Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Is Your Privacy An Illusion? (Taking on Big Tech) - Smarter Every Day 263 (Patreon)

Published:
2021-10-21 15:52:26
Edited:
2021-10-21 17:36:24
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Friends, this one has been a long time coming.  

4 Privacy is what started out as the Lockdown effort.  We used the feedback you provided and incorporated all of the guiding principles you proposed, which has now evolved into this effort.

I took several swings at this video until I think we finally got the tone right.  In the end I tried to thread the needle between educating and not seeming like too much of an alarmist.   

Thank you very much for helping me make content that I feel should be made. This isn't the kind of video a "YouTuber" would typically make, but I think this is the kind of content that should be made. 

Thank you for your support,

Destin

Files

Is Your Privacy An Illusion? (Taking on Big Tech) - Smarter Every Day 263

Please Support the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4privacyapp/4privacy-app Aerial footage captured in accordance with FAA regulations under Part 107 guidelines by a licensed and insured UAS service provider. Professional Drone Services (PDS.Media)

Comments

Sam Pinches

I'm really disappointed in the whole 4privacy saga. Would love an update from you Destin.

Agro

Destin would you be open to a third party privacy audit of the app when you release?

Aidan Boyer

Could you explain how 4Privacy contrasts with LockDown?

Andrew Beeman

Thanks for making this video, Destin. I've been working on switching my customers and friends over to matrix, Mastodon, and other federated, secure and open source technologies. I look forward to seeing what you create.

Scott Cress

Enjoyed the video. Also I commented some (hopefully) "engagement" driving comments on it. I hope a ton of people watch this video.

Guy Actual

To answer the question in the thumbnail... No, I don't trust them any farther than I can throw their buildings.

Steve

I would like to discuss about being further involved in the development of the project. I have a lot of different experience in particularly web development that I'd be willing to show that background if you're interested in reaching out.

Magwyn

This is fantastic, Destin! And so important. Thank you for doing this. I will totally be backing the Kickstarter.

Don Rude

Does this software have any relationship to LockDown privacy app?

Stuff Made Here

If you trust these companies DM me, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you

Philip Kunz

What about the threat to encryption posed by ever increasing compute performance and even quantum computers? Will that be discussed in a later video? RSA-512 was once considered secure. But today even RSA-1024 is questionable. Within a decade it's likely that RSA-2048 will also be questionable. Because of this, have you considered yet a way to keep OLD data safe?

Lucas Di Pentima

Hey Destin, just in case you don't know the Sia Foundation & Skynet Project, they're working towards a decentralized storage layer onto which running apps that are censorship resistant & private, you might want to check them out: https://sia.tech/about

Shaun Regenbaum

I want to get involved. I backed the kickstarter at the 10k level. I have been working on these issues for a while. Can't wait to talk!

Dustin

Destin, reach out to Dr. Nadim Kobeissi on Twitter (@kaepora). He may come to your video naturally since he's heavily embedded in the cryptography and security space. Also Prof. Mathew Greene of Johns Hopkins University (http://spar.isi.jhu.edu/~mgreen/).

Marco Ferrari

Hi Dustin. Thanks for the video and I'm with you regarding the fact itself but it is not clear to me how your solution is a possible "engine replacement". I mean, the actual "bad engine" has a feature, it translate private staff into money. A better engine should transform something else into money too, or you do not have an engine. Marco

BearPerson

A subject I'm missing so far, both in Lockdown and key management arguments here, is metadata resistance. You can run a hotel with soundproof rooms, but so long as law enforcement can subpoena logs of who checked in and out when, and the camera logs of the hallways, you're creating less privacy than people expect. By the same token, encrypted communication is a good start, but communication needs to get routed through somewhere, and logs of that transfer can still reconstruct who talked to whom, when, and for how long. There's projects like https://cwtch.im/ that try to solve this by funneling communication through tor, though that then makes things slower and more flaky. Not saying what you're proposing isn't useful, but I am wondering if it's overselling what it actually provides to users right now.

Cascadia Rising

How would this work? Could we use it to purchase stuff on line? Or comment? Would that information for the purchase or the comment be limited to only the final destination and not be provided to the ISP or google or FB?

AML

1. How do you solve public keys exchange problem here? Do you want people to meet physically to share them device-to-device? If you are going to exchange them via your servers - it's not better than WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber or any other popular messenger. Even if you share server source code - how can people be sure the source code executed is always exactly the same as the one published and not forked? 2. How will it work if you need to send something to let's say 40 people? Do you need to encrypt it 40 times on your device and upload 40 times? Or you are going to use multiple keys for single file decryption? 3. When you run something on Windows, OsX, iOS or non-vanilla Android - isn't your privacy capped by those systems? Keyloggers, screenshots and screen recordings - how can you guarantee nothing like this can access the photo person has received through your app? Isn't OS and other apps running on it weaker link than other Tech Giants like Google or Twitter?

Terry Moore

This all comes down to the government NOT honoring your IV Amendment rights. That isn't because they are "bad", but because we have not been paying attention. The next assault is Public-Private partnerships. So, not only do you need a solid team, part of that team needs to consider how we can restrain government & private access to our "papers".

Terry Moore

Another one is cookies! I get tired of clearing my cookies. I have set my browser to NEVER use cookies and almost every website requires you to ACCEPT the use of cookies or they will NOT provide you the service you seek.

Terry Moore

As you might tell, this whole thing begins to blossom into a major project! I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. I want to help, but I know how lousy a programmer I am. But I can think and help. My contribution would be common law. I can explain if anyone is interested. You are correct in that point to point encryption is a first step. But keep in mind some other histories. In the beginning, noone worried about security, or keeping communications and files secure. We had to re-engineer a LOT of that as we progressed. I hope you continue to put an emphasis on security as this project develops. Thank You, Destin!

ShadowTux

The the idea is awesome but until it’s really open source and audited I’ll keep my distance to it. On the GitHub page there’s only estimation but the list it large and will take time before opensource or that’s what I understand from it. Also what’s the connection with Lockdown?

Richard Burgan

Your idea and goal is great. Keep in mind that the downfall of ALL previous encryption systems has been key management and user complacency. Also, keep in mind that technology changes with time. For example, I used to store my data on 8-inch floppies. That data is now inaccessible, both because the media has degraded and because the hardware has become obsolete. Good luck with your project. I'll be going over to Kickstarter to make a contribution.

M0rsla

Hey Destin, I've been a long-term supporter and watcher of your series. I really liked how you broke down the privacy concerns in your video and I feel like you did a much better job than other videos I have seen on the subject. Unfortunately, this video left me with a weird taste. The video started like any other educational exciting video, but ended feeling like an AD. I feel like I was mis-led, a bait-and-switch, as to what I was watching. I personally feel like it should have started with a message about how this is a video to gain support for a service/product you’re trying to launch. I would have still watched it, I would have still liked it, but I would not have been left with this feeling. I don't know maybe that's just me, either way I support what you’re trying to do and hope your able to achieve your goals. I only wish to provide positive helpful feedback. Obviously, the video is working as I see you have already surpassed your goal. Here’s to hoping 4Privacy gets support from other services as well. I would be interested in a video covering services like Mastodon, Matrix, and Web3.0 services and how they compare in privacy related concerns. Thanks, Mors

TheEdgeOfRage

This has mostly been said, but I'd like to chime in as well. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems to me that 4privacy will be obsolete on arrival. There are already other solutions that do encrypted communication (Matrix) while also being federated which helps against metadata leaks. And then there's the web 3.0 - Crypto, decentralized architectures and all those fun things that are gaining quite a bit of momentum. I don't see how a cloud solution could ever beat a decentralized one in terms of privacy. Again, I hope I'm wrong here and that you have thought about these thing, but haven't yet mentioned them in this video, so we'll see what you came up with in future episodes. If not, I'd say now is a good time to start thinking about it :)

Adam Schindler

My question is"how do you manage the interface between a fundamentally insecure platform that is basically designed as a backdoor into your life and integrated with a bunch of software platforms that are also backdoors into your life and code an overlay that alleviates those concerns. My personal but poor solution is a Galaxy S9+ with bone stock android that I assume Sergey Brin puts on screenshare whenever he feels like it and a Pixel 4a with no SIM running GrapheneOS. I liike the idea of something that can work with my daily driver, but I still don't know if I would trust that phone farther than I can throw it. There is also the big issue of the cell radio chip and the essentialy ring 0 or even ring -1 control that it exercises. which almost makes me want to move to a tablet device (which to my knowledge precludes Graphene).

Kyle Jackson

I'm saddened by this video. I'm positive we need to bring light to this issue and I think Destin could absolutely do a great job of it. However the video he put out touched on the subject then spent the rest of the time advertising his new company to us. Then he promised to release more videos. Am I to assume those will mostly be ads to? On top of that, me and everyone else here on Patreon had the pleasure of paying Destin for this video. I'll be canceling my Patreon for the time being. I'll continue to watch his videos and the quality returns I'll return.

BRIAN LOCH

I like the idea of a series focusing on the current problem (privacy + economics of the internet as it is today), and the various companies trying to come up with innovative solutions. This seems like one of the potential solutions which is cool. Another one I'd love to see part of this series is an in depth look at what Brave is doing. They have a product that already seems to be paving the way to rethink challenge the current status quo.

Kevin McDonough

I appreciate the video & having thoughtful people tackling this issue head on. Quick comment though. I know someone still struggling with serious PTSD from 9/11. I've supplied them with skip timestamps (start: 3:45, end: 3:57). But a quick onscreen/visual warning might be useful to others in similar situations going forward.

Chad Eichhorn

It was wild seeing all the drone footage of the Google and Facebook data centers, because I worked on those same models of buildings, just not at the sites you got footage of. The facebook site you were at is a perfect carbon copy of the one I worked in up in New Albany, Ohio. I can still visualize the entire floorplan in my head.

SeanT

I've been a big fan and advocate of increased digital privacy for years. Sadly, many of my friends and family still think that they have nothing lose by using FB and other social media. I can't help but think that showing a photo of their data centers might make them change their minds, but I'm probably not being realistic... Thanks for looking into this Destin. I'll check out your Kickstarter, because as far as I'm concerned, the more people who support digital privacy (even if your solution is not the only one, or the best), the better.

Noah Jackson

Hey Destin, I just wanted to ask you Do you plan on doing a video about signal? I use it with some friends and family but would love for you to make a video explaining it in detail so I could easily convince more friends and family to start using it! As always love the work Destin!

Joseph Russell

I hope using a VPN like Nord also does the same thing. But yes. Privacy is not easy to come by 😕

Dan Finkner

I'm really glad to see this video after Destin's last big tech series. I'm also glad I helped support it as a patron!

Brian J Withnell

It is far worse than you might think. You cannot create a comment anonymously, you can't get to anything without leaving a footprint that tracts back to you. Apps like signal do a decent job, but if your phone is on, your position can be tracked.