(Topic ID: 335446)

What do you folks use for personal privacy protection?

By mcluvin

11 months ago


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  • 37 posts
  • 20 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 10 months ago by NPO
  • Topic is favorited by 2 Pinsiders

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    #1 11 months ago

    This feels like shopping for a good VPN. There is so much BS and fake reviews out there. Is anybody using Optery or Privacybee?

    #3 11 months ago

    A VPN won't do diddly squat about fake reviews. All it does is re-route your internet traffic to egress from a different IP address from your home connection.

    It also allows the VPN company to spy on much of your traffic, so choose providers wisely.

    #4 11 months ago

    I’m shopping for personal info scrubbers.

    10
    #5 11 months ago
    Screen Shot 2023-04-21 at 11.08.22 AM (resized).pngScreen Shot 2023-04-21 at 11.08.22 AM (resized).png
    #6 11 months ago
    Quoted from JethroP:

    [quoted image]

    That’s personal penis protection

    #7 11 months ago

    If you are in California or the EU, you can request a company deletes all of your data through a CCPA or GDPR request respectively. This obviously doesn't handle entities that don't care about the regulations or entities that don't fall under these regulations. Entities that do respect these laws sometimes have added generic delete functionality for anyone anywhere. For example, I used FB's GDPR tools to delete my profile.

    Ironically, Optery looks like a service you give your personal information to and they do the delete requests with multiple entities. They went to y-combinator and are free so they are probably legit but :shrug:.

    Privacybee looks like one of the many identity theft insurance companies presenting themselves as a more comprehensive solution. I could be wrong though.

    #8 11 months ago

    Discover card holders can request all their information be scrubbed from those "people search" websites. It's one of their new little member perks. It's done automatically every couple weeks, and they send you a report of what's been scrubbed and where.

    PIA is a great VPN. I've used them in the past as well.

    #9 11 months ago
    Quoted from Zambonilli:

    Ironically, Optery looks like a service you give your personal information to and they do the delete requests with multiple entities. They went to y-combinator and are free so they are probably legit but :shrug:.

    What I gather from my research so far is doing it manually is an exercise in futility, so you can pay a service to do the scans and send the opt-outs on a monthly basis. Some of these services aren't as extensive as others, and some appear really sketchy.

    Quoted from mbaumle:

    Discover card holders can request all their information be scrubbed from those "people search" websites. It's one of their new little member perks. It's done automatically every couple weeks, and they send you a report of what's been scrubbed and where.

    I saw that too. Have you ever googled yourself to see how effective it is?

    Thanks!

    #10 11 months ago
    Quoted from mcluvin:

    I saw that too. Have you ever googled yourself to see how effective it is?

    Yep, and it's very effective. No traces that I've found on those white page people search websites, though it's tough for me, since if I google my name, I show up in a ton of other places that *can't* be scrubbed since I've been on a television show, and my credits will forever roam the internet.

    #11 11 months ago

    I contracted this guy.

    harryh.gifharryh.gif
    #12 11 months ago

    I've used DeleteMe https://joindeleteme.com/ for a few months. I can see progress.

    #13 11 months ago

    What information are you trying to protect exactly? There are different tactics according to what you're trying to accomplish.

    The main thing a VPN will do is hide your real IP address from websites that you visit. On the flip side, when using a VPN, since you funnel everything you do through the VPN, technically they could be logging what sites you're visiting.

    VPNs are really only useful if you're trying to hide your physical location and to try to prevent websites from building shadow profiles on you.

    For general privacy, use ad blockers and a browser agent scrambler/generator to help prevent browser fingerprinting.

    Then as others alluded to above, if you don't want your personal information published on those various personal data white page listings websites, you'll have to go through and request deletions from each one (it just takes a little time and some quick googling), or use a service that does it on your behalf (but again, you're handing your info over to a 3rd party if you do that).

    #14 11 months ago
    Quoted from ForceFlow:

    What information are you trying to protect exactly?

    Mostly those sites that share so much personal info. It's like a free background check. They sure are a lot more thorough and accurate than I remember. And there are so many of them. I only mentioned VPN because shopping for privacy protection feels like shopping for a good VPN, there's a lot of BS to weed through.

    #15 11 months ago
    Quoted from mcluvin:

    Mostly those sites that share so much personal info. It's like a free background check. They sure are a lot more thorough and accurate than I remember. And there are so many of them. I only mentioned VPN because shopping for privacy protection feels like shopping for a good VPN, there's a lot of BS to weed through.

    If that's what you're looking to protect, a VPN will do nothing for that purpose.

    Basically, you will need to issue removal requests to all those websites that are displaying your personal info.

    Just google the name of the site that it appears on and something along the lines of "how to remove" or "removal instructions" or "removal request", and you can usually find info on how to request a take-down of your personal info from those sites.

    #16 11 months ago

    type your email address in here and see what you're up against hehe https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    #17 11 months ago

    vpn stops your neighbors at starbucks from looking at your traffic, about it.

    #18 11 months ago

    NordVPN

    #19 11 months ago

    It seems a lot of people who have posted in this thread should brush up on their reading comprehension skills.

    OP stated “This FEELS LIKE shopping for a VPN” they are NOT shopping for a VPN, they are comparing personal privacy scrubbing services to VPN companies, many pay for fluff reviews and nonsense advertising.

    For the skim readers:
    NOT VPN
    personal info scrubbers

    #20 11 months ago

    Found this spreadsheet comparing some of the companies. Gonna set up a few accounts to run free scans and compare results. I don't mind ponying up a couple hundred bucks if a service really is more effective, but maybe I don't need that.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M1YXTKmfs6rVDJHQVO3VhJQDpqqLfz-0BYMJ86AceSs/edit#gid=0

    #21 11 months ago

    Keep us posted. I have been considering killing off my entire online presence for a couple years.

    My Gmail got hacked about 5 years ago and I have been unsubscribing and marking spam ever since. I suspect somebody has a full rundown on me and my common passwords because when I made a Venmo account 2 years ago it was hacked and had a pending withdraw in less than 60 mins.

    #22 11 months ago
    Quoted from boscokid:

    Keep us posted. I have been considering killing off my entire online presence for a couple years.
    My Gmail got hacked about 5 years ago and I have been unsubscribing and marking spam ever since. I suspect somebody has a full rundown on me and my common passwords because when I made a Venmo account 2 years ago it was hacked and had a pending withdraw in less than 60 mins.

    This may be redundant advice, but make a new email account, and use different passwords! If you can’t remember them download a password manager like 1Pass on your phone. I would recommend keeping anything banking or private on a new, secure email (not gmail) and if you must keep using your gmail, use it for social, non-financial things.

    #23 11 months ago

    So the first free scan using Optery found me on 239 websites, but many of them are BS, those sites that make you wait a few minutes because they are actually grabbing it off another website like Spokeo. Trying Kanary now. I'm not gonna try them all because some don't offer a free option.

    #24 11 months ago

    Don’t give it out in the first place. Use pseudo names and underlying data. Don’t use social media, set privacy settings on apps on your phone and websites. Change your password frequently and use MFA. There is lots of money to be made off your data and Amazon knows exactly what you are going to buy and what time and have product pre positioned. Insights will only grow under AI. Keep in mind, if the service is free than you are the product. This is email and social media. Hope this helps.

    #25 11 months ago

    A useful tool to check your online presence: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    #26 11 months ago
    Quoted from HB_GAMER:

    A useful tool to check your online presence: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

    I don’t trust even trying it.

    #27 11 months ago
    pasted_image (resized).pngpasted_image (resized).png
    #28 11 months ago
    Quoted from Electrocute:

    I don’t trust even trying it.

    It is legit. You enter your email address and it will search all of the public data breaches and show you where your account was compromised.

    #29 11 months ago

    I lock the door on the Porta potty

    #30 11 months ago

    I like being exposed on the internet, the reason I bought a 4K webcam.

    #31 11 months ago

    The Kanary website was slow as shi* until it was time to do the search. That didn't take long at all. It says it found 38 exposures. I'm gonna pass on that one.

    #32 11 months ago
    Quoted from Isochronic_Frost:

    This may be redundant advice, but make a new email account, and use different passwords! If you can’t remember them download a password manager like 1Pass on your phone. I would recommend keeping anything banking or private on a new, secure email (not gmail) and if you must keep using your gmail, use it for social, non-financial things.

    This is good advice! If your gmail account has ever been hacked, stop using it. Make a new one...

    #33 11 months ago

    I'm using Proton VPN. It seems to work pretty well at protecting me.
    That or their stealing all my information and I'm pretty much f#cked .

    QSS

    #34 11 months ago

    Given mbaumle's experience with the Discover card service, and that I don't have a Discover card, I went ahead and started a $20/year sub with EasyOptOuts. A recurring theme in discussions on Reddit is if you take care of the big data brokers, you disappear from most of the secondary sites too eventually. I'll use Google and the free version of Opterly to verify effectiveness.

    #35 11 months ago

    So I went with the cheapies, easyoptouts.com. I noticed a huge improvement on the 1st page of google hits, even after a couple of days, but there was this one site, floridaresidentsdirectory.com. If you've voted in Florida, you are on that website. Anyway, I suggest that they add that site to their opt-out list, but I'm going to manually opt out of it. They added it to their opt-out list the next day. They are obviously best effort, but for ~$20 that was pretty good service.

    1 month later
    #36 10 months ago

    So one month in and our shi*'s gone from the obvious sites. Anybody know what a "spam likely" call is? Neither of us have had one of those in a month. Too early to tell for sure, but that's a good sign. We'd get those calls damn near weekly before...

    #37 10 months ago
    Quoted from mcluvin:

    So one month in and our shi*'s gone from the obvious sites. Anybody know what a "spam likely" call is? Neither of us have had one of those in a month. Too early to tell for sure, but that's a good sign. We'd get those calls damn near weekly before...

    Ever since I got NordVPN, that crap has nearly fallen off the radar. Always use fake emails too (or use someone's that I really don't like : ) )

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