Ask HN: How do you manage your digital footprint in 2023?

Keep as much local as possible. Do anything involving money or your personal info inside a dedicated VM running a secure OS, or use QubesOS. Use a dumb phone instead of a smart phone. Keep your passwords in a local encrypted text file. If you need a password or other data on the road, SSH into your home machine from your laptop (which has an encrypted disk). Go back to using fake nick names instead of your real name whenever you post online. If some service requires a phone number, other personal info, or an app install, don&#x27;t use it unless you have absolutely no choice. Use FLOSS and don&#x27;t pay for software with your money or by viewing ads.<p>Reject the notion that you NEED these BigTech services and don&#x27;t let them hold your life, well-being, or friends hostage.

Different account names for everything. I never use my real name and usually browse over Tor or with a VPN. If I watch a video it’s after I liberated it with yt-dlp. Reset my home Internet connection to get a different IP daily. I long ago deleted all my posts to Reddit and Facebook. I also ditched my gmail I had for over 20 years, I don’t trust those weasels.

I&#x27;m not exactly a public figure, but I freelanced for a while, so I tried to &quot;get my name out there&quot; to drum up business. So, I&#x27;ve accepted that my information is mostly available if you&#x27;re looking for me.<p>There&#x27;s another guy with the same first name and last name as me, and I feel a little bad for him that any time folks go looking for him they get me. For example: I had a short conversation with his mom on instagram whey she tried to add me as a friend (to be fair to her, my profile picture is kind of silhouetted). He presumably has a similar gmail address - I got a few emails from the military about the blended retirement system; I replied to explaining things and they apologized and straightened it out right away. I also get some occasional emails from his apartment complex and I&#x27;ve never been able to get them to recognize that I&#x27;m not their tenant.<p>Things that I post on hn&#x2F;reddit&#x2F;etc are generally meant for the world to see, so it&#x27;s rare for me to delete a post.<p>I do run a pi-hole and ublock origin to cut down on various forms of tracking.

Removing comments from exising conversations if they don&#x27;t contain sensitive data is rude IMO.<p>Somebody may want to read the conversation in the future and now they will experience missing comments

Generally I google my name for those directory data broker type websites every so often and see if any of the listings match up with my name&#x2F;addresses I&#x27;ve been at (I have a fairly unique ethnic last name). Then I go through the process to get my info deleted (usually it involves giving them a link to the profile on their site, and an email to confirm delete. Use a temporary email, something like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;10minutemail.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;10minutemail.com&#x2F;</a>) Here&#x27;s a list to get started: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;yaelwrites&#x2F;Big-Ass-Data-Broker-Opt-Out-List">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;yaelwrites&#x2F;Big-Ass-Data-Broker-Opt-Out-Li...</a><p>I&#x27;ve had the idea of auto scrubbing yourself from these websites as a side project idea, but never really committed to it

It depends who you are trying to defend against.<p>General spammers? Get a cheap &#x2F; free SIM card every few months to rotate your number. Per domain email (hn@yourdomain.biz) makes it harder for people to match your emails between services.<p>Firefox containers, adblock, cookie control stops general tracking.<p>If you don&#x27;t care about the longevity of an account, just sign up for a new one. Reddit makes that pretty easy, for example. That&#x27;ll stop most people tying your Bigfoot Erotica to your political campaign.<p>If you want to defend against a nation state tracking you... Well, you can try using cryptocurrency, VPNs, disposable VMs, and solar-powered batteries from your cabin in the woods - but you only have to slip up once.

I sometimes go through my 1Password logins by oldest and see what I can delete. Otherwise, nothing. I don&#x27;t post that often any more.

Use guest checkout whenever possible.<p>If you do need to sign up, give fake info, or highly redacted info. If I decide later they actually need it, I can update it in the account settings. Nobody&#x27;s ever cancelled my account because I said I was born Jan 1 over 120 years ago.<p>Do digital purchases via some middleman, like a PayPal account backed by a credit card, Apple Pay, etc. Lots of sites have PayPal checkout flows and it saves you having to share your CC directly.<p>Come up with site-specific usernames and store them in your password manager. That way you don&#x27;t build a stable cross-site identity unless you&#x27;re doing it intentionally for branding.

I&#x27;ve had automatic deletion of all my tweets older than a few months enabled for a few years now. I wish I could do the same for Facebook.<p>(I did go through the FB history one night manually and deleted some of the edgier shit I posted well over a decade ago - I&#x27;m not that person any more).<p>Fastmail masked emails for all mailing lists and random sites. It&#x27;s easy to sort them when the address is used only by one location - and as easy to drop if they start spamming.<p>1Password generated passwords for everything has been the standard for a decade now.<p>I use my real name only on sites where linking the content I create being linked to my person isn&#x27;t a bad thing. (Books I&#x27;ve read, a few social media sites where I curate what I post etc).<p>I&#x27;m lucky because young me picked a really popular book with a cool character to choose my nickname from, so that&#x27;s another way of obfuscating which account is mine and which are someone completely different.

My primary email is on my domain that&#x27;s firstlast.com, so I purchased a random one and use that. Used with Fastmail I typically register as company@company.domain.com and it all forwards automatically.<p>1Pass+Fastmail will automatically generate forwarding random emails, as will Apple now. I prefer it coming to my own domain though to retain control.<p>Other details I frequently just make up (name, age, address), unless they&#x27;re necessary for the service. eg. shipping needs my real address.<p>I wish there was a phone forwarding service that could randomize the number, similar to the Hide My Email that Apple does. I have a Google Voice, but that&#x27;s a single number that can&#x27;t be easily changed.<p>For things like supermarket rewards that just need a 10 digit number, I&#x27;ve thought about changing them all to 111-111-1111 or something similar. All I want is the real price of goods, but that needs an account of some sort.

I manage it by not getting into any political discussions online. I live in a country which government oppression is so strong now that whatever you say online can potentially put you in a short list for public prosecution. So it&#x27;s not worth it. Living in silence is a blessing that I actually enjoy.

The biggest impediment to personal security is probably linkedin, followed by facebook.<p>Facebook you can reasonably hide. Linkedin still seems to have some expectation of openness by companies... but I haven&#x27;t interviewed in a while. My linked in no longer has my name. Is that a big deal with companies?

I’ve been loving iCloud Hide My Email. Every site gets a different disposable address.<p>The fun part is when I do get spam I know exactly which site has sold my info. It is a handy way to know who to never do business again with.

Cleared github this year.<p>Ended LinkedIn 5 years ago.<p>Don&#x27;t use social media. Irony, considering employer.<p>Use throw away email addresses and phony names wherever possible.<p>Anywhere that asks for employer or social security number, I just laugh.<p>Don&#x27;t give out your deets. I use ad blockers and am not interested in being some corporation&#x27;s product.

In the case of retail stores, they typically maintain a history of all changes and transactions for a few years for abuse prevention, so it won’t have the effect you’re hoping for.

As if <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;979&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;979&#x2F;</a> wasn&#x27;t bad enough, people are deleting posts and submissions now? Am I old and getting out of touch, or are kids these days not just not thinking through things before they post?

I have most of my services at home:<p>- email on a personal domain name, local IMAPs&#x2F;SMTPs relay to a third party ones for crappy antispam practice by giants, but having anything at home migrating the domain to another third party is easy and almost no one have my real mails addresses only dedicated or spare aliases easy to drop being just a third party an alias;<p>- homeserver with most of my services, so no need for third party stuff by well-known name (let&#x27;s say Alphabet&#x2F;Microsoft etc) so not so many nor much used accounts;<p>- I have, again, a craphone (Android-based macro-spy [1] device) since I have an EV as a primary vehicle now and I can&#x27;t manage public recharge on the go properly without... BUT it&#x27;s just for limited usage, and as for email most do not have my mobile number, just VoIP accounts on a home PBX;<p>- not much social (HN, Reddit) just because Usenet is almost full only of spam...<p>My biggest digital footprint is mandated de facto by:<p>- government, who push connected services who happen to be crappy stockpiled crap, I can&#x27;t do much for them beside annotate and diffuse any bad design and issue;<p>- crappy surveillance capitalism crap built-in modern vehicles, again I need a car, I do not strictly need a new one but it&#x27;s still useful for some aspects so...<p>- crappy IoT crapware, I normally confine it, it&#x27;s just domestic p.v. and hot water heater, managed in a separate network by my homeserver and operated via Home Assistant WITHOUT internet access for them except for rare crapware updates needed here and there...<p>No smart dumbwatches, spy environmental mic called typically &quot;digital assistant&quot; devices, no video spying tools commonly know as IP cameras (ok I have some, but again managed via the homeserver, with no direct internet access to them) or smart TVs, ...<p>So far it does work a bit...<p>[1] because in the past such information-munging devices was smaller and typically paid by those who spy, now are bigger, apparent and maintained and paid by those spied on, and apparently most of them like that...

Privacy.com helps in terms of online payments. Generates credit card numbers that will accept any name or billing address when charged.

I use resources mentioned on privacytools.io

Why?

What digital footprint?