00:00 - Hello, I'm Seth Simmons, and welcome to season one, episode 12 of Opt Out. Opt Out's a show where I sit down with passionate people to learn why privacy matters to them, the tools and techniques they found and leveraged, and where we encourage and inspire others towards personal privacy and data sovereignty. Wondering how to find the right balance of privacy and convenience, or struggling with the mental strain of a journey towards personal privacy?

This episode, we're sitting down with J4-3 to chat about the mental strain that can be caused by a journey towards privacy, and a deeper look at parallel economies or second realms. Welcome on to Opt Out, J4-3. - Thanks for having me. I'm J4-3. By day, I'm an infrastructure and security engineer, who's sort of globally nomadic. By night, I think about tough problems, and I guess you could say I have a philosophical twist on all of these topics. - Yeah, I'm really glad to be able to chat with you, and bring you on to Opt Out finally.

You've been a really amazing contact. You reached out to me a long time ago on Signal, and we've been chatting back and forth, and just been very grateful for the conversations that we've had already. They've been helpful to me, and I'm just glad to be able to let more people in on some of your insight and experience, and let them learn a little bit about you, and about just your thoughts around privacy, because I think they are privacy, because I think they are really, really fascinating.

- First question I want to just go and jump right into is just, what was it that woke you up to the need for personal privacy? - I don't really think there was ever a time that I was actually, air quote, "asleep" or blind to the fact that everyone has the right to absolute total privacy. But as for what lit my path ablaze, it really started when I was young. I was always a curious mind and sought knowledge. Finding information back then was challenging, and when I say back then, I'm talking many decades ago.

So I'm sort of an old computer dude. So finding information was extremely challenging in comparison to our current era where information is at your fingertips at light speed. As a result, like my life just sort of began diving into topics that were occult, and by occult, I mean the actual Latin translation for hidden or obscure. Naturally, I had a curious mind. I wanted to learn the mysteries of the world, but also how to guard that information from those who may be your adversary.

If this sounds like I was threat modeling as a child, you'd likely be correct. Modern computers became relevant. For me, and by modern, I mean trash 80s or the TRS 80s, Commodore Vicks, Amigas. So yeah, it was a very long time ago. But I absolutely fell in love with the machine and its possibilities, not just for myself, but for humanity and society as a whole. Interestingly enough, I had a relative who was a scientist who had internet access at his facility.

And this was back in the day of shell counts on timeshared Unix systems. And I was given an account back then with a three-letter username. Back when three-letter usernames were the defaults, thus J4-3 was born. I do recall connecting and interacting with things like older protocols, which are now sort of being rebooted, like Gopher, which is now kind of rebooted into Gemini, and sending things like UUCP and those sorts of things back and forth. The technology I felt was very powerful.

And inside my head, I knew that this could be probably easily weaponized given the right resources and that whatever I do moving forward, you know, I'd have to have a focus, a good clear focus on protecting my own data and those around me. And I felt that would be important. Yeah, I love that. I love that J4-3 comes from something that was like important earlier, early on in your technology journey. And it's just, it's fascinating to hear that as you were kind of just exploring curiosity and exploring questions that you had about the world, privacy played a key role in that.

I think those things for a lot of people don't go hand in hand. Um, it's always loved to hear when people like didn't, I don't know, for me, since I had kind of like a wake up moment with privacy, and it wasn't something that I was always thinking about. I'm, I always love learning about more when people didn't have that, kind of how I was just kind of baked into how you approach the world. And it's just fascinating to me that that was an approach that, that you took kind of out of the gate.

And like you said, threat modeling as a kid and thinking about kind of who would care what information you knew and what things you had access to. And, uh, yeah, really fascinating to, to hear more about that. Yeah. Um, I think most of us, uh, in the world have the Google burrito story where, uh, maybe 10 years ago when Google really started going deep on tracking and tracing, uh, they might buy a burrito somewhere and it shows up on their credit card statement.

Then Google starts sending them ads for burritos. So everyone's always terrifying. Definitely. Um, so, you know, fast forwarding, um, many decades later, we're now in this like de facto surveillance state. I feel, um, everything we say, do sometimes even feel, um, we must sort of assume that it's recorded and act accordingly. Uh, personally, my view is I don't feel governments and corporations should try to police the internet, much less our own lives as human beings.

The internet's always been this sort of magical sovereign place of endless possibilities. Now it's turned into a centralized dumpster fire filled with every agency on the planet, holding tap and intercept points at all major IXPs globally. It's to the point that it's really not unreasonable for one to feel a bit nervous when they consider saying or doing anything on the internet. And truly, I feel the stress is something that we as a species do not need.

So to summarize, while the world has been asleep, I've had insomnia. I love that. Yeah. I think that, uh, that point about the mental effects that the idea of being surveilled constantly can have on you either consciously or subconsciously is a, is a really key aspect that a lot of people don't consider enough around privacy. And it's not, it's not necessarily just about like, I have specific things that are unique to me that I want to hide or keep secret, which I think is, is a very valid reason for privacy and is kind of the core of privacy.

But it also can come down to when you're in an environment where you know that you're surveilled, you know, that the things that you're saying, chatting, typing, even thinking, or even just pondering out loud and getting picked up by Google now and getting ads later for it. It definitely can be something where it changes the way that you process externally and sometimes can even change the way that you think about the world, because you know that the, the things you say and you're going to be surveilled and cataloged and in storage for all time.

So it can be a very, a very daunting and oppressive thing, even if it's not something where you're directly impacted by it, just because of the mental toll that that can take knowing that you're under that surveillance. Yeah, absolutely. And from a computer science standpoint, they have this old saying, I don't know exactly how it goes, but I think it's to really defeat your enemy, you have to know your enemy and almost respect your enemy. And for me, I'm fascinated with how they do these things, how they collect all these data points and aggregate them into something that's tangible and make a model about you.

So, you know, perhaps in a perfect world or another world, I might find it convenient that Google or Amazon knows what I like to eat and what I like to watch or what I like to consume. But, you know, the cost of that to me is just too great. And I think that's why I'm still very stubborn in giving up my data. Yeah, I think that's honestly, that's the right approach. Weighing that balance consciously between convenience and privacy is a very important thing that I hope that more people take seriously.

And you mentioned a little bit about why privacy is important because of kind of the surveillance state that we live under these days, which I think is a good way to phrase it and very appropriate. So, you know, I think that's the right. Is that the core of what makes privacy an important topic to you today and not just something from kind of your history or your past? Well, as far as the level of importance, for me, it really has not changed at the core level.

What really has changed in air quotes, the game is the mechanics of surveillance and counter surveillance. Unfortunately, you know, many people simply don't care about privacy. And to me, that's OK. You know, I have no judgment. We really can't save the world from ourselves. But hopefully we can make it a little bit better than we found it with all the mass surveillance programs of government, governments and the tracking with all the corporations.

I feel it's more important than ever to at least be cognizant to the fact that you are indeed a product. You are being cataloged and it's up to you to decide whether to opt in or not. Yep. If something is, especially if something's free, you are the product. It's you. It's you that's being being collected and your data that's being collected and and used as payment for things. And I think like I would I would hope that we reach a tipping point where enough people are taking privacy seriously.

Caring about their data, caring about their their unique things that make them who they are and keeping those things private and using tools that allow them to do that. Hopefully we'd reach a tipping point where that forces corporate hands that forces you.

10:00 government hands to start respecting our privacy more. But whether or not that actually happens, I hope that more people will realize that they're the ones who have to take privacy into their own hands. It's not something that someone else can do for them. It's generally not something that a law or government or even a pro-privacy company or corporation can do for them. But it's something they have to decide. I care about my privacy. I want to keep these things to myself and allow myself to share them with who I want rather than just the world. And that's a very important thing that I hope will happen and I hope people will realize. And yeah, just love that you have realized that you haven't been sleeping when the world has been and are thinking about those things deeply.

And we touched a little bit on some of the myths that people wrestle with in the privacy space. But what are some other common myths about personal privacy that you've run into? Well, I think there's the one that almost all of your speakers have mentioned. The argument of, hey, I have nothing to hide. I'm not a criminal, so I shouldn't care about my privacy. Really, this question has been answered by so many people, including your previous guest, to the point it's almost a meme. My quick bit on this is we all have something to hide without secrets. We're like everyone else. And frankly, that sounds rather dull.

Yeah, that's one that has come up, I think, with almost every guest that I've had on the show. It almost makes me want to not focus on this question every time, but I'm always curious to hear people's specific response. And there definitely have been some other myths, but it's kind of shown me that there are core things that people believe or that they say without actually believing them just because it's kind of repetition. And that is definitely a key one is I have nothing to hide. So why should I worry?

And it's one that I think everyone who cares about privacy has had to wrestle with either personally or with people around them. It's kind of a constant struggle in the space. Yeah, I think a lot of that probably also stems from a fair amount of consensus bias. Yeah, like you think enough people are saying it that people just start to assume that it's true about themselves as well. Right. Yeah. Or, you know, I don't like having to drag Google up and down, but I mean, it's a great example.

You know, they have clear privacy policies, but, you know, oftentimes you find that there's shady things happening on the back end that you don't know about. But of course, you know, people think, OK, well, I'm not really worried about it. You know, Google's convenient. It's fine. It's secure. And in fact, they are literally one of the most secure companies on the planet. Yeah. But their privacy is obviously needs a bit of tweaking. I think the other one that really comes to mind and this is starting to turn into a meme, I think, is insert here, air quotes, is the most private phone slash mobile OS on the planet.

Again, this is my take, so take it for what it is, but whether you're running GrapheneOS, Calyx, Lineage, iOS, I don't even know if Windows makes phones anymore, etc. Your phone is essentially a beacon. You're constantly transmitting information via baseband. So even if you pull out the SIM card of your phone, guess what? You can still make a call to who? Emergency services. How do they route the call? Your IMEI hits a tower. It's your identity. If you're within the mobile transmitting area and given a proper trap request, whether they obtain it legally or not, it's rather simple for someone to triangulate your position within 20 to 30 meters, give or take.

So while everyone is super busy loading up their phone with all these tools and VPNs and all these things to hide from cell towers and other radio technology, to me, I feel it's a bit discouraging to see so many people blindly putting faith that some tool will protect them from their phone. If you want true full privacy, take a car by drill, introduce it to your phone, duct tape the remains to three different semi trucks, and then go for a ride full stop.

Yeah, I think we'll talk about threat models a little bit more later, but the key to me when looking at mobile OS privacy is that I think it is an important thing in specific threat models. And the key to me is that gaining privacy in the operating system that you're using on your mobile phone, yes, it doesn't prevent your carrier from knowing your position. Like you mentioned, they can triangulate the location of you without location services on just because of what radios you're connected to, what towers you're connected to very easily.

And that's not something that hopefully anyone is disputing. Like that's, that's just, that will always be an issue. And there's no way around that other than having your identity not tied to your IMEI. But even then those things can still be correlated if you make any other mistakes. But the key to me for going for a privacy preserving mobile OS, like CalyxOS, which I use, is it allows you to limit the data sharing with third parties. Basically, you're choosing who gets access to the data on your phone, who, what apps you're installing, what telemetry is being collected, all of those kinds of things.

But yeah, it does not remove that, that piece of using a mobile phone that is you, your location is always known. You're the IMEI of your phone, at least its location is always known. So it's not something that's cut down by using a mobile OS, but you can basically limit all of the other data sharing. You can limit the access that Google has, that Apple has, that third parties have into your data. But if your threat model includes being worried about triangulation via radio towers on you, that's just not something you're going to be able to solve with any kind of mobile OS.

Like you said, you're going to have to tear your phone apart and send it as many ways as possible and not worry about having a phone on you when you're walking around anymore, which hopefully more people will start doing. That's one thing I've, as I've started switching away from core operating systems like Google's Android or iOS, you just start to realize that all of the things that you relied on previously on your phone are not really requirements for life and you can get along quite well without a cell phone.

So hopefully people will realize that more and start just being willing to leave home without a phone, not worrying about it. Admittedly, a lot of those things, you know, can be convenient for most people. And I'm not saying that I'm not convenient for myself. I just choose to live a different way. And you're right. You know, you're still going to transmit via baseband. But unfortunately, there's a lot of people who don't take the time to really read the FAQs or the white papers or don't take time to learn about the code and how the actual device works.

So they make assumptions because they see these words, privacy and security, maybe even anonymity, which is a whole other topic. In fact, they're all three separate topics. So they end up having these ideas based on just keywords without actually looking at the details. But I see a lot of that online, believe it or not. I really want to say where, but it does happen enough for me to bring it up. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's definitely important that especially the projects who are making things like this, like Calyx, like GrapheneOS, that they're very clear what things they do help with and what things they don't help with.

I mean, that's important of any privacy preserving tool that they're very honest about those issues. And I think it's Qubes OS call themselves reasonably secure is their phrase, which I love the kind of more tame branding that Qubes OS uses. I think Monero has had a similar tagline for a while of reasonably private or similar things like that, where it's not claiming to be perfection or like the most perfect privacy tool incarnate. But it's good at what it does and people need to realize what it's good at and what it's not good at.

And I think bringing up that point about kind of baseband tracking or cell tower tracking is important because it's not going to help you with that. If you have a phone on you, you're going to have a problem with that no matter what OS you're running. But hopefully both the projects and the people who are reviewing or talking about or educating about those projects will be clear about that. And it's definitely something I need to be careful of that I'm not pitching these solutions as kind of the end all be all, but rather a tool in your toolkit.

And something that you hopefully understand the shortcomings of. Yeah, I too. When I first took a look at Qubes OS many years ago, that tagline is really initially what drew me into it because it really doesn't say, hey, we are 100% hardened. We have no attack surface. You know, they just were honest. And I think that speaks a lot, really. Yeah, that goes a long ways to show that the project is realistic about what it's trying to do, what it's able to do.

I think when they're able to talk in language that's not absolute or black and white, it goes a long way to show that they're very serious about the approaches that they're taking to privacy or like in Qubes OS, security is a key focus there. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And then what's a roadblock that you've seen people struggle with when it comes to personal privacy? There can be a lot of overlap there between myths, but I'm curious if there's any specific roadblocks you've seen people hit when they're starting to think about their own personal privacy.

There's several, but the ones that I run across the most. First one is trying too hard. So some people will just throw the kitchen sink at their device, whether it's mobile or laptop, desktop, whatever, in an effort to obtain and.

20:00 deploy and maintain privacy, oftentimes the setups become so ridiculously complex. They end up creating a very nice, unique signature that loosely translates as, hi, I'm John Doe with such and such device. He has everything about me because I stand out like a sore thumb. Yeah, the one always jumps out at me when I hear people who have the ultimate threat model and are the most worried about everything and using these setups that no one can even relate with because they're so specific and unique.

And I have always wondered, is that something that makes it even easier in some senses to track you because the specific digital footprint that you have, even if you are good about keeping it anonymous and private, I'm always curious if there is a way that that footprint could kind of come back to haunt you and that it's so unique compared to not even a normal person, but even like a privacy conscious person. Yeah, I think having that unique fingerprint, I mean, we're talking something that's very unique, not something that, oh, hey, there's 10,000 John Doe's, but something that's really narrowed because someone decides to tool a certain way.

If they were to take some sort of action or someone perceived their action as malicious or who knows, maybe things become illegal in the future that you're doing today, that whole signature is marked. It can be tracked. So my approach really is to try to avoid trying too hard. But the other thing I see is really ego. And I believe Smuggler actually touched on this when he spoke. So we live in this interesting age where, quote unquote, air quotes, transparency is everything.

And everyone feels this extreme need to have a voice. Now, I don't think either of those things are inherently bad, quite the opposite. But many people have this extreme neurotic need to have their ego stroked. And as a result, they'll spill their guts about everything to feel validated and accepted. Meanwhile, they're giving away all the data, their secrets. So for me, I find it tragic that people will jeopardize their integrity all for a little dopamine hit on the internet.

Yeah. Yeah. I loved how Smuggler covered that last episode and just talked very, very plainly about what that tells the world about yourself and how you view yourself when you're willing to give up everything that makes it unique just to get a like or a follow or a comment. And part of the blame is on culture and just our shift towards that, our embracing of social media and falling for that. But also, I think a lot of the blame can be laid at corporations that have learned that they can prey upon natural human desires and build these systems that are very much designed to elicit responses like we see on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook.

They know what they're trying to do to people. And unfortunately, people don't realize that they're really being had. I mean, their data is being harvested. They are being used for a specific purpose. And that is to grow the company, spread the company and collect data that they can use or sell later on. And a lot of people just don't realize that. And like you said, are just willing to give up the things that make them unique or just even sharing every single detail about every day that they're walking through with the world and not realizing that that detail is the thing that allows them to have close relationships with real people who they really could know rather than just kind of a broad swath of random people on the internet who may or may not be a true close community.

Absolutely. Interestingly enough, I gave a talk many years ago on OSINT or open source intelligence. And in discussing targets, I have this thing called the trifecta where it's sex, ego, money. Those three things will smoke a person every time. So if someone's on social media and is motivated by those sorts of things, for them, it's super simple to give up all their data and tell an entire story within a month's time on social media or some other platform.

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely, it's important for people to be aware of their specific kind of weaknesses or vulnerabilities that could be exploited by, it could be a nation state or it could just be someone trying to social engineer you into giving up info that could be used against you. But yeah, I think a very similar approach is what's been used by government agencies like the NSA and CIA because those three main approaches are the same ones that can easily turn people and get info out of them that you need specifically.

Definitely something to be aware of. And then how do you try to motivate or prompt people past that roadblock? It can seem really, really daunting and oftentimes feel almost pointless, but I try to find the ways that I can prompt people, especially people just that I know closely. It's not something that I just prompt random people about, but trying to push people past the kind of common roadblocks that we run into. Good question. So if you were to ask me the other day, I'd tell you I've all but given up, but you really can't change people, only yourself and your reaction to the world.

But you're right. Those close to you, try to give them a hand and try to get past those roadblocks, which are 99% mental. Here's just a few tips that I've come up with that seem to work. First of all, think before you speak. Whatever you say is out there permanently. Second, keep it simple, meaning like your tooling, how you operate. Don't go for some complex thing because it's just going to cause problems. Third, again, remember the internet has no instance of memory loss whatsoever.

So that kind of ties back to think before you speak because what you say today might be illegal 20 years from now. We don't know. Then finally, I find it most helpful to in evading those roadblocks is to identify your threat model early and refine it as your life changes because nothing's static. Many people design their threat model, whether it's the ultimate threat model or beginner's threat model, however you want to term it. They never change it.

But then they change. And then the threat model becomes invalid. I think that's a really good point. Honestly, I think that's something I struggle with is realizing that a threat model is constantly shifting, especially as you switch jobs, have a family that's growing, have kind of a move to a different part of the country, or even just switch up the communities that you're interacting with online. A lot of that can be something that should prompt you to reassess and rethink your threat model.

But I think oftentimes we kind of forget to do that. I know I've forgotten to do that many times. And just realizing that it's something that should not be static. And oftentimes can be static. But we need to keep working on that. And I think another thing that kind of jumps out at me, too, is that we can model an approach to privacy that's sane, model an approach to privacy that's approachable, and use that as a way to draw the people who know us well, who we choose to share things with, who we're close with, and to show them that privacy is like, A, it's something that can be done.

Like, it's not just this daunting, impossible task. And hopefully just showing them some of the benefits that we are gaining from caring deeply about our own privacy. And just letting them see that firsthand. A lot of times conversation is not the way that we can change people's minds, especially not when we're finding it's something that's so kind of deeply cultural nowadays. But oftentimes, I think modeling can prompt people to want to learn more about why you're doing this.

Or, oh, you won't message me on Facebook Messenger? Like, why is that? What's your reason for not being on Facebook? Or those kinds of things, I think, can be really good prompts to share with other people and to help draw them into caring more deeply about their own personal privacy. And one of my favorite questions that I get to ask every guest is just what's something that you feel like almost no one agrees with you on? You would need another show for this.

But probably one of the most common things that people disagree with me on is VPN being useful as a privacy tool. Even today, there seems to be confusion regarding privacy and anonymity. You'll see countless articles how VPNs are not anonymous. And yet, they really aren't meant to be that sort of tool. VPNs provide this cryptographic encapsulation layer for your data so that, for instance, your ISP and perhaps other entities can't see your payload transmission in flight.

Of course, there's the ancillary argument where people will trash a VPN provider for this and that even without having done the research themselves. And of course, there's the third side of the coin, which is the VPN provider themselves. We've seen many of them. I won't mention names that have actually sipped traffic of users and given up logs and all these sorts of things. So for me, as long as your expectations of privacy do not really bleed deeply into an anonymity set focus, I find that it's reasonable to think that if you use cryptography to wrap your internet transmissions, it's much better than speaking in the clear.

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. That was a really good topic that we covered quite a bit last episode with Smuggler and just kind of talked about a realistic view of VPNs. And I think what you brought up is such an important point.

30:00 that VPNs were never about anonymity. That's not their goal. That's not why people used them a long time ago. That's not why people use them now. And it's very important that people realize that they do not provide anonymity. But that doesn't mean that they're useless, especially like you talked about. If your threat model isn't centered around pure anonymity, they can be a very, very useful tool. And even then, they could be a part of your toolkit, even though you shouldn't rely on them for anonymity.

But yeah, they're a very important kind of-- I don't know. I feel like they're a very important base tool that other privacy tools should be kind of wrapped around. Because they do allow you to choose who you trust with your internet traffic. And if you do your research, if you dig deeply, if you read deeply into some of the better VPNs and the better VPN providers, learn more about what they're really promising, what they're honest about, their shortcomings, how they're honest about the things they do well or do poorly, they can be a very, very valuable tool.

If nothing else, just to shift your trust model from your ISP or your cell provider or a sketchy hotels network or a sketchy cafes network, that kind of thing, and shift that into an entity that you at least trust a little bit more than those. All the while, like you mentioned, encrypting that traffic from you to the VPN so that it's harder for anyone in the middle to spy on the things you're doing, at least the actual data itself. Metadata may still be available, but the actual core packet data will be hidden from them.

So yeah, I think it's a weird one. I never realized it was as divisive as it was until I started getting deeper into the privacy community and interacting with more people. And it is very much one of those topics, I think, along with Tor, that people are very polarized around. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. Knowing your provider and building that rapport and that trust model is really good. So again, it goes really back to your threat model.

If you're just trying to evade your ISP, then whatever provider you choose might be better than your ISP, depending on where you're at in the world and your ISP's practices. But for me, I'd rather trust my traffic to somewhere in Romania than I would my ISP, who could see things in the clear. So I really find it's subjective and it's very individual. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just like pretty much everything else in the privacy space, the specific tools that you need are really going to come down to the things that you care about, to your threat model that you built or the specific threat actors that you're worried about.

If that's not your ISP at all, if that's not the network provider at all, a VPN may not be something that's super useful to you. But it's definitely something that I think everyone should at least deeply explore and figure out what VPNs are, how they work and what they can provide and can't provide. Yeah, thanks for bringing up that kind of nuance there. Let's take a quick break from this episode to chat about the sponsors of OptOut, Cake Wallet and LocalMonero.

Cake Wallet is a key tool that I use daily, as it allows me to easily and quickly use Monero for private by default payments. Available in both iOS and Android, it is a fantastic way to get started buying and using Monero with a simple and easy to understand user experience. I regularly onboard new users to Cake Wallet and hope that it will help simplify and ease your journey into cryptocurrency. If you're interested in purchasing Monero for the first time, or helping to bring others into a parallel economy, I'd recommend you look at using LocalMonero, like I do, to buy and sell Monero while maintaining your privacy and avoiding invasive exchange surveillance.

LocalMonero is entirely peer-to-peer and is an important part of opting out of the surveillance state and into a parallel economy. Thank you to both sponsors for their incredible support and partnership. And I hope you'll take a moment after the episode to learn more in the show notes or at optoutpod.com/sponsors. I want to shift into a really important topic. I want to shift into a really important topic and it's one that has grown in my mind and grown in just the times that I've interacted with other people in the privacy space.

Because I do think a lot of people get burnt out mentally when realizing the need for personal privacy, but then just feeling like they have to dive in way too deeply, way too quickly. And I think part of that blame is some of the education that's in the space is very aggressive and I think a little dishonest about the approach that everyone needs to take. I think part of that can be people applying their own threat models to everyone else around them and assuming that everyone else has to live by their threat models.

But something that we've talked about a bit in our private chats and something I wanted to cover a little bit here is just how you see the mental aspects of privacy being very important. And I'd love to get your thoughts around just kind of how you balance the mental strain of privacy with just simply living a good life, like not living a life of paranoia and fear, but figuring out that balance of realizing the need for personal privacy, realizing how important it is, but not letting it just kind of destroy the rest of your life as you're searching for those things.

And then kind of a sub question is where do threat models come into play and finding that balance? Tough question. That could be potentially two more episodes, but let's see if we can sum it. Let's make it a six hour episode or so. We'll go for that. Are you buying the beer? Digital beer, I guess. Fair enough. So the first thing I like to think about is risk versus reward, meaning does all this work that we put into protecting a piece of data or to evade surveillance really provide a reward that is greater to the risk of one's sanity and well-being?

So if you've gotten to the point that you're so paranoid and now think that white Toyota Camry's and bakery delivery trucks are following you, likely a sign that you've hit a massively high cognitive load, time to hit the brakes immediately and pull back for a while and rethink your strategy. Threat models, I think, when properly done, help us to truly realize the threats to our information, how to mitigate such threats. Based on that, we're able to make decisions on what mechanics to deploy and in what fashion.

One thing that many forget is that not everyone is a celebrity. Not everyone is Edward Snowden, even though they'd like to be. Most of us are just hardworking people and interesting people trying to live a decent life. So to answer the other side of your question, the threat modeling helps by providing these, what I call a checks and balances system to ensure that we're not throwing up the preferable baby out with the bathwater that's causing ourselves further harm.

Yeah, I think it's such an important topic because it really can be daunting. And I think the more that I realize the need for privacy and the ways that especially nation states and corporations are very aggressively increasing their surveillance and increasing the approaches that they're taking to collect as much data as possible to process that data and make sense of it. It can feel like you need to just kind of go 100%, do everything possible, jump into all of the tools that you're hearing about and reading about all at the same time.

And honestly, that usually just leads to the opposite effect where you end up getting burnt out, you end up getting cynical about privacy and you end up feeling like it's not something that is approachable. Even though really kind of the reasoning for why that's happened is that you've just bitten off more than you can chew, honestly. And you end up harming your privacy in the end because you give up on those kinds of things. So trying to find that mental balance of how much can I handle like right now?

Like I know that I need personal privacy. I know that's something that's important to me. I know that's something that is becoming more important in the world day by day. And just figuring out like what's kind of the first step that I can take in this journey and realizing that it's not something that in a week you're just going to be totally private and you're not going to have to worry anymore. And your threat model is going to be perfectly answered.

You're good to go. It's not something that happens that quickly, but it is a very important process. And it's a process that will take some time, but just figuring out like how much can I focus on right now? How much time do I have in the weeknights or weekends to dig into a new tool or dig into a new approach or educate myself about a specific privacy tool? And trying to take things just really one piece at a time, build out that threat model, find good resources on how to do that.

And then figure out what's the biggest issue that I have in this threat model and start taking that piece by piece. And like you said, just if you realize that you have just paranoia and fear kind of coursing through your veins as you're thinking about these things, maybe you need to take a step back. And honestly, hopefully just find some community around you that can give you sane tips, sane responses, sane feedback on the approaches you're taking and help you figure out just a realistic approach that you can take to learning more about taking back your personal privacy.

One point I'd like to make on that is it's not just about privacy. It's really any, I guess, discipline you follow or any effort you make. You try too hard and it just fails. So a great example is in university, students will stay up for two days straight on caffeine pills or whatever they get their hands on. And then what happens when they go to do the test? They fail or vomit or don't do very well because they just try to jam too much stuff in at once.

And the brain just does not work like that. So, yeah, definitely. Yeah.

40:00 Take a step back if you have to. Yeah, absolutely. I think those are such important topics for today. And I'd love to hear if you have more thoughts around how people can best find their personal balance of convenience and privacy. That was a tricky thing to answer for other people. So maybe just some insight into how you've found that balance for yourself. I think realizing that just as there's a cost associated with your data, there's a cost associated with your privacy, and it's rather expensive.

None of this stuff is convenient. As a species, especially here in 2021, we're used to this instant on having to put forth much effort, having the gratification of now. So the convenience ratio, I feel, directly correlates to your threat model. A good example would be is if you're a person who simply wants to evade corporate tracking, that's a lot easier to model around than say some sort of corporate spy who happens to have maybe accidentally made a copy of the formula for Coca-Cola.

Two entirely different things. So knowing your threat model is really, really good and refining it to where you can have that balance of convenience and privacy without driving yourself mad. And something I've noticed as I've learned more about personal privacy as I've kind of tackled new tasks and taking a deeper approach is that that line where the balance between privacy and convenience is has really shifted quite a bit from when I initially started thinking deeply about privacy until now.

And I think as we kind of start breaking down some of the social norms that we're used to around privacy, some of the myths that we talked about today, some of the roadblocks that people hit, some of the social pressure to be spewing everything that we do online, to be sharing everything that we do with the world. Once you start breaking down some of those things that just seemed like normal and unescapable and like core to who you are, you start to realize that the actual convenience that you thought you needed is not actually what you needed.

And you start to be able to shift that, at least what I've found is you start to be able to shift that line where that balance is between privacy and convenience deeper and deeper into a more private approach. And you start to realize that you're not actually losing convenience, you're losing access to things that you thought you needed, but are not actually essential to being a human, essential to having deep community, essential to having deep relationships or finding people who really care about you.

And so that's been something that's been interesting for me to find is that what I thought would have been like the maximum convenience I could give up initially, I am far past that, but I'm not, I don't feel every day like I'm suffering under the inconvenience that I'm putting myself under, even though I am drastically more private now and I have many more tools in my toolkit and I'm thinking more often about privacy. It's not something where I feel like I'm being crushed and unable to deal with the inconveniences of it, but rather a lot of my view and my perspective has shifted as I've taken steps down that personal journey.

And I wouldn't be surprised if lots of other people feel that way, but that's something I hadn't really thought about too much until right now. Maybe it's not convenience that we lose, but the easy access to triggering our brain's happy space. So I think that's oftentimes what puts people off about deploying the mechanics of privacy is, you know, it's not like Facebook. It's not instant on trigger, trigger, trigger, slot machine, right? Something totally different.

You actually have to be thoughtful and mindful. So yeah, it's, I like how you touched on community because for me, my circle is very small, but the people in it, you know, they're quality people. I have different levels of trust with them and we don't really have this idea of instant on and gratification and whatever, you know, we help each other, whether it's in kinetic space or digital space, you know, we're there for each other. And to me, in the end, I think that's what matters.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we quickly wake up and realize that, that, that need for an instant dopamine hit that you talked about earlier is something that once we get past that and get past that feeling of dependence, we start to realize there's a lot more, I think for me, there's a lot more happiness and joy and real relationship once you get past that. And like we talked about, once you get past that or getting past that is something that's really unachievable once you start realizing that personal privacy matters.

Or if you're just someone who's not, hasn't been pulled into those kind of social norms, which for those people who were never pulled into those, I would be, I would be happy to be you. It'd be great to not have had to battle through those things. But I think for those of us who did at one point, I think realizing that personal privacy is the way that we're able to break through and start to take back some of that. And again, a little bit, I think of what, what was the norm throughout most of history, but it's only very recently been forgotten as we've gotten access to these instant dopamine hits and very engineered tools to make us feel connected to people, even if we're, we're not really connected to them at all.

Shifting topics a little bit, well, quite a bit. It's not, not really even close. We have talked a good bit about parallel economies or second realms is oftentimes another term that's used there. In the past, an opt-out, we've had several guests on that, that was really a key focus. And it's something that, that I've loved to, to learn more about, to dig more deeply into. And honestly, it was something I'd never really considered before. I wasn't someone, I mean, I grew up with internet access, but I wasn't someone who grew up as kind of an internet native.

So it was very much later on in life, really late high school, college, that I started becoming more, more part of the internet culture and starting to realize a little bit more of the idea of first and second realms. But even really only recently in, in doing the podcast have I come to, come to become more familiar with those terms and, and start to see how, how vital those things can be to, to people's lives or, or could be. And I'd love to get your thoughts on why parallel economies or second realms can be so vital and why they're an important concept to you.

Yeah, sure. The world's a really challenging place to say the least. And I feel that being able to operate and live your life in both the first and second realm is important. So a quick look back on this topic for those who may not have caught up on your series or done the research because it's been covered by many good people, some of which have actually already been on is first realm. You could consider it to be like your day-to-day job, your family, your friends, people you know in kinetic space as maybe John Doe, right?

They know you by name, you're bound by certain rules and maybe even certain laws. In the second realm, you become what and who you want to be, you build communities and tribes based on your interests and you create a society that has its own boundaries that you and your tribe agrees on. To me, it's a place where anything and everything is possible. It's a place that you can actually truly be free. And I could go on and on about this, but for me, it's a very deep philosophical construct and it's one that really cannot be summed in even six hours.

For me, having parallel society is important because in the current era, there really is no escaping first realm operation. I personally don't think it will ever be possible. maybe some of the visionaries that are out there in the crypto anarchy space might be able to prove otherwise. But with the advent of new technologies and perhaps maybe even the reboot of some legacy technologies, we're able to build these second realms in subsequent TAS or TAZs, Temporary Autonomous Zones, which I feel can be healthy for the human species and provide us the safe space into which just to breathe a little bit better.

So do you normally separate first and second realm as almost like physical as first realm and digital as second realm? And is that kind of like a core part of that concept or is that just the way that you specifically view it? For the most part, it's how I execute it. But I also feel that if you're in a second realm scenario, having kinetic space connections is really important. In fact, that's one of your best methods for privacy is discussing things with your friends and your community in person.

You're much more apt to evade internet tracking by meeting in, say, a coffee shop somewhere versus a Discord chat room, right? So I think really for me, it's a blend of both. But because I'm sort of nomadic and I travel around the world, mostly the second realm is digital. Yeah, I love that, kind of the qualifier that it's more just who you're choosing to reveal a specific, maybe not even version of yourself, but a different part of yourself that maybe you can or want to reveal to the parts of life that you have to interact with.

Maybe that's your job, maybe that's real-life friends you've had for a long time but that you aren't super close with. But yeah, just having that second realm where you can be yourself but also just build those relationships and communities that you're

50:00 that you can really dig deeply in. Is there a lot of crossover between, like talking a little bit more about it, it seems like there's not a ton of crossover between the idea of parallel economies or societies and second realms. Would that be a true statement or would you say that those things are pretty similar? - I say there's some similarities in them, yes. But I also think this whole construct really, like I can give you one answer on how I think about it and then someone might have another.

So really it's, I think the answer is really personal and individualistic. - Yeah, which I guess is really the beauty of both parallel economies, parallel societies and second realms is that it's really whatever you choose to make it with the people that are part of it with you. And it's not something that's as constrained by social norms or maybe local laws or local pressure. It's something that you have a bit more freedom. And I like how you termed it, a safe space that we can breathe a little bit more, have a little bit more autonomy there.

- Yeah, 'cause exactly. So, you know, good for instances, if you work at Acme company, right? And you're there with your colleagues on a call, you can't necessarily sit and chat by the water cooler, as it were talking about attacking cyphers. Whereas in the second realm, given the right community or the right tribe that you build or the TAZ, then you can have those conversations and you don't have to sweat it. You're not worried about your boss firing you or, you know, your partner perhaps leaving you because you're, what you're saying is scaring them.

And, you know, to some people, you know, these tech things, they do scare them. So, you know, having that space to be open and, you know, let your hair down as it were, it's nice. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Finding those people who you can connect with deeply on other topics that don't fit in nicely to kind of the first realm. It's very, very important. And you talked a little bit about the kind of, or we've talked a little bit about bridging the gap between first and second realms.

And I'm curious if, if there are any ways that you, you can share that we can help to bridge that gap between the first and second realms, or if they're just kind of as naturally a chasm there. - I've really find a method, or I've actually yet to find a method that works for everyone. And my personal view, now this is just for myself, is that I like to keep first and second realm completely separate and compartmentalized. Just circling back to what you said about, you know, you are who you are, no matter what your online handle is and who you are in real life.

So there's that still, that core of who you are. But being able to separate your pursuits and your interests and your activities between the realms, I think is important. So if you're John Doe in the first realm and Laser Man in 1911, the second realm, do you really want to mix the two? So that's, that's a question I like to ask myself and I encourage others to ask themselves and I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I'd like to think that the goal is to try to operate in the second realm as much as possible in hopes that one day you can do it 100%.

I just personally have not been able to do that. - Yeah, that's a very, very interesting view. And something that has jumped out at me more, especially just in making this podcast, is that I've, the podcast has actually bridged when I wouldn't have referred to it as this before today, but, but talking through first and second realms, I think making the podcast and talking about it with people from, I guess, the first realm has been something that's really bridged that gap for me.

And it's, it's sparked a lot of good conversation from my second realm life. That is, is not something that I'm normally talking about with kind of normal life friends or first realm friends or people that I'm interacting with at work. But it's, it's been a, for me, it's been a very interesting and helpful bridge between my first and second realms and a way that I've been able to connect with people and share with them again, because, because I care about privacy.

And because I've made that a conscious effort, I'm choosing what and how much I want to share, but I've been able to share with people more of myself from the second realm and more of my online persona and more of my, my focuses and cryptocurrency and the privacy space and bridge that a little bit more because of opt out and because of the conversations that, that this has sparked. That's been a very, just really an interesting experience for me.

Helpful for me, I think, because I think I, I probably differ from you in that. I'm not sure I want to live a hundred percent in the second realm, or at least not as I'm picturing it for me. But rather, I think there definitely is some compartmentalization just because there are different groups of people or communities that interact with. But I think for me, just realizing that privacy allows me to be selective on, on how those two are. On how those two realms collide and where those two things interact and intersect.

And that's been kind of the way that I've started to view it. But obviously the idea is pretty new to me. So I've, I've loved getting to, to learn a bit about a little bit more about it tonight in this chat and just hearing more about kind of the concept and the approach that you take. And I think just like you said, it's something that is personal and something you need to choose and decide kind of what's your, what's your approach and what's your focus.

And do you want those things to bridge? Do you want them to stay very compartmentalized and separate? It's a good question to ask yourself. Yeah, definitely. And then what are some of the kind of basic operational concepts that listeners can take in both realms or, or I guess the basic operational approaches that people can, can take actively in both first and second realms? So I definitely think the tactics that I like to deploy, and I try to encourage others to really work in both first and second realms, kinetic or digital.

First would be, be mindful of what you say, you know, always consider things a need to know basis or people that you interact with. Are they on a need to know basis? Can you trust the person with X information? Think carefully what you type, because it's permanent, no matter what you think. Secondly, I would say, you know, try to strive towards building reputation. You do that through community, building small, tight knit communities and tribes and being very helpful to those people.

Then of course, building trust through cryptography, I think is really important. So if J4, 3 and Seth exchange keys, we already know through mathematics that the likelihood of failure is minimal in comparison to another sort of reputation, which might be, I don't know, buying testimony letters for your next job or something online. Then finally, I would say, try to be consistent. A lot of us, when we get started in the privacy space, we burn identities because we did something wrong.

It's okay to do something wrong, just fail forward. It typically looks really, really messy and looks more of like a black hat tactic, which is a whole other show. So ideally, like if you're burning more than one identity a year, likely need to reevaluate your approach and just get back to the basics. And that circles back to the topics about, you know, folks trying too hard and piling on their tools. Just keep it simple and it should just flow naturally.

If it doesn't feel natural, then don't do it. Yeah, I love the synergy between those three items that you mentioned and how they all really work together. Because building reputation is something that really can only happen when you're conscious about the things that you say and the way that you interact with people. And it's something that comes from keeping your mouth shut when you need to, speaking when you need to, and kind of learning the balance there.

But also, if you're constantly burning identities and switching pseudonyms and doing all of these things, it's going to be really hard to build any kind of reputation because you have to start from scratch every time. Or you have to link those identities, which then ruins the whole point of burning an identity. So it's important that we do build that reputation and we learn how to be conscious about privacy. But I just love the, I think, very rational and sane approach that you take and bring up and have brought up throughout the whole episode of just really thinking deeply about privacy, but not letting it be something that's too daunting and you're constantly burning nims or switching up your approach every time you feel like there's some kind of error that you've made or issue.

And definitely assessing when you do make a mistake, how severe is it? Because there could be something that's bad enough that you need to maybe burn a nimb and start over or change the way you're doing things deeply. But not letting that be something that shakes you out of that pursuit of privacy or always makes you kind of jump to the harshest possible conclusion or next step. Yeah, definitely. I don't know about everyone else, but I have other things to do besides nimb burn all day.

Yeah, it is not an easy process and not a fun one to go through. So the last question I had around Second Realms was just, and this one may, I mean, it's pretty straightforward, but why is privacy important to the idea and execution of Second Realms?

1:00:00 I'll answer that with a question for you. Do you open your drapes and leave them open 24-7 and let people see inside your house while you're walking around naked from the shower? I do not, thankfully, for my neighbor's sake. It's not an approach. But no, yeah, I mean, that's a good way to bring up that, just that idea that you're choosing what you reveal and that it's the separation between realms and you're choosing how those things intersect and collide.

And just like, hopefully, you're choosing to shut your blinds when you're taking a shower. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think anyone wants to see me out of the shower, so that's fine. Privacy for everyone else's sake, the new approach. And then jumping into some of the approaches that you take towards privacy, I love getting to hear a little bit about the tools and approaches that each guest takes. So I'd love to hear what are some of the tools that you use regularly to opt out that you recommend others to take a look at, and then why.

This is a really tough question because everyone has a different operating model, but I guess as far as some basics, smuggler covered it really well. TLS would get the fuck out. People should really have, like, rotten pies thrown at them repeatedly until they implement TLS. It is so basic. And I know you, as well as myself, we're both avid self-hosters, so things like Let's Encrypt or SERT Manager or SERT Bot, whatever, they're very easy to implement and more people should.

Secondly, blocking Internet-wide trackers is helpful. Likely a better idea to do it at Layer 3, more like the DNS layer. Another tactic I like is blending in with the noise. It's really helpful through some sort of technical implementation. And this could mean running something like Qubes or you could do VirtualBox or KVM, whatever your virtualization platform is, and have a different operating system that you operate out of. And it could be something common like Windows or Mac OS.

Even Linux is fine. And making sure that it actually spews crap traffic to all the trackers. So actually give them information, but give them irrelevant trash information that you're not interested in. I also think that really, for me, really finding a good VPN provider that you trust is good. No, I won't recommend any. I'd really advise for most users to not deploy your own infrastructure unless you fully understand how things work, including the possibility, if your threat model covers it, that there could be a lawful or unlawful tap or intercept along the traffic path.

Then you'd like to avoid that. I would also advise, from just a pure privacy standpoint, I would not rely 100% on Tor these days. And I say this as operating exits for many, many years. Tor creates a significant pattern, which is not really Tor's fault. It's just the mechanics of how it works. I still use it for basic research, but because all of the exits are easy to get a list of and block, it's capture hell. And it's almost impossible to conduct a lot of business on Tor.

Anyone who tells you different, I think may not be using it as much, but I used it for years. And I still use it for basic lookup and research. But when I live my life on Tor, I throw my bank account through Tor. Nope. That's really interesting. It's been helpful for me, I think, to hear initially when I got into the privacy space, it seems like a lot of people pitch Tor as just use Tor for literally everything. Everything you can possibly put through Tor, do it.

But the more I learn and the more I dig into the mechanics of Tor, the more I have conversations with people like yourself who are deeply experienced with Tor, who understand how exit doids work, who understand how just onion routing works. It's become clear that it's not just surprise, surprise. It's not a perfect privacy solution. It's something that actually has nuance and actually has pros and cons. And there are specific threat models where it's important.

There are threat models where it's not important. And there are certain things that just are not a good use case for Tor. And I'm glad that you're sharing that. And I hope more people will kind of do their own research into what Tor is good at and dig into those things. Are there any other specific use cases that you recommend Tor usage for or just kind of odd browsing here and there? If you wanted to, you could spill your DNS traffic into it. A lot of folks...

So if they're running something like Linux and they're doing a Debian update, they can actually run the commands to pull the repos through Tor if they want to do something like that. You know, things for maintenance. Good use cases for Tor is, let's say you have infrastructure, perhaps like you do, where you self-host your services and you need to gain access and you just don't happen to have your computer or maybe you're a VPN that connects you securely to your closed-loop environment.

You know, maybe running an onion service with SSH might be an option. So there's tons of interesting and actually quirky use cases for Tor, but trying to watch YouTube or Twitch or whatever most people like to do, it's just the way the routing works. There's too much latency. There's too much pause. It just, it's not practical. And I really don't think it ever was, but I think it's useful. It's just as long as you have a realistic expectation of what you're doing with and if you can deal with the inconvenience of being blocked six times by a certain site and having to reload your exit traffic, that's fine.

But just for myself, I just don't use it daily. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think something that I think we very briefly touched on in the last episode and something you touched on there was just that, honestly, a lot of times Tor can just be helpful for setting up infrastructure more easily because you don't have to rely on SSL certs and DNS names and buying a domain name and going through all those hoops to be able to deploy a service that other people can access easily.

And it can just be something where you just want to simply deploy a service and make it accessible. You don't want to worry about all the fuss of SSL certs and all that. So you just spin up the service, serve it as a hidden service and move on. Anyone can access it. You didn't have to buy a domain name or any of that stuff. And it does provide some privacy along the way, but it also can just be a way to simplify the hosting and access process, even aside from the privacy gains.

And I also love that you touched on Let's Encrypt because I think for people who don't, who aren't kind of deeply into the self-hosting space or maybe in the enterprise space and who don't realize what Let's Encrypt is, but it's basically a service that the EFF runs that allows you to very easily provision SSL certificates without the headache that was normally associated with provisioning SSL certificates. And it's really greatly simplified the process of rolling out services that use HTTPS.

And it's what I use with all of my services that I host for people to use. It's what I use for all of my personal services that I use to host. And it really does simplify that process. And it's something that, like I have a repo up on GitHub that is just a really simple Docker Compose script that uses Trifik and Trifik automatically pulls certs from Let's Encrypt, deploys them. You don't have to worry about it at all, but it ensures that you are using HTTPS and TLS without really having to jump through a ton of extra hoops.

Yes, definitely. So if I were to ask, or if someone were to ask me, like, you know, who should I sponsor and who should I give my money to? I would say Let's Encrypt. Give them money. They're helping to protect the internet. They're doing thankless work. And people still complain, oh, well, I hit the API rate limit, so I can only get 50 certificates today. Be grateful that you can get one because these things used to cost $200, $300 a piece, like 10 years ago.

Stop being spoiled. Yeah, no kidding. And if only people realized how important Let's Encrypt has become to the reason that we're able to do things like do away with the HTTPS Everywhere plugin. The reason we don't need things like that anymore or getting to that space in large part is due to Let's Encrypt and the way that it's simplified people deploying certificates on their services. So it's definitely something people probably don't even realize how important that service has been.

I'm sure very much a thankless job for the people who have worked on that, but very, very grateful. And the last question I had for you, J4-3, was just what advice would you give to someone who's just starting to realize the need for personal privacy? Don't be afraid to experiment. Ask questions. Be curious. Please avoid consensus bias. Find your own truth after you've established your threat model.

1:10:00 Also knowing your threat model and actually knowing that your threat model will be changing, actually, is more often more important than you think. Honestly, that's probably one of my bigger takeaway points from today is just realizing that I do need to be conscious of how my threat model changes over time and be kind of constantly circling back to that and figuring out what's changed, what I care about the most now, who am I worried about the most now, and digging back through that.

So I think a very important point that a lot of people don't realize. I'm glad you brought that up and focused on that a bit today. Yeah. And also, close your drapes when you take a shower. If you take away nothing else from this episode, it's that. I'm glad I could be of service. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on, J4-3. I had a blast. It was great to finally get to chat with you, I guess, voice-to-voice. I don't know what to call this.

It's not face-to-face, but whatever you call audio chat. But just glad to be able to chat with you and learn a little bit more about you and just hear more. I think you have a very good, balanced, nuanced approach to privacy and grateful to be able to let other people listen in and learn a little bit more from that. Well, thanks again for coming on, man. I had a blast. Yeah, it was great. Thanks. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Opt Out.

If you did, please take a moment and subscribe to the podcast. Or if you're already subscribed, share it with one friend or family member this week. As always, you can check out the links to our guest's content and contact info, as well as links to all of the tools we discussed in today's episode in the show notes or at optoutpod.com. Now get out there and opt out this week. This week's project to help you opt out is Nextcloud, a comprehensive platform for file storage, mobile backups, notes, tasks, calendar, contacts, and a ton more.

Nextcloud can be an excellent way to migrate off of several services at once, as it can host so many tools that we normally rely on Google, Apple, or Microsoft for, and packages them up in a nice and coherent interface with excellent mobile apps. Nextcloud is entirely open source, as are its mobile apps, and its apps are also available via F-Droid. Note that if you're using CalyxOS, you can also enable your seed vault backups to go straight to your own Nextcloud instance natively.

I personally use Nextcloud for all my file storage, phone backups, contacts, calendar, and to track all of the work that goes into making opt out a reality. It's the most used FOSS tool of mine by far, and I highly recommend spinning it up for yourself. Check out the show notes below for a few different ways to host it yourself this week.