MyLaptop

From Technologia Incognita
Revision as of 17:39, 15 December 2013 by Narya (talk | contribs) (added several links, and some info about ownCloud)
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Projects
Participants Narya
Skills Software, Social Networking, Common sense, Cryptography, Learning
Status Active
Niche Software
Purpose Education

Goal

  • Make my laptop more MY laptop (and my e-mail.. my calendar... backup... social networks... and well, anything really)
  • Document it. A summary will be placed somewhere on this wiki including relevant links. I'll document it as a sort of diary on my own blog (http://www.van-schaik.org/)
  • Achieve more privacy in my virtual environment and that of my friends/family

Blog

How

Some of the things I did so far

Laptop / phone

  • OS
    • Encryption of my home directory (checked the tickbox to encrypt my home directory in Ubuntu)
    • Ubuntu sends searches to Amazon, disabled this
    • Probably am going to install another OS on my laptop
  • Changed browser: using firefox now i.s.o. chrome
  • Installed [several browser plugins, e.g.
    • HTTPSeverywhere - make use of https as much as possible
    • Better privacy - remove super cookies
    • DoNotTrack - block advertisement, trackers, web stat trackers
    • Ghostery - comparable with DoNotTrack, but works better
    • NoScript - block JavaScript and Java stuff
  • Alternatives for Google stuff
    • Use DuckDuckGo in stead of google search
    • Removed the mail forwarding to google mail and switched back to my own provider. Actually, it would be better to install your own mail server or perhaps use a peer2peer mail system with e-mail encryption built-in
    • Using a paper agenda now - couldn't find a could portable electronic alternative yet. This works just fine
    • Replaced analytics with Piwik
    • OpenStreetMap i.s.o. google maps
  • Removed mail and online banking from my mobile phone (can perhaps be put back after I changed the OS)
  • SSH tunnel to encrypt internet traffic from another network (e.g. a public wifi spot) to a place I trust more
  • Tomboy notes with rsync in stead of Evernote
  • Created a PGP key and set the default settings to "encrypt mail" for the people who are already in my list (key ring)
  • Social media
    • Played around with Diaspora (as alternative to Facebook)
    • Checked out Retroshare - it's retro... and you can share things (chat, forum, mail, file, all friend2friend), uses PGP

Server

  • Installed Debian
  • Encrypted disk (option during setup)
  • Have set firewall rules (with Shorewall)
  • Have installed ownCloud - can be used ala dropbox, and it has apps for calendar and contacts
    • This is not really a cloud solution, but it might become one when doing the following:
    • Need to investigate how to make use of this more secure (info here)
  • Now working on setting up https (some explanation, example 1, example 2)

To do

  • A lot
  • Have fun and not become too paranoid ;)
  • Be realistic: if you have a secret, don't put it on the interweb or on your computer