mfa, Dustin Fontaine

My Personal Privacy Framework

We live in a data-centric world, with constant services vying for our attention (or subscriptions). We know that data is being collected and given to various affiliates or government agencies, and it can be mind boggling to try to keep up with it all. Some people on the other hand, don’t care or are convinced they cannot do anything about it.

Now I’m not entirely naïve to think that you can be completely private without foregoing cell phones, TV, and everything else that modern civilization has to offer. You can however, take steps to control your data and more or less have a say on who sees what, if at all. This is a happy medium to me, and I’ve taken it upon myself to perform all the steps I outline in this post. You can take what you like or leave it be, whatever is good for you. I’m going to briefly mention each item and link so you may need to conduct your own research on these items to learn more about them.

Big Item: The Mobile Phone

If you have an Android or iPhone – which you likely do – you are already at significant risk. Google and Apple collect data about basically everything you do on your phone. You can however, obtain an Android phone without the Google services. This will require a lot of research beforehand and ultimately there are two wants: 1, a very active development community and 2, a vendor that actively maintains updates (which in turn, incentivizes the community).

Typically I like to go for OnePlus phones, but I usually buy them used from Swappa. You can do some reading on your desired devices over at XDA to get an idea of how active the development is. You’ll then either want to flash one of the many roms you find there, or LineageOS. You can also opt for a Google Pixel (NOT VERIZON VARIANT), and install GrapheneOS.

At this point you’ll want the F-Droid Android store primarily but if there are certain proprietary apps you need to use, you can use Aurora Store to replace the Google Play Store – and you’ll likely want to install microG, which is an emulation of Google services. (Best to use the Magisk route then install the apk’s.

Of course there is still a certain amount of tracking just because you have to connect to cell towers in order to receive service and are subject to your agreement with that provider, so be aware of that. Of course if your ROM randomizes your MAC address that is one more thing to note.

Big Item: Email

Most big free providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL) will not encrypt your data and will likely read your emails to offer you advertisements *Ahem, Google*, but there are a few freemium options such as Protonmail and Tutanota that are zero-knowledge and have small mailbox sizes for free accounts you can try out. You can also use your own domain if you have one with their premium accounts so that is pretty cool. You can also self-host your own mail server.

One thing to note, business and enterprise Microsoft 365 are encrypted both in transit and at rest using Bitlocker – which TrueCrypt was retired in favor of. The cheapest option being M365 Business Basic at $6/month. It’s not entirely zero-knowledge, but it’s a happy “good enough” solution if you don’t want to build it.

Big Item: Cloud Storage

If you use the same big free provider for cloud that you do email, you’re subject to the same pitfalls. You can either self-host with Nextcloud or sync with Syncthing – or you can use a zero knowledge provider such as Sync or pCloud.

One thing to note, same as above, Onedrive for Business is encrypted in transit and at rest. Onedrive is included with most M365 plans.

Big Item: Password Manager

I’ve covered this in the past, but really if you don’t have one, get one. Don’t forget about delimiters in your logins if the service supports it, and set up MFA.

Other Items

Notes

Nextcloud has its own Notes app for basic notes and categorization. Joplin is a sync-able application that uses Markdown and supports nested folder structures. OneNote also makes a good contender and if you’re using Onedrive for Business it will be encrypted.

Youtube

You can actually still use Youtube, just use a FOSS app like Newpipe or Skytube as your app of choice. Then on the PC, use container tabs or private browsing.

Web Browser and Internet

Firefox, this is without a doubt the best – you can install the Container Tabs addon, which allows you to create containers to isolate cookies that various sites like to use to spy on your other activities. There is even one dedicated to Facebook. You could start by just categorizing things, not get too specific with every single website – banking, shopping, email, school are all good places to start. There is also always the option of private browsing.

You might also consider a VPN, however there is much debate on what providers are actually trusted. Some educated recommendations would be Mullad, ProtonVPN, IVPN, and Private Internet Access.

Maps and Navigation

Okay you got me here. There are plenty of other navigation apps such as Magic Earth and OSMand. For actual navigation they do pretty well, but if you are looking for food in the area or any other random thing you’d typically use G Maps for – you’re best off opening a private window and just using that. Or you can temporarily install the Maps application if you really must. Using MicroG, navigation does work, just don’t ever update it or sign in, or save your home address, etc.

Chat and Social

Okay so, if you MUST use Facebook and other platforms, there are apps that limit how much data is being shared while still providing basic functionality in F-Droid. I myself use Frost, which does a good job of letting me do everything I need – though I don’t use the calls and video chat functions, and they don’t work on this app. There are other types of services as well such as Mastadon, but good luck getting everyone you know on it – and those you have yet to meet. You can also try getting people on Signal or Telegram.

Conclusion

So that for the most part is how I live my life. Feel free to ask me of any specifics that are not covered here or if you are considering a service in particular (I may or may not have referral links).

I’m also going to plug two more sites for further reading:

Privacy Tools website

Awesome Privacy List

An Overview Of Multi Factor Authentication

Multi Factor Authentication has many acronyms, MFA, 2FA, TFA. And there are many different ways to implement it, though it is usually entirely dependent on the service what it supports. The idea though is that when you log into a site or service, you have to approve that login after you put in your password. Hence the other factor in the login process.

One note of caution, if you use a password manager, which you should, it is generally advised to set up your MFA elsewhere. This is because if your password manager becomes compromised then the attacker has your MFA codes as well.

So now the biggest question is what is the best way to go about it? You can set yourself up on an account-managed service such as Authy, or you can sign into Google or Microsoft authenticators if you use those services and have accounts already. You would then sync those codes with the respective account.

Though bear in mind this is a second passphrase to remember because you probably don’t want to store that account in your password manager (for the same reason mentioned above). Note, you can also use the Google/Microsoft apps without logging in. How much you trust that is up to you.

You can also go the independent route. If you are on Android you can install Aegis authenticator. This is completely local and does not rely on any services to log in. Though make sure you export your config and back it up somewhere, you can then import it when you get a new phone. Make sure you keep exporting new copies as you add accounts.

Here looks to be a similar iOS app, though I haven’t used it personally I have inquired with my iOS friends and they seem to be in agreement that it works as intended.

I’ve also found an online tool that allows you to put in basic TOTP information. Note that the secret key is part of the otp link that it gives per the example account.

Most sites will allow you to somehow try to enable the app non-automatically. Here is an example with Microsoft 365:

They then give you the information to put here, then that link should work in any TOTP app, including all the ones mentioned above. It also generates a QR code that can be scanned, again by most TOTP apps including those mentioned above.

This is super useful for documenting the important information then sharing it with others (say you have an admin account that your five techs need to access). Then they can all have their TOTP apps and don’t have to rely on someone being available when they need access to the account. They just pull up the site mentioned above, enter in the info, and scan the generated code into their respective apps. Alternatively you can take a screenshot of the QR code and save that.

Unfortunately, just like email filtering, not all sites and services are going to support this universal security protocol. Some sites still force you into either texting a code, or emailing a code. Or maybe not even have any form of 2FA.

I do recommend you set it up for as many sites as you can though, especially important sites (like banks) or frequently-attacked sites (like Facebook). If you combine my advice from my password post and my plus addressing post, you should have a pretty diversified portfolio in terms of login and security, which drastically lowers the chances of any random attack being more than a minor nuisance and a password reset. Of course there is no guarantee, using these methods in conjunction should considerably lower the probability.