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Freedatensuppe

What What Whaaat

Freedatensuppe

[f r i ː] [d a: t ə n] [z ʊ p ə]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flädle

Frittatensuppe is an Austrian dish made of crepe like pancakes served in a beef broth.

Translated into context it means our freely served data in a well prepared soup for everybody to enjoy.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Benjamin Franklin November 11, 1755

Why?

One of the reasons I am starting to write this article was a comment to the news I read today. It stated that Microsoft does no longer provide the ability to create a local user account. At least on Windows 10 Home and for now only in the US.
The user who claimed to be a knowing amateur said "to prevent tracking online is an illusion". To what I have to strongly disagree.

This persons note signals one of the major problems with why we have this tremendous privacy problem today. Knowledge...

Simple said, people are outsmarted. The same way as someone who doesn't "care" and therefore doesn't understand how a car works and is told by his mechanic that the breaks are due. Is she or he paying several hundred € for new break disks? The chances are, maybe not because it is something to take hold on but our privacy, our everyday produced data is not. That is one reason why it is so hart for common people to have an idea what actually happen and what long term impact this all will have.
It's simple with breaks, no breaks and my car may crash. That's however is why many people will pay the mechanic so they can drive safely.

Why is personal privacy important?

There are many examples where a lack of privacy can have major consequences on your personal life and I am not talking about advertising.
By now many financial institutes already verify at least partly by your online data if you are creditworthy or not. Insurance companies starting to offer policies that get cheaper if you share the data of your activity tracker. The same with car insurance. It is only a matter of time you will receive a worse contract if you do not share your daily generated data.
Of course is it a fact that many authoritarian countries are or starting to mass surveil their citizens.

But what now?

In my opinion one of the first measures we need to take is to create the perception in people that we have an privacy issue. This is partly done but what it generates in most people is a attitude that nothing can be done. As seen in the user comment above.
We need to disassemble the processes that happen when we are producing data. Where we do it (online, offline) and what impact the shared data can have to yourself.

This part of my site should help a little bit to understand what is happening and what can be done. Please be aware that this section is work in progress and should grow with time.
There are also many experts on this field and a good starting point to get more information is here https://duckduckgo.com/?q=privacy

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Network

Pi-hole®

Network-wide Ad Blocking

Pi-hole is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application which acts as a DNS sinkhole (and optionally a DHCP server), intended for use on a private network. It is designed for use on embedded devices with network capability, such as the Raspberry Pi, but it can be used on other machines running Linux and cloud implementations.

Pi-hole has the ability to block traditional website advertisements as well as advertisements in unconventional places, such as smart TVs and mobile operating system advertisements.

To get a step further you could connect Pi-hole using "Unbound" as recursive DNS Server. You can find more information about this on the Unbound website.

Links

Tools

OpenPGP

Email encryption. For all operating systems.

OpenPGP is the most widely used email encryption standard. It is defined by the OpenPGP Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a Proposed Standard in RFC 4880. OpenPGP was originally derived from the PGP software, created by Phil Zimmermann.

Website OpenPGP
Website GnuPG

O&O ShutUp10

Free antispy tool for Windows 10

O&O ShutUp10 means you have full control over which comfort functions under Windows 10 you wish to use, and you decide when the passing on of your data goes too far. Using a very simple interface, you decide how Windows 10 should respect your privacy by deciding which unwanted functions should be deactivated.

O&O ShutUp10 is entirely free and does not have to be installed – it can be simply run directly and immediately on your PC. And it will not install or download retrospectively unwanted or unnecessary software, like so many other programs do these days!

O&O Software

OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a map of the world, created by people like you and free to use under an open license.
Use it instead of Google Maps.

Welcome to OpenStreetMap!

Little Snitch

Little Snitch is a host-based application firewall for macOS. It can be used to monitor applications, preventing or permitting them to connect to attached networks through advanced rules. It is produced and maintained by the Austrian firm Objective Development Software GmbH.

Website Objective Development GmbH

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Recommended Firefox Extensions

With time I have collected a few Firefox extension to make my browsing experience more safe and tools to support my development work or for daily life. In general I have to say that the more extensions you have installed the more memory your browser will allocate. This can be problematic on older slow systems. So keep it to a minimum of extension.

Read more: Recommended Firefox Extensions