useritsecurity

This website is for privacy and security concerned citizens who wants to get some basic recommendations and knowledge about using IT securely. Unfortunately privacy and security are not at all built-in features with most IT products as it should be so time must be spent on curating that. Im running an instructionals wiki in conjunction with this site that have more step-by-step guides on setting up better software to use. This site serves as a knowledge overview of several areas involved in creating digital privacy and security for users, and only broad instructions(or links to) the usage of software and self-hosting.

Im not an IT security professional, just a geeky hobbyist which is perhaps a good thing since it’s a little hard to find a website with info that are on a regular user level. I hope to provide enough details to enable non-professionals a decent level of day-to-day IT security. However, everyone is welcome to suggest improvements and questions to all information presented here but remember Wheaton’s Law: “Be good, because this is a nice place.”. For now there’s still quite some unfinished work here.

Core Approach

• Peer 2 Peer / Distributed Software Services > Federated / Decentralized Software Services > Centralized Services

And conversely

• Self-hosting > Federated hosting > Centralized hosting

And some rather self-evident things

• Fully Free Software > Partially Free Software > Proprietary Software
  • Protective Free Software License > Non-Protective Free License > Non-Free Open Source License
• Encryption by default > Encryption as option > No encryption

I consider these things at many “layers” or perhaps “domains” of IT usage:

1. Internet itself – ISP’s, alternative internetworks, darknets, VPN services.
2. Routers and router firmware.
3. Bootloaders, Hardware Drivers, Operating Systems
4. Network services: websearch, email-servers, VoIP, blogging, media-sharing, social networking, etc.
5. Mobile phones
6. Related software usage & features

Naturally, this site is not intended as a guide for users who wish to stick with Apple, Google or Microsoft software products, such as devices running iOS, Mac OS, Windows or Google Android, or services hosted by these companies such as gmail, hotmail, google search or WhatsApp. It’s only for those who wish to replace those products and substitute those services.

If this is your first visit I recommend that you start out by looking at the Long-Term Goals page or the Glossary page, especially if any of the terms on this page seemed confusing.