this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Privacy

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The Privacy Iceberg (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
334 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The Privacy Iceberg

This is original content. AI was not used anywhere except for the bottom right image, simply because I could not find one similar enough to what I needed. This took around 6 hours to make.

Transcription (for the visually impaired)

(I tried my best)

The background is an iceberg with 6 levels, denoting 6 different levels of privacy.

The tip of the iceberg is titled "The Brainwashed" with a quote beside it that says "I have nothing to hide". The logos depicted in this section are:

The surface section of the iceberg is titled "As seen on TV" with a quote beside it that says "This video is sponsored by...". The logos depicted in this section are:

An underwater section of the iceberg is titled "The Beginner" with a quote beside it that says "I don't like hackers and spying". The logos depicted in this section are:

A lower section of the iceberg is titled "The Privacy Enthusiast" with a quote beside it that says "I have nothing I want to show". The logos depicted in this section are:

An even lower section of the iceberg is titled "The Privacy Activist" with a quote beside it that says "Privacy is a human right". The logos depicted in this section are:

The lowest portion of the iceberg is titled "The Ghost". There is a quote beside it that has been intentionally redacted. The images depicted in this section are:

  • A cancel sign over a mobile phone, symbolizing "no electronics"
  • An illustration of a log cabin, symbolizing "living in a log cabin in the woods"
  • A picture of gold bars, symbolizing "paying only in gold"
  • A picture of a death certificate, symbolizing "faking your own death"
  • An AI generated picture of a person wearing a black hoodie, a baseball cap, a face mask, and reflective sunglasses, symbolizing "hiding ones identity in public"

End of transcription.

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[–] unicornBro 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Beautiful and I love it Thank you

[–] [email protected] 284 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I think this is the first time I've seen an iceberg meme with sources and explanations for each item. Fantastic. Your work is appreciated.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 weeks ago

To be honest, and it wouldn't work here, but I sometime enjoy the cryptic nature of iceberg memes at the lower ranks. It's like a scavenger hunt.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I was at the bike shop a few weeks back and a ghost walked in. He came in wearing a medical mask covered by a bandana, sunglasses, cap. They wore gloves, long sleaved pants and shirt.

First question from staff, 'this a robbery?'

Ghost, 'no, I just need 27 2.5 tubes, miss.'

They get the tubes, he agrees. Staff asks if he has an account. Ghost says, "nope, why would I need one?" Staff says they do it for records, insurance claim assist, and discounts. Ghost goes with a John Doe, pays cash and peaces the fuck out.

Total King, but dude was given up a lot. Half of us were drinking beers enjoying a warm evening in spring. I hope he has had some good rides.

I can say with confidence thay he was a white male. In his 50s. About 5'10". 140 lbs-ish. If anyone wants to get any tips, good luck!

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Funny how you need more and more technical knowledge to go deeper into privacy, until the last level, which is basically giving up on technology itself.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The last level is living in a cabin in the woods and writing manifestos about industrial society and the ills of technology O_o

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

TIL I'm a privacy activist--who can help me get to the ghost mode?
(Do I even want to get there or is that limited to journalists who have entire states trying to unalive them?)

[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Do I even want to get there

Only you can answer that.

or is that limited to journalists who have entire states trying to unalive them?

Pretty much, but if you want to give up all technology, work for yourself, and fake your death, then more power to you!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago

limited to journalists who have entire states trying to unalive them. Don't live your life in fear

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It's genuinely wild that Firefox and LibreWolf are nowhere on these

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

Probably because people above the waterline don't know Mozilla exists, and people below have seen how things have been going lately.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Matrix is also missing.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

ExpressVPN is an arm of Israeli intelligence and should be on the tip of the iceberg: https://www.reuters.com/technology/expressvpn-employees-complain-about-ex-spys-top-role-company-2021-09-23/

All users should cancel their accounts immediately.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 weeks ago

"As seen on TV" does not imply privacy, it just implies a large advertising budget. These are software that market themselves as private (and are sometimes better than nothing at all) but may still be just as bad as software on the tip of the iceberg.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

Can you explain why you would think Steam is so bad? I would argue they're pretty fair, especially with the option to buy steam cards for cash to not disclose your personal data. Does the client do some unsavory shit?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Seeing steam at the top makes me question the list. Likely a hate of DRM rather than privacy

[–] [email protected] 67 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Yeap, and Brave in the middle. They only pretend they are for privacy, but they are the very opposite.

[–] dogs0n 23 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah i hate when I see people using Brave, because they have been brainwashed.

Does anyone remember when they were injecting their own referral links into links for online stores (99% certain they did this pls prove wrong if you know better)? This alone leaves them with 0 trust in my books.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

It might be there because there is a lot of data associated with the steam account, especially the community part of it, e.g.:

  • Recorded playtimes
  • Times and dates when you are regularly logged in
  • Possession of games which are precisely tagged by genre/interests/etc.
  • On which time and date you spent how much money (participation in sales in the steam store)
  • Timestamped posts and comments in groups based on various interests etc.
  • Curators/devs/publishers you follow
  • Your game wishlist
  • Connection and interaction with other steam accounts (friends list, chat, trades, gifts)

All this can be used to create a very detailed behaviour profile and accurately deduce the social status of the real person who uses the account. Maybe the data isn't misused and it's just there so the features can actually exist.

Personally, I doubt Valve actually does this as expansive and invasive as other big tech companies. I'm pretty sure they at least aggregate anonymised data to measure how e.g. their sales perform, which game to promote on the store front page etc.

But we can't be sure because it's not public.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago

afaik the client does collect a bunch if data, most (all, i think? but not a 100% on that) of which is opt-in.

they do need stuff like IPs for internet related features.

telemetry wise there's the steam hardware survey, which is opt-in, and it asks every single time it attempts to collect your systems hardware and OS information. this could technically be identifying information, but since it's opt-in it's not a privacy violation and it's entirely optional. (plus it's super useful for all involved: users, devs, and steam. it's kind of a win-win and straight up necessary info for devs to know which hardware they should optimize for)

they might be putting it at the top because steam has native support for DRM?

but that's also weird, because DRM isn't a privacy violation. it's a shitty practice, barely does anything, barely works, and keeps breaking or hobbling otherwise perfectly good games, all of which is shitty, but it's little to do with privacy. and the dev has to specifically opt-in and integrate it as a feature...unless they're thinking of 3rd party DRM that can be waaay more intrusive, like Vanguard... THAT'S a privacy and security nightmare just waiting to blow up in people's faces.

otherwise...i haven't really heard anything bad about steam privacy wise?

doesn't mean that there's nothing to be concerned about, but i feel like there'd been some news about it if there was...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Agree. Steam doesn't even save your birthday, and asks for it every time

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I have no clue why telegram is often mentioned when it comes to "privacy focused messaging". They don't even have e2e encrypted group chats. Only 1:1 chats may be encrypted as an opt-in. Even WhatsApp is more secure than that, since they use signals encryption.

Also the "we don't give out even a byte of data to anyone" statements made by telegram have been thoroughly debunked as lies. When telegrams bottom line is in danger, they have and will give out your data.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Tried the Privacy Activist and Enthusiast section. Was not really fun and you loose connection to most of your friends and family. Now I have a balanced setup with something out of each layer. Perfect balanced, as things should be

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I have taken my own approach; there are things from each layer that I use. Some begrudgingly but others gladly.

The problem I faced when starting this journey is it does cut out a lot of people. And it becomes isolsting. So I did reel back a bit.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

It's equally frustrating to talk to people who're completely entrenched in the Enthusiast / Activist section. The utter disconnect when it comes to what's viable for most people is annoying to deal with sometimes. Statements like "Everyone who is able to read can easily learn to use Arch Linux" or "Everyone can flash their phone" do give me headaches. Was there, did both, wouldn't recommend to my less nerdy family.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

Everyone's personal comfort level.

Give tech classes to elderly. Explaining to them the iphone photo face recognition saw several of their eyes bug out of their head. Some loved it.

Totally agree about the self ostracization. While I agree with the sentiment you'll cripple yourself socially.

Finding your personal comfort zone is the tech journey

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I don't like hackers and spying

brave

lol. lmao, even.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago

A beginner will choose what seems private, regardless of whether or not it actually is.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 weeks ago

Apple: “Brainwashed”

iMessage: “Beginner”

Well which one is it?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

On browsers, as you put Chromium then also put Firefox or deMozillaed Firefox e.g. WaterFox.

I'd put Brave back to the 2nd layer due to relying on Chromium and being heavily marketed while gathering data for its crypto scheme. I'd also put Firefox on the 2nd or 3rd layer.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

What’s the issue with steam? I thought the epic game store was the one actively spying on your device

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 weeks ago

Was going to say links or it never happened but you provided them! And categorized by level! Excelsior!

Thanks also to the comments giving more information.

So grateful for this platform. For the most part.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Kudos for inclusive alt texting!!

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago

Thank you so, so much for the transcription, appreciated!

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Brave 🤮🤮🤮

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago

Oh, am I that far gone?

spoilerI don't see Qubes, Whonix or Tails on there.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)

Weird how Apple and iMessage are not in the same category. How do distrust apple’s privacy claims but trust iMessage?

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (7 children)

Pretty good!! I agree with 95%.

Loved the "As seen on TV" category!

I agree that Tuta is more secure than ProtonMail.

Some are blended like Tor, that should be in Activist if used in secured computer.

~~Was not aware of the existence of Coincarp (logo by GrapheneOS). Is a crypto price tracker used by Activists? I left crypto a couple of years ago but though Activists just don´t trade much and stick for the long haul and use Monero for purchases.~~

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (18 children)

Sadly, using small niche VPNs that might be more trusted makes you stand out more. It's pretty unusual to have a Mullvad user on your server

They don't rotate IPs as well so a lot of them are blacklisted... and don't offer port forwarding anymore

I wish they could change IPs reguarly and add port forwarding back :-( - I would happily pay for their service again

Because 5€ for their current service is overpriced

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Any Chromium-based browser in anything but the top-most panel is a non-starter with their abandonment of Manifest v2. Manifest v3 seriously cripples any Chromium-based browser’s ability to be secure, as extensions like uBlock Origin are no longer compatible by design.

Google has it’s ad business to protect, after all.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Just tell the normie that you have nothing to say if you have nothing to hide. Also, why there's no F-Droid?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks a ton OP for linking to all the tools and services in description, this is an awesome resource!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago

f-droid? the guardian project?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago (15 children)

The problem with mullvad is a lot of its IPs are flagged as bots or denied around the web. Is there a good VPN that will still give access to most of the web?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago

Impressive, an academic grade meme.

You, sir/madam, are an artist and a scholar

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

How the heck is TOR less secure than any of the vpns? Also nice vpn psyop/ad.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

How the heck is TOR less secure than any of the vpns?

This isn't a ranking of security. It is ranked based on the experience level at which people generally begin to start using certain software. They build on top of each other.

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