Are Old iPods in Airplane Mode Secure?

I located and found a few old iPods from 2008ish. Some don't even have cameras. If I keep them in airplane mode and don't ever plug them into any computer, assuming there's no malware on the iPods, will they stay secure from exploit, tracking, etc.?

For example, I've heard Apple has features that detect other Apple devices, even if they're turned off, and report their locations to other Apple devices near them. Are my iPods able to be tracked by this while in airplane mode?

What about when they are first fired up or lastly shut down; does the MAC of the WiFi or the Bluetooth flash at all to any devices?

Are they vulnerable to Bluetooth bugs and exploits if they stay in airplane mode forever, despite no updates? For example, there was a Bluetooth bug that allowed anyone to take over "billions" of devices some recent years back and despite a fix, "billions" of older devices remained permanently vulnerable to it. Does this apply if they're always in airplane mode?

https://redd.it/sr56md
@PrivacyGuides

I would like to automatically replace/redirect youtube links with links to a privacy respecting alternative front-end

I would like to automatically replace/redirect youtube links with links to a privacy respecting alternative front-end. What would be the best way to accomplish this in Firefox.

For instance, a youtube video at the URL: youtube[dot\]comwatch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

With an invidious link ot the same video: yewtu[dot\]bewatch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

There is an extension "privacy redirect" that accomplishes this, but I try to minimize the number of extensions I install on my system, I wonder if there is a way to do this without the need for an additional extension (maybe using firefox itself, or uBlock Origin?)

​

edit 1: video links appear not to be allowed which is fine, the links are for example only to show the URL pattern.

edit 2: looks like it is probably not possible to accomplish this using uBlock Origin.

https://redd.it/sr69hb
@PrivacyGuides

Does it matter what Linux distro I use if I only want privacy on the web and from the os itself

The title

I just visited the PrivacyGuides site to find out alternatives to software I use I never visited it to find out what OS is the best for privacy and security

Also I don't care about the best security as long as the distro releases some sort of updates once in while to fix security vulnerabilities and the distro's community is helpful and the distro itself doesn't track me I'll be fine

Also I'm not a target for hackers or the government or anybody malicious so I mostly don't need to protect against those

https://redd.it/sr8toc
@PrivacyGuides

Moving forward and slowly increasing privacy

I'm glad I found this fascinating subreddit. As you all know, privacy and security can be so overwhelming that even technically inclined people give up.

I've been using Windows with Private Internet Access / Android with Signal and figured that was reasonably good. I've decided to at least take a few more steps in the right direction. I am technical in that I can understand concepts with enough research, but I often get myself into trouble. I also prefer to research a lot, make a decision and then put it out of mind and move on to the next project. This is my current project and I hope to build good habits out of this, but I'm going to lean towards convenience for a lot of things. Here are the changes I'm considering with a few questions:

Desktop

I'm running Win10 and I was using Opera, Edge and FF to do different bits and pieces each day. I've removed Opera and Edge and I'm only using FF now and made a separate profile for other work. Strict settings. I'm considering moving over to Linux but I do like to game. I may just move any sensitive work over to my laptop, which is MacOS with FF on strict.

Mobile

I fortunately already have a Pixel 5, so I'll be moving this to CalyxOS. One of my concerns is international travel - I like that I have the option to reset the phone with the emergency button. I also rely heavily on Google Maps / Android Auto - best option sounds like having a dedicated device in my car.

First step\- shifted from PIA to Mullvad - speeds are good in Australia but I may shift to Proton to get more than 5 devices.

Email \- Gmail addict forever. This will be one of the harder items to shift. I like the look of CTemplar but if I'm going to shift to Proton I might as well get the package with ProtonMail. Or perhaps it's better to keep them separate...

Domain \- If I purchase a domain, can I then use that domain to create aliases in CTemplar/Protonmail? Does the domain also needs to be hosted somewhere if I'm only using it for email?

Password Manager / Auth \- I've used Last Pass for a few years without issue - is it worth shifting to Bitwarden and then using their authenticator (currently using Google).

Messaging \- using Signal but the majority of my contacts do not. WhatsApp is my secondary

​

Haven't looked into but on my radar

Notes \- currently using Evernote - I'll look into Standard Notes

File Encryption \- is this to protect against the possibility that someone steals your computer and brute forces your Windows password (which I assume is quite easy)?

Video streaming \- I watch a lot of Youtube content - I'll look into Freetube

Google Drive \- I do a lot of work in Google Drive, especially using excel/sheets. What are my alternatives here? This may be even worse than shifting email services.

Thank you for all the interesting discussions and threads.

https://redd.it/sr1yxc
@PrivacyGuides

the PrivacyGuides team fooled me.

First, I want to thank you and u/BurungHantu for helping make the transition to digital privacy easy.

Now, your lack of continued transparency with the split from r/privacytoolsIO left me very confused. Seeing the PTIO sub "discontinued" led me to believe that the website, privacytools.io was old and obsolete. I spent a few weeks disregarding any information I found there, but after being continually disappointed by your selections of tools (doing my own fair share of research about the tools along my way) AND your very inconvenient way of browsing your choices, by spreading them all out by category and not compiling them into a single page, I kept finding myself back on privacytools.io (despite them having sus affiliate links) for easy reference.

So, I just spent a few hours (procrastinating) reading countless discussions around Reddit and Twitter to understand what happened. As far as I can tell, this is how the story goes.

r/privacytoolsIO was growing and the founder, BurungHantu was deemed unresponsive and so, unable to add more moderators to the subreddit. You have considered that to be detrimental to the growth of the project (fairly) and "Rebranded" in to r/PrivacyGuides.

>What will happen to the r/privacytoolsIO subreddit?
>
>Most likely it will be shut down eventually in favor of this subreddit, it does not make sense to us to rebrand it — even though there is a clear benefit to keeping the existing community intact — because the name/URL itself can never be changed, so it seems like that would only serve to confuse newcomers. Hence the creation of r/PrivacyGuides!

What an ironic outcome. BurungHantu came back and you didn't let him keep the subreddit! You claim to be cooperative, but your actions have proven otherwise.

privacytools.io is alive and well, thanks to the dedication of the founder, BurungHantu.

You could have had posted, r/privacytoolsIO split and r/PrivacyGuides is here while the original founder stayed.

You could have mentioned the validity of privacytools.io.

To say that the project has transitioned in to PrivacyGuides but then not give current, accurate updates is very misleading and almost seems intentional.

https://redd.it/sr9xe3
@PrivacyGuides

Why are moderators deleting posts with comments in them?

I (and others) posted comments in the post about Linux distros - it had 60+ comments in it, and now it is no longer searchable and is much harder to reference or discuss.

Deleting posts with significant numbers of comments on them - especially ones posted by moderators - feel like moderators don't have a lot of respect for the time people put into their comments.

I would personally have far preferred that the post was locked if the post wasn't going to be useful for the project. Deleting it is just bad.

https://redd.it/srcgvy
@PrivacyGuides

Is Intel IME worth worrying about?

was looking to get a laptop and was wondering what vulnerabilities having IME would open a user up to.

https://redd.it/sr007z
@PrivacyGuides

22% of Italians have stopped using social media in last year
https://www.ansa.it/english/news/lifestyle/arts/2022/01/18/22-of-italians-have-stopped-using-social-media-in-last-year_6efd3f1d-179e-4432-bfee-0bf7b945b35e.html

https://redd.it/srdusc
@PrivacyGuides

Anonymous payment options?

What are the best anonymous payment options?

I know of:

## 1. Cash

The obvious choice but it's not always an option, particularly when buying stuff online.

## 2. Prepaid credit cards

I've never used these but I think you can buy them from brick and mortar stores like Target, etc.

I suppose you should buy them with cash to prevent leaving a paper trail at the store.

I think you can use them at most places a regular credit card can be used, including online.

## 3. Cryptocurrency

I've never used this before.

It seems be an increasingly common payment option online. I've heard it is tricky to get setup in a truly anonymous way. Would love to follow a tutorial.

---

Are there good "semi-anonymous" options? For example, could I setup PayPal such that the seller would know nothing about my real identity (even though PayPal itself does)?

https://redd.it/sr3dcr
@PrivacyGuides

Is Intel IME worth worrying about?

was looking to get a laptop and was wondering what vulnerabilities having IME would open a user up to.

https://redd.it/sr007z
@PrivacyGuides

How can I loose time or money due to insufficient attention to privacy?

I'm trying to figure out what amount of efforts is rational to take to increase my privacy. Imho rational=saves more money than it costs. I can't really find correlation between success in life and attention to privacy among my friends and family. Neither I can remember any case when my friend said that they lost money because they didn't degoogle their phone, or had some proprietary software on their computer, or didn't have VPN. So this makes me think that putting any more efforts on privacy than normal people do might actually be irrational, and I am too paranoid. Of course I know that privacy is crucial for whistleblowers and journalists, but that doesn't count as usual everyday life.

https://redd.it/srh21h
@PrivacyGuides

how to keep some files highly secured and easily accessible for me?

so i have a lot of personal files and i dont like to store them without protection, like on cloud storage or even a small external drive. Is there any easy solution to protect them and be able to access them easily? i know there are some apps that "lock" the files but im not sure how effective that is tbh

https://redd.it/srh06e
@PrivacyGuides

Which telegram client do you suggest?

I know telegram is not secure but sometimes I require to message those people :(

Which Telegram client for Android is better for privacy?

- https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS
- https://github.com/NekoX-Dev/NekoX

(Like which one has less dependencies like Google-Firebase etc)

https://redd.it/srjjo5
@PrivacyGuides

Proton, Ctemplar or other ?

I want to migrate to services that care about privacy.

In particular, I am now dealing with email providers, I have identified two that could be for me, I am referring to Ctemplar and Protonmail, both based in countries where the privacy laws are good from what I have read.

Have you tried them? What about both of them?

https://redd.it/srikyi
@PrivacyGuides

Zettlr markdown-editor

I know that joplin and standard notes exist (they are in the guide ofc), but right now im using obsidian which give me the chance of saving my files in the computer not the application, but the app is propietary, soo i came across with zettlr, which also use the zettelkasten method like obsidian (which i fuck#@ng love), and is FOSS


What you people think of zettlr???, is better for privacy than obsidian??? (thas all i care and i would jump on the train)

https://redd.it/srlo43
@PrivacyGuides

Smartwatch - disable app network, ok to use?

Hello, currently I am Gadgetbridge with sport tracker, but there are so many new models of smartwatches and just couple are supported. Is there any real downside (from privacy and usage point) to use any smart watch with official app but revoke internet access? This way it cannot gather and send any data, so it should be ok, is my thought correct? The only issue will be probably with firmware update, but beside that?

Thanks for tips and help :)

https://redd.it/srnhty
@PrivacyGuides

Mail

Do you know any email provider that allows you to register on their .onion site without various verifications?

Is Onionmail a possible alternative?

https://redd.it/sro6jb
@PrivacyGuides

AtlasOS Privacy/Securitu?

So, I have a py laptop. It struggles with basic tasks but I am stuck with it for now. Linux isn't an option for me due to Windows exclusive software that I need that does not work via Wine, and no supported Drivers.

So I went looking for extreme pc optimisation techniques, and found AtlasOS. It is a modded and debloated version of Windows 20H2 designed for performance and security. I still want to maintain privacy where I can (ik windows is nearly impossible to make fully private), so how is this compared to default windows?

EDIT: Ooops, I left a typo in the title.

https://redd.it/sr5rpt
@PrivacyGuides

Filen.io vs iCloud

What's the best between these 2?

I personally trust more on iCloud, since it's apple and it's future-proof, my files aren't going anywere.

But i *think* filen is more privacy-friendly.

​

Should I stick with iCloud, or go with filen? Also is there any future-proof for filen?

https://redd.it/sr8az1
@PrivacyGuides

simplelogin and random addresses (like anonaddy?)

I emailed simplelogin about this and did not get an answer and could not find the answer via thier website (doesnt bode well for support?) so I am thinking the likely answer is "no" but I wanted to be sure. The question is, does simplelogin, or any other service i guess, provide random addresses? That is, anonaddy can create an address that is like **94960540-f914-42e0-9c50-6faa7a385384@anonaddy.me**, so instead of having like **randy.33mail.com** or cat.simplelogin.com (both of which are somewhat easier to associate with one person as they have unique subdomains) you just have one domain and a unique username ... just like everyone else :)

​

Thanks!

https://redd.it/sqwf8d
@PrivacyGuides

If your PC was loaded with Chrome what basic privacy extensions would you/do you use?

So I know Chrome isn't ideal but I use privacy add-ons - uBlock origin, Privacy Badger and Canvas Blocker - is there anything I could replace any of these with or anything I could additionally use? I use a good VPN

Edit: Yes I use Chrome which I know is not the best I'm hoping to make it less worse.

https://redd.it/sr01oh
@PrivacyGuides