#021: How to Make Yourself Harder to Track: 5 Tools for People Who Value Their Privacy

Siara Singleton (00:01)

Why does a billionaire deserve privacy and you don't?

‍

At the 500 largest US companies, the median reported security benefit for executives who received one was over 100K

‍

They are paying a premium for privacy because it's valuable.

‍

And simultaneously, they feel completely entitled to your information.

‍

I don't know about you, but I'm not okay with that.

‍

these companies have a very strong incentive to maintain the illusion that your privacy isn't something that you need to worry about.

‍

I am here to remind you that it very much is.

‍

Privacy is luxury.

‍

So today I share five basic tools I believe every privacy conscious person should have in place.

‍

I will die on the hill that your data and my data are no less important than the 1%.

‍

Siara Singleton (00:49)

Hey y'all, happy Thursday. I'm not in the studio today. I'm traveling for a couple of weeks, so I'm posted up in my Airbnb right now.

‍

And I'll be honest with you, jet lag has won. Jet lag always wins. I've never beat jet lag, so if anyone has any tips for jet lag so that this can stop happening to me, I'll take it.

‍

I've been like sitting here waiting for my tea to kick in. I need a proper cup of coffee, obviously.

‍

I've also been waiting for the stuffiness in my voice to go away. It's not going away. Sorry, you will hear the congestion in my voice today.

‍

but nevertheless, I'm very excited to talk about today's topic.

‍

To add insult to injury for the jet lag, a couple of nights ago when I had first arrived, I woke up in the middle of the night, exhausted, but also thinking, my god,

‍

Was I using my VPN at the airport yesterday? And I ran downstairs specifically to make sure that I had switched it on on my phone because I don't remember turning it on when I left my house and went to the airport. Thankfully it was. I don't know why I was worried,

‍

but I was chuckling because why am I waking up out of a dead sleep thinking about my potentially exposed IP address.

‍

Siara Singleton (01:59)

I think the reason I was especially triggered is because traveling is an exposure point. You're connecting to unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks, downloading new apps, giving them permissions, you're handing over maybe your email and your phone number to new sources, and you may just be inherently vulnerable because you're in a new place you've never been before, or at least that's the case for me on this trip. And there are just more places that your information can end up.

‍

So when I'm traveling, my privacy reflex sort of turns on a little stronger and I'm like, okay, what's going on? and I think people should have that sort of internal alarm when they're in a more vulnerable situation as it pertains to their data privacy and physical privacy, of course. but if you've been listening to the show, you know privacy is very important to me. And there's a chance that it's becoming increasingly important for you.

‍

So today I thought that I would share five basic tools I believe every privacy conscious person should have in place. If you're wanting to work a little bit more on your security hygiene, we're gonna talk about that today.

‍

If you are not completely bought into the idea that privacy, data privacy in particular, is important, I have a question for you. Why does a billionaire deserve privacy and you don't? because if you think billionaires are just clicking accept all cookies on every website, handing over their personal information whenever an app or person asks for it, and just letting their data float around there without doing anything about

‍

it.

‍

You better think again.

‍

People with that kind of wealth navigate their data completely differently from most people. they have a lot to protect and they are well aware of the consequences when private information gets out.

‍

I don't know if people understand. Wealthy people hire specialists to look for weaknesses in their digital lives. and get them professionally removed. Some buy houses through companies so that their names aren't the first thing you see on property records. And for those that own, say, a private plane or jet, there are actual programs to make it harder for the public to connect that plane to its owner or to follow its flights.

‍

They are paying a premium for privacy because it's valuable. Privacy is luxury. I cannot say that enough.

‍

But here's the thing, even if you are not a billionaire, that doesn't mean you don't have a lot to protect.

‍

There are also consequences when your private data or my private data gets out.

‍

Maybe you're not securing the Wi-Fi on your yacht or the account details for your multi-billion dollar investment portfolio,

‍

But maybe you're protecting the money that you've been putting away so that your son can go to his dream college. the messages from your mom updating you on what her doctor said that week, or the private key to the Bitcoin wallet that you've had set up since you were living in your parents' basement in 2016. I will die on the hill that your data and my data are no less important than the 1%.

‍

Collectively, I think it's just as important for the rest of us to protect ourselves as well.

‍

There is this moment. from a congressional hearing with Mark Zuckerberg that lives rent-free in my mind. I'm gonna play it really quickly for you guys.

‍

So that was eight years ago, mind you. The conversation has obviously escalated and we are all sort of more aware of how much meta collects. If you haven't seen the episode where I literally detail everything that meta collects from us, go check that one out.

‍

But my point is the people at the top think that they do deserve privacy.

‍

Here's a quick stat At the 500 largest US companies, the median reported security benefit for executives who received one was over 100K in 2024. That kind of gives you an idea of the resources that are available to protect them.

‍

And that's just like publicly available information for executives that are technically employees at a company. We're not 100% sure what everyone else is doing in the 1%.

‍

And simultaneously, they feel completely entitled to your information. They don't seem to necessarily believe that you deserve those same privileges. I think part of the reason that these tools that I'm about to share with you aren't so popular is that these companies have a very strong incentive to maintain the illusion that your privacy isn't something that you need to worry about.

‍

I am here to remind you that it very much is.

‍

But here's the good news.

‍

the cost of privacy is on a sliding scale in accordance with what you have to protect. The more that you have to protect, the more expensive it's gonna be. So yes, people financially at the top are paying egregious amounts of money to protect themselves. But not everyone is gonna have that same price tag.

‍

There are so many awesome, accessible, and affordable tools for people like you and me that will completely change how your data moves through this world. Again, this is really good news because it means there's a chance. It means that we don't have to subscribe to big data collection, hyper surveillance, and a lack of anonymity. We have options.

‍

for some reason, and I do have many theories as to why,

‍

these options are just not very popular.

‍

for me, I'm actually very self-important about my data. I'm actually very dramatic about it. And I'm no billionaire. But I think it's worth it. I've talked in the past about how surveillance pricing works, where people literally get served different prices, often higher prices, based on the data that is made available about them.

‍

I don't know about you, but I'm not okay with that. I'm also not super into the invasive targeted ads. I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of mass surveillance, whether from a government entity, a corporate entity, or anyone else.

‍

And so I don't really think I'm being dramatic I think I'm just trying to be preventative. if you're interested in something similar, I think you're really gonna appreciate how accessible the tools I'm about to share are. You do not have to pick all five.

‍

I think even adopting three out of five of these tools will dramatically elevate your security posture. So let's just get straight into it.

‍

let's start with the tool that dragged me out of bed the other night. VPNs.

‍

The airport Wi-Fi, hotel Wi-Fi, the coffee shop network with the password written on the chalkboard, those are all run by people that you will probably never meet and shared with people that you cannot see. So the little flicker of unease that you feel when you join one of those networks is worth trusting, and a VPN is exactly how you answer it.

‍

VPN stands for virtual private network.

‍

It takes everything leaving your phone or laptop when you're using the internet, encrypts it, and sends it through a server somewhere else before it reaches the website or app that you're using.

‍

try thinking about your internet traffic like a postcard.

‍

Every person who handles that postcard on its way to its destination can read what you wrote. Your return address is printed right there on the corner. A VPN seals the postcard inside an envelope and has a courier deliver it from a different address.

‍

the network you're on sees an envelope that it can't open, and the website on the other end sees the courier's address where yours used to be.

‍

Additionally, hiding your IP address, which is sort of like a rough stand-in for where you are, also makes you slightly harder to follow from site to site.

‍

I really recommend that you adopt a VPN. A paid VPN is generally gonna run you anywhere between three and fifteen dollars a month, depending on the provider and how long you commit for, with those lower prices usually requiring a year or two paid upfront. the brand of VPN that you pick is very important. Proton VPN is an easy place to start if you don't want another bill because it's a free plan, it has unlimited data.

‍

Mulvad is worth considering if you want to share as little information as possible when signing up, because it doesn't even require an email address.

‍

Surfshark's pay plans let you connect unlimited devices, which is useful if you have a bunch of devices like phones and laptops and tablets to cover.

‍

and if you want something a bit more polished with some more premium features, I use NordVPN. There's also Express VPN. These are some of the big mainstream names. the next one on the list is a password manager.

‍

Of all the tools that I will share with you on this list, I think this one is as much of a benefit for convenience as it is for your security and privacy. It may be the single highest return tool on this list.

‍

A password manager is exactly what it sounds like if you haven't heard of one before. You may have one already.

‍

when I was, I think a sophomore in college, adulting started to get real. I started having a lot more accounts and tools and online platforms that I was using. And I was just getting a bit overwhelmed and trying to stay organized. So by chance, just looking for an organizational tool, I adopted a password manager.

‍

I actually didn't understand all of the privacy and security benefits that I was getting by using a password manager at the time. It was definitely more about convenience and organization for me.

‍

but I grew to really love the tool because it was sort of educating me while I was using the tool because it was telling me about my password health.

‍

It was actually giving me alerts when certain accounts that I had were being hacked to the dark web and telling me to change my password. So I was growing a little bit more conscious of my cybersecurity while using the tool. But then shortly after college, I actually went on to work for the company that hosts the password manager that I used. And that is where I learned a lot of the cybersecurity knowledge that I know today.

‍

so I have this whole thing about password managers. I love them.

‍

Today I'm specifically talking about encrypted password managers with certain features. I do believe that they need to have a certain set of tools for me to even consider it a baseline password manager.

‍

An Excel spreadsheet, a notes app a written-down journal, none of these are gonna work. These are not password managers. I'm sorry. If you're a privacy conscious person, you need a password manager with features that are going to keep your credentials safe. Because credentials are the impetus for hackers getting into your business. I promise you. Features that you're gonna wanna look out for.

‍

First one, very important, password generators. A generator saves you from inventing a new password every time you sign up for something. Sure, it's convenient, but more importantly, it is what finally breaks the habit of reusing passwords. and reusing passwords is one of the most common ways that people get hacked.

‍

If an account of yours has ever been taken over out of nowhere, there's a good chance a password that you use somewhere else was leaked first.

‍

Using the same password everywhere is like using one key for your apartment, your car, and your safe deposit box. If someone gets access to one, they have access to all of it. You cannot be reusing passwords. I feel like I just said that really aggressively because I feel really strongly about this. I know people do this a lot. So if that's you, you gotta stop. Password generators really help you break that habit.

‍

The second feature that you're gonna want to look for in a password manager is zero knowledge encryption. Look for that phrase. It sounds really fancy, but it just means that the vault is encrypted on your own device before it ever reaches the company's servers, and the company never holds the key. So even their own employees can't read your passwords. Bitwarden, Dashlane, ProtonPass, and OnePassword all work this way.

‍

look for is autofill. The next feature that you're gonna wanna look for is autofill.

‍

I have been autofilling every login I've had since I've gotten a password manager and it makes my life so much easier. It kind of looks like this: you go to a website and you're about to log in and you look at the username and password and you're like, I have no idea what I set for this months ago, weeks ago, days ago, years ago, whatever. You click

‍

The username, field with your mouse, and your password manager will recognize the website you're on. It will pull the credential out of your password manager vault and it'll auto fill it for you. It's the most beautiful thing. It is so simple, it is so easy, Is the best user experience. I haven't typed a password in years, and I do not intend to.

‍

So make sure your password manager has autofill simply because it's just really nice to have.

‍

next feature you're gonna wanna look for is breach alerts. A good password manager watches for known data breaches and tells you when one of your accounts has been affected.

‍

It also flags passwords that are weak or reused so that you know exactly which ones to fix first.

‍

The next thing you want to look for is pass key support. This is kind of a newer thing, but you may have heard of pass keys. This is a newer way to log in. Your phone or laptop confirms it's you with your face, your fingerprint, maybe a pin. There's no password for anyone to steal or phisch

‍

Pass key support is now pretty standard across the major password managers. So I would definitely make sure that yours can store and sync them as more apps adopt this.

‍

As far as options go for password managers, you have a lot. Bitwarden gives you unlimited passwords across your devices for free,

‍

It's open source. It's independently audited. The free tier is pretty generous.

‍

so cost doesn't really need to be a thing stopping you there. If you're happy to pay, 1password is particularly useful for families because you can share household logins while keeping everyone's personal accounts private. Dashlane does the exact same thing. I believe Dashlane Premium includes a VPN subscription, which could be convenient if you're looking to get both tools under one subscription.

‍

I personally really love their interface design. It's super easy to use.

‍

Depending on what kind of device you use, you may have also noticed Apple's password app and the Google Password Manager. These are free and built into your devices. Using these properly is gonna be better than nothing. So

‍

So if you really don't think that you're gonna buy a password manager, at least use these. But personally, I think it's worth decoupling your password manager from the big providers like Apple and Google rather than having everything available within one ecosystem. But that's just me.

‍

I might make a video in the future comparing password managers if that would be helpful, because there are just so many options, it's kind of hard to pick. But at the end of the day, pick one and

‍

And use it and use it properly and you will be far better off, I promise you.

‍

next tool I'm going to recommend is some sort of email alias tool.

‍

And this is because like every app or checkout wants your email address or phone number these days. And even like in person purchases, you end up giving it to them because you need a receipt or maybe you want to see what discounts you'll get. But eventually that same address has been handed to more companies than you can remember.

‍

And that address can help companies connect information about you across different services.

‍

and when you use one email for a bunch of different accounts, When just one account using that email gets leaked or exposed,

‍

All of the accounts using that email are now exposed too This is also why it's really important to not reuse passwords.

‍

email aliases or email masking gives you a unique disposable address for every signup.

‍

you can create a different email alias for each company and still receive the receipt or the shipping update in a place that you normally check. The useful part is control. If one address starts receiving unwanted mail, you can turn off forwarding for that alias without changing your main email address.

‍

There's a lot of tools available for this. Apple's Hide My Email comes with an iCloud subscription, so a lot of you already have it and have never touched it. I would consider it. DuckDuckGo email protection is free. The Firefox relay has a free tier as well. Simple login, which is now part of Proton and Proton Pass, is great if you want unlimited aliases managed alongside your passwords. For phone numbers, Google Voice is a free starting point in the US. But MySudo is a more privacy focused paid choice. They let you keep separate.

‍

Several separate numbers for different parts of your life.

‍

personally, I just started using a newer app called Cloaked, and it lets you create unique email addresses and unique phone numbers all in one place. So all of you know the text messages and emails that I might want to see with shipping updates and receipts and even coupons and discounts at times all come to one inbox, which I've really liked so far.

‍

The next tool I want to talk about is privacy focused browsers.

‍

One of the stranger things that we've normalized is looking at something online and then seeing evidence of that visit all over the rest of the internet.

‍

Imagine you walk into a store and you see a red trench coat that you really like, but you decide not to buy it. So then you leave and you go to the coffee shop.

‍

And the red trench coat is floating behind the counter as you order your coffee. And you're like, that's weird. And then you go to your friend's house and the red trench coat is sitting on the couch, staring at you, waiting for you to make a decision. And you're like, okay, And then you go to lay your head to rest and you look up your ceiling and the red trench coat is just hovering above you, just waiting. It is like, I'm not leaving you alone until you buy me.

‍

That is cross-app tracking in a nutshell. And the way that it actually works is that the trackers are embedded in the websites. You open one page, but behind it there are many requests to several other companies. And one of the most common ones is the Meta pixel. It's a small piece of code from Meta that sits on millions of websites and reports back what you looked at, even if you've never opened Facebook or Instagram that day. Depending on how the site is built, these companies can receive information about your visit and use identifiers to connect it with activity elsewhere.

‍

A privacy-focused browser helps to limit that by blocking known trackers from loading and restricting tracking cookies. It gives you protection during an activity you're already doing every day, which makes this one of the easiest ones to change on the list because it's just working in the background once you adopt it.

‍

Also, please note that opening an incognito tab is not the same thing. The main purpose of an incognito tab is to limit what that browsing session leaves in your local history. The websites you visit can still collect information from you. It's not really that incognito after all.

‍

And note that a privacy browser is not gonna stop a company from recording what you do inside your account or prevent a retailer from sharing information from its own systems.

‍

But it can reduce a substantial amount of tracking that happens as you move between sites.

‍

as far as brands go, Brave has ad and tracker blocking built in and turned on by default. It's worth considering when you want those protections without having to choose and install a separate extension. DuckDuckGo also makes a free browser with built-in tracking protection.

‍

You may be familiar with the DuckDuckGo search engine, but the browser is actually a separate product that you need to download. For people who want more control, Firefox has built-in tracking protection as well. And on a computer, you can use uBlock Origin to block more unwanted content.

‍

All three are free, so this is somewhere you can improve your privacy without adding another bill.

‍

whichever you choose, make sure that you set it as your default browser in your phone and your laptop settings. That helps change the carry-through when you open links instead of having the app sitting on your phone while you keep browsing somewhere else.

‍

The last tool is one of my favorites because it makes me feel a little more stealthy than the average person when it comes to my digital footprint.

‍

Earlier I mentioned that the ultra-wealthy will actually pay specialists to find their data online and have it taken down professionally. This next tool is the accessible version of that exact service.

‍

First, it's important to understand that there is an entire industry of companies called data brokers. They collect information about you from public records, purchase histories, apps, and loyalty programs, then they package it into a profile and they sell it.

‍

the most visible corner of that industry that you've probably come across is people search sites, where anyone with your name and a few dollars can pull up your current address, your phone number, your age, and the names of all of your relatives. It's actually really unsettling. If you've ever searched your own name and found like the list of all the cities that you've lived in, or if you've received a scam text with an uncanny amount of accurate information about yourself, you've already met a data broker.

‍

there's something especially uncomfortable about seeing your life assembled like that. So if you're anything like me, you don't like it. I also want to flag something that for some reason no one seems to be talking about.

‍

All of the popular LLMs, the AI chatbots with web search, are getting very good at finding this information. Now someone can type a name into an LLM, ask it to pull together everything publicly available about that person, and it will go out, search these websites, and hand back a surprisingly complete profile in a matter of seconds.

‍

Work that used to take a determined stranger an hour of digging and maybe a few bucks now just takes one prompt.

‍

this is deeply concerning, and I think it makes a data removal service tool feel a lot more urgent because the less of you there is on sites, the less there is for these LLMs to scrape.

‍

You can request removal from these sites yourself, I want you to know that that option exists and costs nothing. The challenge is scale and persistence.

‍

It behaves a lot like a garden you weed once and then walk away from. There are hundreds of these companies, each with their own opt-out process, and they refresh their data constantly. So a record that you removed in March can easily sprout back in summer. A data removal service is essentially a gardener-on-retainer. It files removal requests with hundreds of brokers on your behalf, checks back on a schedule,

‍

And files again when your information reappears.

‍

Before I share some of the tools that are useful for this, I do want to mention that California has become somewhat of the sweetheart of privacy when it comes to state laws. They were the first state to pass a comprehensive consumer privacy law back in 2018, And they've just kept raising the bar ever since.

‍

Most recently, they actually built a free state-run tool called Drop, the Delete, Request, and Opt Out Platform. That lets residents send one deletion request to every registered data broker at once. As of August 1st of this year, brokers are legally required to check it at least every 45 days and process those requests.

‍

That's actually really cool. So if you live in California, please go do this ASAP. And if you don't, I think this is a very useful preview of what the rest of us should be asking our own legislators for.

‍

For everyone else, here are some options.

‍

Opturi offers a free scan that shows you where you're currently exposed. Incogni is a strong affordable pick if you want something automated that you can set and largely forget. DeleteMe is a premium option and one of the longest running names in the category. They charge you for ongoing removals and they give you access to privacy advisors if having someone that you can ask for help matters to you. Cloaked, which I mentioned before, combines data removal with the private email addresses and mask phone numbers, which is

‍

if you'd like to manage several of these privacy tools in one place. and then of course if you see a

‍

data removal service tied in with some of these other privacy tools that you have, or any other tool really, just note that that actually is a huge benefit and value to you.

‍

Okay, that's the last one. Those are five basic security tools that I think every privacy conscious person should consider. If you decide to adopt even just one of these tools today, I promise you will be better off.

‍

But I do recommend that you stack a bit. And honestly, I'm not gonna feel great about this unless you make a password manager part of that stack. You need a password manager. That's gonna be one of the most important things on this list. So my advice is to start there and then add on. I started this episode sprinting downstairs in the middle of the night to go check on my VPN, and honestly, that's a feeling that I never want you to have. Chances are you're more normal than me. I'm very anal about these things,

‍

But the beauty about these tools is that you set them up once and then they just continue doing their job and you get to sleep through the night. Peace of mind is part of the value for these tools.

‍

please comment or reach out and tell me which ones that you end up going for, which ones that you already have and you like. I'm really curious. I've definitely flirted with the idea of giving more in-depth reviews of my experience with some of these brands. I've tried a lot of them. Some of them are my tried and true, some of them I've been using for over a decade, and some of them are brand new. And so I'm just sort of experimenting with them. But

‍

I've been loving doing that and seeing what they're capable of. They do really get better every year. So let me know if you're interested in seeing content like that. Besides that.

‍

Siara Singleton (24:24)

I hope you're feeling more equipped to start your privacy journey. I'm super excited for you all. I will be back next week with a really exciting episode where we will speak with a sleep expert. So stay tuned. And I hope you get to log out this weekend. Bye.

‍