Peter's Digital Garden

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Knowledge and references to share

Convenience vs Privacy

It seems like most cloud services receive their funding via ad revenue or data mining. Which means, in the “free” cloud service you are using, you are the product. So, if you want privacy, you need to pay for a service so there is another funding model.

Three Definitions

  • “Convenience” is being able to easily access the data from a new device and/or signup for the service.
  • “Privacy” is when other people can’t access your data without you specifically adding them to the allowed list. This is usually implemented using encryption. There are three places encryption matters.
    • Encryption in transit is TLS. That is to prevent 3rd parties from intercepting the communication between your device or browser and the server.
    • Encryption at rest is the file stored in long term storage is encrypted. This is to prevent someone from grabbing the physical hardware and walking away with your data.
    • Encryption in memory (during use), this is the realm of end-to-end encryption where the server never actually decrypts the data in the first place. Therefore they cannot hand data over to a government because the company can’t decrypt the data.
  • “Ownership” is ownership over the hardware holding the data.

Four Categories

  1. Convenience without Privacy or Ownership is for fully cloud hosted services with free or discounted pricing. These services usually have user agreements, but those user agreements can be overwritten by court order, or just accidentally via a data breach. Also, they usually use encryption in transit and encryption at rest, but not encryption in memory.
  2. Convenience and Privacy without Ownership is for cloud hosted services where you pay the full cost of the service, and the service uses end-to-end encryption. I also include paying for cloud compute in this category. Because while you have licensed that hardware, you don’t have physical access to it.
  3. Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience is a middle ground. This is using your own hardware at your own location, to run a “cloud” service for yourself. This always requires some degree of setup and maintenance and you compromise on useability.
  4. Privacy and Ownership without Convenience is when you are running fully local applications working with files on your device that you synchronize between your devices in a peer-to-peer setup. At most, you use end-to-end encrypted relays that don’t retain your data, only relay it. This requires the most effort to setup and involves finding applications that can actually work this way. See Awesome Local First, Local-first Software and Ink & Switch’s Local-first Software.

Services

These are examples for various services I have found in each of those categories. There are alternatives in each of these categories. I just chose the ones I am most familiar with. I put a 🏁 for where I am on each of these right now and a 🚩 for where I want to be.

Email

The most traditional method of electronic communication. The one that almost everyone uses.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience
    • N/A. Email by definition requires a cloud server.

Files

Simple file storage. May be enhanced by web applications. But, at the base, file storage.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Video Calls

Video calls between two or more people. May include a chat during the call and file sharing during the call. But time limited, so the chat and file share may go away after the call finishes.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Calendar

Tracing and sharing calendar events. May include attendance verification.

Text Chat

Text between 2 or more people. May include file shares and or video calls. Usually persists the chat messages until they expire or a person chooses to delete them.

Document Editing

Editing a rich text document.

Spreadsheet Editing

Editing a spreadsheet with formulas.

Presentation Editing

Editing and displaying a presentation with transition effects.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Notes

Editing notes to organize information.

Website Hosting

Hosting a website to provide an internet presence. Usually as a blog of some kind.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
    • N/A. Not sure how this would work. By definition the cloud host has to be able to decrypt the page to evaluate any scripts.
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience
    • N/A. By definition, websites have to be available online all the time.

VPN for protection from public Wi-Fi

VPNs can be used for multiple purposes. These are the VPNs you would use to protect against monitoring the contents of your network connection by your internet provider, cell phone provider, or public Wi-Fi networks.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

VPN for accessing devices behind NAT firewalls

VPNs can be used for multiple purposes. These are the VPNs you would use to access your own devices protected behind a NAT firewall. That firewall can be your internet provider’s default router, or something more custom.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Password Management

You should be using a password management system of some kind. Reusing the same password on multiple systems means that when there is a data breach, if they can get your password, they can then log into any other accounts you used that same password for, even if that other account didn’t have a data breach.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

2FA Authenticator

A 2 factor authentication application will keep TOTP tokens for you that you can use for the second stage of logging into a website.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Bitcoin Wallets

This is more niche, but you can actually run a bitcoin wallet locally.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Music Player

Everyone nowadays is listening to music. And much of it is streaming.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

Ebooks and Audiobooks

I want to keep a library of my ebooks.

Smart Home

Automating appliances and lights in your home.

  • Convenience without Privacy or Ownership
  • Convenience and Privacy without Ownership
  • Privacy and Ownership with some Convenience
  • Privacy and Ownership without Convenience

TODO: Check through https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted to see if there are any worth adding to the table.

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