getting the data that you want quickly without having to, you know, go into websites and look them up yourself manually. You can just set up your RSS feeds. You can do this for YouTube content. You can do this for your news and any sort of, I guess, updates and blogs and posts, anything like that, most sites will have this RSS feature.

And so you should be using those. I think that that is a really, really nice way of getting information. Now, in terms of RSS feeds, what you can do is set that up to open up in a YouTube download. And so rather than going to the direct YouTube website, you download it from another instance of... It's like a privacy-oriented YouTube called... I think it's called NVIDIA. And what you can do there is download the software or download the video and you can play it on your desktop without actually having to interact with YouTube and giving away that you've watched this video or track you.

The other tool that I use every day is my PFSense router. PFSense is an open-source software that is for your router. It basically gives you key features like having a VPN on throughout the entire home for every device. It can also host a VPN server so you can access your home as though from anywhere in the world, as though you were just on the network. And those are the types of, you know, things that you might wish to consider to protect your privacy rather than relying on a third party.

So there's PFSense that handles all of my network traffic. You can also start to do more complicated things like create two networks, one like a guest network or one for all your devices that you don't trust and so that they don't speak to the devices that you trust. So you can start playing around with PFSense and configuring your network to how you want. It is a little bit more advanced. Again, it's a rabbit hole to go down, but those are some of the key tools that I use in my arsenal to protect my privacy.

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, Nextcloud is something that I definitely would recommend that people take a look at. I think it's probably, at least in my mind, probably the most important app to self-host if you're going to self-host anything. Namely, because like you said, it does so many things. I mean, you can use it as a kind of like a Google Drive-esque replacement. It does Calendar Sync. It does Notes. It does RSS, like you mentioned with Newsboat.

There's a lot of stuff that's just built in and you only have to spin up one app and you get all of these different services. And a lot of them are really key services that you normally rely on a centralized provider for. So I definitely, I've been running that for a while and I love that service. That's definitely one that I'd recommend people jump into. I'm curious, have you used Newpipe, the Android app? Yes, that is on my phone. Yep, it's very, very good.

It is basically, so Newpipe would probably be the, I guess, the mobile version of your YouTube and FreeTube would be the desktop application. so I have used it. It's fantastic. Yeah, I need to look into FreeTube. I've used NVIDIA as a good bit with Privacy Redirect, but I've really only been consuming YouTube videos on mobile. So I've been using Newpipe for quite a while. I can't remember who recommended that to me, but that's been a great tool. Newpipe is fantastic.

It is fantastic. It really is good. It's surprising how well it works. Yep, it's really good. Okay, well, do you have anything else you wanted to chat about? Any questions for me? So I think I wanted to talk a little bit about where Bitcoin falls into my toolkit when it comes to opting out. I think for me, when I opt out or when I think of opting out of certain things, currency debasement is my number one thing that I want to protect myself from.

I want strong property rights in the form of a finite supply of money. So that is where I use Bitcoin as a tool to opt out and defend myself against the printing presses of the central banks. I also want stability in the rules. I want things to, you know, I want to see these rules be abided by for a very, very long time. And I think Bitcoin is that tool for me. So for me, I think that's just something that I prescribe to and I want to use for the long term and hold my savings in that as a tool.

I think it's a very, very important tool for freedom and to allow people to express themselves in a way that the legacy financial system simply does not. So I think that that is, yeah, that's how Bitcoin falls into my toolkit of, I guess, other tools and things that I use to defend myself. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I think cryptocurrency is a solution that isn't, I think, super popular in the privacy community. I think there are some within the privacy community that have realized how valuable that can be.

But I think that more people need to realize not only is it a tool for privacy, but it's also, like you said, it's a great way to opt out of inflation or central control of money, government control of money. There's a lot of stuff to dive into there. And as you know, obviously, most of my time in the cryptocurrency space is spent on Monero, but I'm definitely thankful for Bitcoiners like you who are privacy focused. You see the need for using tools around Bitcoin to help you preserve your privacy as well.

So I think that's a really important aspect of it. And then, like you mentioned, Ministry of Nodes is focused on Bitcoin and self-hosting as well, right? Yeah, that's right. So if you want to learn how to use these tools in a manner that helps you and protects you, from these issues that are occurring pretty much every day, you wake up, your currency is being debased. So if you want to opt out from that, yeah, you're going to need to learn how to use the tools to be able to successfully do that.

And sometimes it is just like, you know, flexing a muscle and you'll need to repeatedly work on it to get better at it. It's a mindset thing. So yeah, Ministry of Nodes helps you with that. And the last question I have for you is what advice would you give to someone starting to realize the need for personal privacy? Okay. So I think understand that there is no panacea. You won't wake up one day, swallow a pill and suddenly, oh, you're private. That's just not how it works.

We spoke about this earlier. It is an ongoing journey. It's mostly about trade-offs and

50:00 You will come to find that it will be about picking the lesser of the evils. There will not be a perfect solution. We don't live in a perfect world. So don't expect perfection on your first go. That's more just something to be cognizant of. But in terms of practical steps that you could take, I think you can start small and work your way up. So getting comfortable with a password manager is a good place to start. Getting comfortable with two-factor authentication.

That's something that you can look into considering. Then from there, move on to things like Nextcloud and, you know, FreeTube and hosting your own tools. I think if you start small and make these incremental changes and you keep at them, that's when you're going to get that snowball effect of, okay, at the end of it, you will have grown into a more privacy-oriented individual. But the thing is to just start. I think that's my main advice. Start doing something.

Don't just sit there and take it from corporations lying down. It's not the way to be. Constantly evaluate and see what could be fixed on your end. So that's my advice. Awesome. Yeah, those are some great keys. I think just realizing you need privacy and you need to take it seriously, you need to take it into your own hands is, I mean, that's a huge, huge step. So once people have accomplished that, and I'm assuming people who are listening here have accomplished that, it's really important to then just kind of take things one step at a time.

Like you mentioned, starting with a password manager, starting with switching to maybe a more privacy-preserving browser are some really good ways that aren't massively impactful in the way that you do daily life. But they're really good building blocks that will set you up for success as you build on more and more privacy-preserving things, get into more tools, all of that down the road. Yeah, just a point around why privacy is important. I would strongly recommend reading a Cypherpunk manifesto by Eric Hughes.

It was published in 1993, and it is just insane the level of foresight that that individual had to what you see today. It is phenomenal. So a Cypherpunk manifesto, it's a very short read, but it's worth all of your attention. We'll definitely add that into the show notes. That is a gold, gold asset. Everyone needs to read that. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Catan. It was a great chance to finally get to chat with you. I'm glad we were able to sit down, and hopefully we'll be able to interact more with you in the future.

Where can listeners go to find or communicate with you? Yep, so all of my socials are on k3tan.com in the top menu there. You can find me on Twitter at underscore k3tan. Perfect. Well, I will definitely make sure to get all of these links into the show notes. We went over a lot of different tools, and I'm excited for people to dive in and check these things out. Well, thanks again for coming on. No worries. Thanks for having me. Well, we've already talked about it a good bit to do with Catan.

I wanted to circle back to CalyxOS as this week's project to help you opt out. CalyxOS is a privacy-preserving Android mobile OS that allows you to reclaim your privacy while on the go. It comes without Google Apps for tracking, but does allow you to run Micro G, an open-source connector for Google Play services, something which many apps require to function properly. I've been using CalyxOS for the past three months while loving the experience, and have written down more detailed thoughts along with app recommendations, a simple installation note, and more on my blog at sethsimmons.me.

The link to that blog post can be found in the show notes, along with many other helpful links to learn more about how you can use CalyxOS to opt out this week. Thanks.