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Privacy is about people knowing who you are but not knowing what you are doing.
Anonymity is about people knowing what you are doing but not knowing who you are.
Security is about restricting access to protect your data.

GDPUG - new year - new format

Last year we ran several Gympie Digital Privacy User Group (GDPUG) meetups and found that the content I was providing went over the heads of some folk. My apologies for that. After the feedback I received, I have come up with a new format for the meetups that should help more people understand the digital privacy landscape and apply it to their lives.

We will also be trialing some changed meetup times as follows:-

  • For those wanting a daytime meetup, Saturday from 12:30pm to 3:30pm
    There are some Saturdays that we cannot use the hall. Join our newsletter (bottom of page) to get updates.
  • For those wanting a week night, Tuesday evening from 5:30pm to 8:30pm

You are welcome to attend all 3 hours or just the sessions you are interested in. There will be a 10-15 minute break between each hour's session.

Subjects discussed will depend on attendees questions, but as a guide:-

Read more: GDPUG - new year - new format

GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.12.07

Last saturday we only had 4 of us including myself. We discussed:

  • Initialising a degoogled phone during its first startup.
  • Alternative to google maps app ... Organic Maps.
  • Encrypted containers for storing sensitive files.
  • We had some discussions about installing Linux and what machines would be suitable.
  • Add-ons for the Firefox (or LibreWolf) browser apps on computers that help with improving your privacy as you browse the world wide web.
  • We also talked about synchronising bookmarks between different devices and browser apps

See below for descriptions and further info and links.

Read more: GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.12.07

GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.11.23

We discussed the following topics:

  • The Element app and joined some of our members to our new private encrypted room "Gympie Digital Privacy U.G".
  • Ad blocking to prevent tracking. Discussed uBlock Origin, Firefox, LibreWolf (built in), and Brave (similar out of the box).
  • Importance of password management and two factor authentication (2FA). Talked about KeePassXC and Bitwarden.
  • Discussed mobile phone models for de-googling and identified the range of google Pixel models suitable.

See below for descriptions and further info and links.

Read more: GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.11.23

GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.11.16

Yesterday we discussed the following topics:

  • The Element app and creating a user on matrix.org with the intention of creating our own private discussion room.
  • Two factor authentication - the most private way.
  • Browsers: Firefox, Librewolf, Brave, and the uBlock Origin extension for protecting privacy.
  • Some info about de-googling phones.

See below for descriptions and further info and links.

Read more: GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.11.16

GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.11.09

Well folks I am very pleased to report that our initial meetup at Veteran Hall went quite well and I think that most attendees enjoyed and learned good stuff. For those of you that attended, I sincerely thank you for your donations as they covered the hall hire cost with some extra for my time spent.

The early part of the meetup was spent covering the 3 main radios in our devices - that is WiFi, Bluetooth, and mobile data - and how to easily switch them off and on. We also discussed how these radios can be used to track us. We spent some time focusing on location services and looked at settings in both iPhone and android phones to limit the device and certain apps from providing location tracking upstream to big tech platforms. I think we'll probably see some more questions on this topic and I will happily continue these discussions.

You can download a PDF file of the presentation I showed the various settings to change in android and iPhone from here  . See page 4.

We also discussed two factor authentication (aka 2FA) and an open source app called FreeOTP+. This is a free open source app that replaces the need to use the Google or Microsoft Authenticator apps that only runs on android. I have been using this one for many years now on my android phone and it works a treat. There is another app with almost the same name (FreeOTP) which is available for both android and iPhone, but it has a flaw in the backup / restore so I do not recommend it for iPhone at this time. We'll look into other alternatives for iPhone.

Read more: GDPUC Meetup Report 2024.11.09

Gympie Digital Privacy User Group - Inaugural Meetup

Update: Happening Saturday 9th November from 10am at Veteran Hall. Kitchen available - please bring your refreshments of choice.

For those of you wanting to improve the privacy of your phones, tablets, laptops, and computers, and get away from using big tech’s expensive software, I would like to invite you to attend the inaugural "Digital Privacy and Free Open Source Software" user group meetup.

As a group we will decide which topics to pursue at each meeting based on our objectives.

The group will explore the following topics:-

  • How to make your existing phones, laptops, and computers more private, including settings and user behaviour changes.
  • Free open source apps to replace closed source proprietary ones; including apps for iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, and Linux (of course).
  • Avoid big tech cloud platforms.
  • Replace MacOS or Windows with Linux - how to do this.
  • De-google your Android phone, with live demonstrations and assistance.
  • Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network).
  • Avoid the nasty side of Artificial Intelligence.

Read more: Gympie Digital Privacy User Group - Inaugural Meetup

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