We are increasingly living in a surveillance state. Everything everywhere is tracked, stored, and traded by a series of corporations. Your info stored, often irresponsibly, is leaked frequently to hackers, but most often, simply sold to the highest bidder.
This post addresses a few general operational standards and practices one can employ to reduce the amount of data you are sending to third parties. These concepts are primarily targeted towards business operations, but apply also to households, personal, non-profit, or government operations.
1. Own Your Hardware
This one is a bitter pill to swallow for some people, so it’s worth ripping off first. Before software is addressed, one must think through carefully where that software runs. The most sovereign position you can take is to buy a server or two yourself and run your own software on it, providing your own physical security. This gives maximum control over physical access to the data.
If you choose to run your software off of a VPS, which is a legitimate option in many cases, ensure that you configure full disk encryption, and configure the operating system to only allow access from trusted sources by IP filtering. For many businesses, a bare-metal server hardware provider is a much better position than subscribing to rented proprietary software.
Whether you own the server or not, ensure all server backups are encrypted, using Borg Backup, and that the data is secured in at least 3 places in at least 2 forms or types of media, and that 1 backup is in a different physical location than your server.
A well configured VPS can eliminate all third party snooping and telemetry and tracking if your software operations are clean, but it is still not as good as owning your own hardware, which provides physical verification that no one is tampering or plugging anything into your box.
2. Use Linux
On your server (And on your desktop if you’re a chad), you should run your ops on Linux. Linux is the open source operating system, which comes in many flavors (distros). For servers, I recommend Debian, for stability and the least amount of extra crap thrown onto many Ubuntu distros. For desktop chads, of course, use Omarchy or Arch.
Linux, of course, is open source, provides customizability and auditability all the way down. Windows, on the other hand, is committed to two things, transforming your computer into a subscription service, and spying on you. It is not possible to remove the data collection from the Windows OS, and by law now in many states, it is not possible to use it without providing age verification and email identification. The reputation of MacOS is not quite as bad with telemetry as Windows (that’s a very low bar to leap), but it still contains tons of spyware out of the box.
One can toggle off a lot of the data collection in the settings of either of these operating systems (they have a history of turning them back on without any consent), but in reality there is no real way to verify how much of your activity is tracked or not with either of these systems, as neither of these operating systems are open source (see point three). Additionally, MacOS works hard to restrict the synergy of your operations with anything that is not also MacOS. You have much less freedom in what you do with Apple software and hardware.
If you want privacy in using your computer hardware, there is no viable option other than Linux.
3. Use Open Source Software
Open source software is software where the code is known and publicly readable and auditable. In the age we live in, most, if not all, standard business functions can be run on free-to-use, open source software. Learn to use docker, learn to use nginx, and you’re in business.
Accounting, CRM, Websites, Calendars, Email, internal messaging, all of these can be run on open source tools. The only thing that prevents people from doing it is of course that many normies don’t see the need to operate this way, or if they are aware of the problem, they do not care enough to do anything about it.
But tracking is only one of many benefits from using open source software. It is far cheaper, there are no supplier restrictions and feature locks, the only locks are capability locks, which can be closed with your own development if needed. One also may achieve greater synergy among their software, and customization.
There are myriads of benefits to running your business on these principles, but for the sake of this article, only the telemetry aspect is in view. The simple truth is that more hands holding your basic info (email, phone, address, SSN, family history, etc.) means more risk of negative events: identity theft, being hacked, receiving endless spam, being victim of a hostile tyrannical government, a private stalker, being doxed when you go viral for something unexpected, etc. The fewer databases you’re in, the less risk of impediments to your goals.
But not only these basic facts about you are being tracked and stored; as your business grows, you develop a set of books, transaction history, operational history and communications, client lists, client info, browser history, AI chat history, intellectual property — the list grows as you grow. Companies are tripping over each other to track store and sell all this data. They are selling it to third parties you don’t know, who want to milk you for all of your strength and labor.
Run your own operations, your own hardware and software, to minimize molestation from third parties. It requires more technical skill, but it’s worth it to learn and grow, to be a steward or owner, rather than a slave.
If you desire technical assistance, reach out to me through Digital Sovereignty