Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
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Very simple way to improve your privacy and security massively. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by ModerateImprovement@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I highly recommend disabling JavaScript by default in your browser and then whitelisting the websites that you use frequently and need JavaScript to function.

The privacy benefit of this is that when you read articles online or visit new websites, most of the time it will not need JavaScript to function which will stop loading a lot of ads and tracking scripts.

The security benefit here is massive, first if you visited a bad link that contains a malware that is dependent on JavaScript it would not work, secondly if you visited a link for a service that you use and JavaScript did not work there, then you can see in real time that this is a fake page and not the real websitewebsite you intended to visit.

Bonus tip: try to replace the unnecessary websites that can't work without JavaScript and you need by JavaScript free websites or open source apps.

Disclaimer: Stay cautious. This recommendation will improve your privacy and security, but it does not protect you from everything.

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[–] refalo@programming.dev 24 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Here's a counter-argument to yours... disabling javascript can actually make you stand out like a glowing sun. Just like how ad-blockers can be used for fingerprinting, the fact that you're not loading any JS, or any resources it might have fetched, can greatly increase your fingerprint. Along with combining TLS fingerprinting, HTTP headers and HTML/CSS tricks you can still be singled out pretty well without any JS. The fact that you have JS disabled automatically puts you in a very small list of people, so not as many data points are even needed for an accurate fingerprint.

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Disabling javascript increases security, and offers a little bit of privacy. Those are both separate from anonymity, but people conflate the three often.

For example, javascript can be made to do arbitrary websoccket or http connections to any ip/hostname your computer has access to — even local networks or localhost.

I use the browser extension Port authority to block it.

Of course, port scanning is used by ebay to scan users computers, and discord.

Disabling javascript prevents websites from tracking exactly what you do on each site, or what local ports you have open. This is definitely an increase in privacy, as it relates to hiding what you're doing. However, you noted it comes at the cost of anonymity, as you become uniquely identifiable.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago

Of course if you're not blocking js entirely but using something like port authority, then that can potentially be detected and used against you just like I mentioned, so yeah it's a tradeoff you just have to decide on based on your own individual threat model.