Speaker 1: Welcome to Hat of Money. I'm Joel, and today we're
Speaker 1: talking about defending your digital life with Nathan Bartram. I
Speaker 1: know I'm not talking to a bunch of dummies, but
Speaker 1: I categorize my technologe as mid as the kids say,
Speaker 1: at best. I'm at that point in my life where
Speaker 1: my twelve year old can figure out new gadgets faster
Speaker 1: than I can. It's kind of humiliating to admit that
Speaker 1: right now. But for those of you out there who
Speaker 1: might feel like me, using tech regularly but not feeling
Speaker 1: like a pro. Maybe you're worried about your privacy. You're
Speaker 1: worried about passwords and data as you navigate the online
Speaker 1: world that has been around for many, many years now.
Speaker 1: So me calling it the online world makes me sound old,
Speaker 1: But this episode is for you. Nathan Bartram founded the
Speaker 1: site thenewoil dot org back in twenty eighteen to help
Speaker 1: average folks feel equipped with the information they need to
Speaker 1: navigate this world of online reality with confidence. So Nate,
Speaker 1: can I call you Nate? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 2: Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Of course, and Nate, you have been a listener to
Speaker 1: the show. For many many years. We have emailed back
Speaker 1: and forth, and you have often offered suggestions as we've
Speaker 1: covered topics about on many of these on many of
Speaker 1: these subjects like privacy, passwords, and data so and you
Speaker 1: write about them eloquently, have been for many many years now.
Speaker 1: First question, though, what is your craftee equivalent? What do
Speaker 1: you like to suplurge on? My friend, I'm super curious
Speaker 1: to hear. While you're saving for the future, what are
Speaker 1: you splurging on in the meantime.
Speaker 2: Oh man, this is going to be a really boring answer, actually,
Speaker 2: but I've been thinking about this question, and I think
Speaker 2: my answer is going to be privacy and security stuff.
Speaker 2: And I know that sounds like a cop out because
Speaker 2: that's what I do with the New Oil, right, But
Speaker 2: the thing is, that's what I was doing before the
Speaker 2: New Oil, Like, that's kind of what led me to
Speaker 2: starting the New Oil is I was experimenting with all
Speaker 2: this stuff, and I wanted to play. I wanted to
Speaker 2: share my journey and my experience. And so even if
Speaker 2: the New Oil wasn't a thing, if you know, nobody
Speaker 2: was reading it and it was just me by myself. Again,
Speaker 2: that's still what I'd be doing, is you know, different
Speaker 2: subscriptions and tools and sometimes hardware.
Speaker 1: So okay, can you give me an example of something
Speaker 1: you've spent recently on in that category? And people might
Speaker 1: be like, all right, I never even thought to do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, not recent but a few years ago I spent
Speaker 2: about six hundred dollars on a router, Okay, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of money for a router. Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it vastly superior than the ones you get from
Speaker 1: the Internet companies or that I could buy on you know,
Speaker 1: a random tech website like best buy or something.
Speaker 2: You could probably find it on best Buy, But it
Speaker 2: is vastly superior. And the reason I bought it is
Speaker 2: because it's compatible with an open source firmware called DDWRT,
Speaker 2: which allows you to do all kinds of things that honestly,
Speaker 2: I'm probably not even using eighty percent of what this
Speaker 2: router can do, but it unlocks all kinds of really
Speaker 2: cool privacy and security abilities, which some you can get
Speaker 2: on a typical router, but some are definitely a little
Speaker 2: more advanced in the ability to like segment the network
Speaker 2: so you can kind of like, I know, we're diving
Speaker 2: in a little bit. But one piece of advice is
Speaker 2: one common piece of advice is to put all your
Speaker 2: your smart devices on like a guest network, so that way,
Speaker 2: if any of them get compromised, it doesn't spread to
Speaker 2: the rest of your network. You can kind of do
Speaker 2: that without having to create a guest network, So just
Speaker 2: really really advance things like that.
Speaker 1: One of the things I appreciate about your tact and
Speaker 1: I mentioned this in the bio, is that you're kind
Speaker 1: of attempting not to speak to the techies in the
Speaker 1: space or super nerds who care about privacy at this
Speaker 1: incredibly granular level, but you're trying to speak to people
Speaker 1: like me who want to improve their privacy but probably
Speaker 1: aren't going to buy a six hundred dollars router, right,
Speaker 1: So right, that's like that's your audience. So what would
Speaker 1: you say? I guess maybe the first question. A lot
Speaker 1: of people assume genies out of the bottle at this point.
Speaker 1: I remember that equip data breach in twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 1: there's you know, I assume I've signed up for a
Speaker 1: Facebook account. At this point, they know everything about me.
Speaker 1: What would you say to those people who are like
Speaker 1: my guess my data is public genies out of the bottle?
Speaker 1: Do I still need to care about privacy?
Speaker 2: Biastanswer, of course, but yes, And it's funny. I actually
Speaker 2: wrote a blog post about this. It's I think it's
Speaker 2: called a why to care about privacy after so many
Speaker 2: years or something like that. And there's the practical reason
Speaker 2: in the philosophical reason, And the practical reason is that
Speaker 2: data gets old. You know, over time, you move, you
Speaker 2: change interests, you become a different person, like most of
Speaker 2: us over our lives. We don't dramatically become different people,
Speaker 2: but we do change enough that you know, you look
Speaker 2: back on yourself ten years ago and you're like, man,
Speaker 2: I was a totally different person back then. And over
Speaker 2: time that data that they've collected about you will grow
Speaker 2: stale and grow old. The philosophical reason is the example
Speaker 2: I gave in the blog post was if you're driving
Speaker 2: somewhere that you go all the time, like a friend's house,
Speaker 2: and you're kind of on autopilot, and you realize all
Speaker 2: of a sudden you took a wrong turn. You went
Speaker 2: left instead of right. You don't just keep going left
Speaker 2: like once you know how to do better, you're like, oh, Okay,
Speaker 2: I should change what I'm doing, And so that's a
Speaker 2: I guess that one kind of assumes that you do
Speaker 2: value your privacy. But yeah, once you realize, like, oh,
Speaker 2: there are options and I don't have to keep doing this,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, it seems a little silly to just
Speaker 2: keep going the wrong way on the road, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Should we value our privacy and in what ways is
Speaker 1: our privacy being violated? How does that impact us? I
Speaker 1: guess because some people might say, yeah, I've heard that
Speaker 1: excuse from some folks. I've got nothing to hide, So
Speaker 1: why does it matter if they know my address, my name,
Speaker 1: my birthday, my firstborn child's name, Like, who cares?
Speaker 2: I was really hoping you'd bring that up. So the
Speaker 2: answer is everyone does have something to hide, and what
Speaker 2: it is varies from person to person. And the example
Speaker 2: I was thinking of in my head is, especially for
Speaker 2: this audience, if you think you have nothing to hide,
Speaker 2: don't actually do this, but please send us your bank
Speaker 2: account login. Right, Yeah, yeah, because with that information, even
Speaker 2: if you don't have a lot of money, maybe you
Speaker 2: need that money to pay your groceries. So we all
Speaker 2: do have something to hide. And the way that I
Speaker 2: define privacy. There's a lot of different ways to define it,
Speaker 2: but I define it as having that control over what
Speaker 2: you want to share and who you want to share
Speaker 2: it with. So privacy. A lot of people confuse privacy
Speaker 2: and anonymity. When they hear privacy, they think, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go live in a cabin in the woods
Speaker 2: and I'm never going to have a phone and nobody's
Speaker 2: going to know who I am. But really it's just
Speaker 2: it's the same as you would it's your day job.
Speaker 2: You know, when when you go to work on Monday,
Speaker 2: you're not going to tell your boss about the fight
Speaker 2: you had with your spouse, And that's that's privacy. You
Speaker 2: have that ability to say, I don't want this person
Speaker 2: to know this thing. Yeah, and I think we should
Speaker 2: care because a lot of the time we're not being
Speaker 2: given that choice from tech companies.
Speaker 1: That's yeah. So no, that's true, and that's that's essentially
Speaker 1: what the business model is based on with a lot
Speaker 1: of these tech companies. Is right, when it's a free product,
Speaker 1: we are the product. And I saw the other day
Speaker 1: that what Pinterest makes three dollars a year from the
Speaker 1: average user, but Facebook makes like twenty six twenty seven
Speaker 1: dollars a year from the average US, So they would
Speaker 1: rather you not pay them and just continue to keep
Speaker 1: you engaged because they're making money off of you in
Speaker 1: other ways. So is part of and is there any
Speaker 1: remedy to the fact that we're doing business with companies
Speaker 1: who profit in this way from us using their product
Speaker 1: without actually paying them a dime. It seems like it
Speaker 1: seems like we're making out Scott clean, right. I get Gmail,
Speaker 1: and I don't pay Google anything, and it's super helpful
Speaker 1: to me to use all of those Google assets that
Speaker 1: they provided. But what am I losing in the process?
Speaker 2: I think in answer to your first question, I think
Speaker 2: there are ways to use a lot of the common
Speaker 2: services in ways that are less privacy invasive. So one
Speaker 2: of the really big examples I give you mentioned Facebook.
Speaker 2: You can use Facebook in the browser, even on your phone,
Speaker 2: and that browser is going to offer you a lot
Speaker 2: more protection than it would if you were using the app.
Speaker 2: Because the thing about phone apps, especially mobile apps, is
Speaker 2: they get a lot of permission. And Google an Apple
Speaker 2: are doing a lot better about giving users more control
Speaker 2: over that, but for now, they still get a lot
Speaker 2: of permission and they can access a lot more data
Speaker 2: than you would normally expect, Like, I don't know if
Speaker 2: this is still true, but at one point the Facebook
Speaker 2: app was using the sensors on your phone, like the
Speaker 2: gyroscope to figure out if you were like on a
Speaker 2: bus or if you were walking down the street and
Speaker 2: things like that. So things like using it in a browser,
Speaker 2: especially like a privacy protecting browser, will really mitigate a
Speaker 2: lot of that risk you mentioned, like what are you
Speaker 2: giving up by using Google It? Again, it really depends
Speaker 2: on the person and what they value, because there are
Speaker 2: a lot of really good privacy protecting services, Like a
Speaker 2: really popular one is proton Mail, and yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: sure you've heard of that one. It's a privacy it's
Speaker 2: an encrypted email provider, and it's definitely missing some things
Speaker 2: that Google has, but it's building out as Suite and
Speaker 2: it's trying to be like a Google competitor, and it's
Speaker 2: a pretty polished service. But at the same time, there
Speaker 2: are still a lot of people who used Gmail, Like
Speaker 2: I've signed up for things that don't accept pro on
Speaker 2: Mail for some reason or another, and I have to
Speaker 2: use a Gmail or you know, you need a Gmail
Speaker 2: account to post on YouTube and things like that. So
Speaker 2: I think that is a really good question though, actually
Speaker 2: is what are you gaining from using some of these services?
Speaker 2: Does it outweigh what you're losing in terms of privacy?
Speaker 2: And are there any ways you can mitigate that if
Speaker 2: you need that service.
Speaker 1: Sure, trade offs are kind of the reality throughout all
Speaker 1: of life. But yeah, I mean, if it wasn't for Gmail,
Speaker 1: Google Calendar, like my life would be, I'd be on
Speaker 1: the side of the road in a ditch somewhere. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember trying to get organized when I was a
Speaker 1: youngster and it just wasn't happening. And then finally Google
Speaker 1: came along and I was like, oh, okay, this actually
Speaker 1: works for my life. But yeah, you are giving things
Speaker 1: up in the process. I'm also curious to you are,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk more about some of the
Speaker 1: products that you mentioned and just other products that some
Speaker 1: are free, some cost money, but they can help on
Speaker 1: the privacy front instead of just going with the tried
Speaker 1: and true brands that maybe you initially think of. So
Speaker 1: we'll get to some questions on that in a bit.
Speaker 1: But you talk on you're on the blog about how
Speaker 1: privacy exists on a spectrum. We had re released an
Speaker 1: episode recent about how financial independence exists on a spectrum
Speaker 1: and for a lot of people think it's one or
Speaker 1: the other. It's like I'm not or I am not true. Well,
Speaker 1: the same thing is true with privacy, right, So it's
Speaker 1: not like I'm fully private or my goodness, I've exposed
Speaker 1: everything that people know about me. It's all public now.
Speaker 1: So how do you think about that? And I guess
Speaker 1: the only way to get like fully private, even in
Speaker 1: today's age, it would be kind of like to never
Speaker 1: sign up for these services in the first place and
Speaker 1: then move to the backwoods of Maine, which most people
Speaker 1: aren't going to do. Plus, I hear the bugs are
Speaker 1: horrendous in the summer. So how do you think about
Speaker 1: that spectrum and how you help people think about well,
Speaker 1: this is like a reasonable step to take, and then
Speaker 1: this is maybe unreasonable even though it does give you
Speaker 1: added layers of privacy in your life.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's a question that everyone has to
Speaker 2: ask for themselves. I really do believe there's no like
Speaker 2: one size fits all in privacy. I think there's certain
Speaker 2: things like best practices. Just like personal finance, there's best
Speaker 2: practices that everyone should do, you know, like putting away
Speaker 2: at least ten percent of their income and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And with privacy, it's it's very similar, things like using
Speaker 2: a password manager and two factor authentication whenever possible. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a really famous quote that I'm definitely
Speaker 2: not going to get right here, but it was a
Speaker 2: really famous computer scientist said something along the lines of
Speaker 2: no system is truly unhackable unless it's unplugged, the battery
Speaker 2: is removed, it's buried six feet underground and surrounded and led,
Speaker 2: and even then I'm not sure. And he's absolutely correct,
Speaker 2: because we see all kinds of crazy research come out,
Speaker 2: especially this time of year. There's a really big hacker
Speaker 2: convention that just ended this past weekend, and these are
Speaker 2: the people who are always announcing like, oh, we can
Speaker 2: use the the Wi Fi waves from your router to
Speaker 2: figure out who's in the room through the wall, Like
Speaker 2: that's an actual thing. That's an actual thing. But I
Speaker 2: mean those are so high level.
Speaker 1: Was that blows my mind?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, but you know it's like you said, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's I'm certainly not going to go live in the
Speaker 2: woods and forsake my phone and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's really about people coming up with
Speaker 2: what is a realistic threat and what are the realistic
Speaker 2: defenses against it, because you can't defend against everything, it's
Speaker 2: just not possible. But I think people will find that
Speaker 2: it's actually what do they call that, like Pereto's rule
Speaker 2: or something. You can get like eighty percent of the
Speaker 2: stuff with twenty percent of the effort.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then at that point the extra effort is
Speaker 1: only gonna it's going to be smaller, more incremental gains
Speaker 1: that might not be the juice, might not be worth
Speaker 1: the squeeze. You mentioned passwords, and my guess is most
Speaker 1: people listening have and most sites force you to have
Speaker 1: a reasonable password at this point in time, right, They're like,
Speaker 1: you got to have uppercase lowercase. You got to have
Speaker 1: a couple like an exclamation mark or and you know
Speaker 1: you have to. You can't just be password all in
Speaker 1: lowercase anymore. And so even my grandma had to update
Speaker 1: her password. I'm sure it was, which is good good
Speaker 1: for her. But you mentioned password managers. Do you have
Speaker 1: suggestions on which ones might be best to use? Some of
Speaker 1: them cost money, others don't, and how much dinection do they.
Speaker 2: Offer sure, So I do have with almost all of
Speaker 2: the tools we're going to talk about. I do actually
Speaker 2: list my recommendations on the website. And for the record,
Speaker 2: just because I don't list something on the website doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily mean it's bad, Like I don't list dash Lane,
Speaker 2: but I would rather people use dash Lane than not
Speaker 2: use a password manager. But some of my favorites I've
Speaker 2: been using Bitwarden for years. I've got most of my
Speaker 2: family on that one. Proton We've mentioned proton Mail. They
Speaker 2: recently rolled out their own password manager that my podcast
Speaker 2: co host loves. He uses it for all his stuff.
Speaker 2: I think there's a couple others. One password is really popular.
Speaker 2: That one costs about a dollar a year, but the
Speaker 2: first two are free, so there's actually a lot. There's
Speaker 2: a surprising amount of moves you can make in privacy
Speaker 2: without spending money. There's a lot of things you can
Speaker 2: do that are free, like password managers, two factor switching, browsers.
Speaker 2: Those things don't cost money unless you need some of
Speaker 2: the more advanced features, which most people don't. So that's
Speaker 2: the good news.
Speaker 1: But I'm hearing more ads for VPNs and which you
Speaker 1: allow people maybe to either watch Netflix content they otherwise
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to that exists in other countries or
Speaker 1: something like that. Not that I'm condoning it, I don't
Speaker 1: personally do that, but how much how secure do VPNs
Speaker 1: make you and how big of a how important is
Speaker 1: that maybe in the digital ecosystem of protecting your privacy.
Speaker 2: So on my website, I organize everything in order of
Speaker 2: most important to least important, and that's a little bit subjective.
Speaker 2: I've had some people disagree with my ordering there, but
Speaker 2: I put VPNs on the last page. They do offer
Speaker 2: you some protection, but yeah, a lot of the advertising
Speaker 2: is seriously overrated. So what I always tell people is
Speaker 2: VPNs do two things. They change your IP address and
Speaker 2: they establish a secure connection between you and the VPN server.
Speaker 2: And so, in other words, by changing the IP address,
Speaker 2: like you said, you look like you're coming from somewhere else,
Speaker 2: So you could maybe stream Netflix in the UK or
Speaker 2: something like that, or I think a BBC iPlayer is
Speaker 2: a really common one, and that is a useful use case.
Speaker 2: But in terms of privacy, your IP address is a
Speaker 2: very small portion of how companies track you online. So
Speaker 2: it's definitely something, but I wouldn't really I think one
Speaker 2: time I compared it to like changing the pain on
Speaker 2: your car. You've still got the same license plate, you
Speaker 2: still got the same ven, you still got all these
Speaker 2: other identifying features. So it doesn't really help that much.
Speaker 2: And in terms of security, we do sometimes see apps
Speaker 2: that are unencrypted, but for the most part. Last time
Speaker 2: I checked, Google said that somewhere around ninety five percent
Speaker 2: of the Internet is encrypted now. And that's a really
Speaker 2: complicated thing that I don't want to go too far
Speaker 2: into because that could turn into a whole explanation. But basically,
Speaker 2: when I say encrypted, I mean between your device and
Speaker 2: their server. So when you connect to Facebook, anybody in
Speaker 2: between your phone and Facebook, they might be able to
Speaker 2: see you're connected to Facebook, but they can't really see
Speaker 2: any of the content or the messages or anything Facebook
Speaker 2: can of course, But so VPNs don't really change that.
Speaker 2: There is a use case if you're in a place
Speaker 2: where you have a reason to believe that maybe the
Speaker 2: rauter you're using is compromised, but I personally have never
Speaker 2: seen that. Even again, there's a common example is like
Speaker 2: using it in public Wi Fi. Your connection is encrypted
Speaker 2: at your device, so it would be a fairly advanced
Speaker 2: attack for the router to be malicious like that. But
Speaker 2: if I would say, if it makes you feel better
Speaker 2: and you have the money, you certainly can get a VPN.
Speaker 2: They do help some, but they're definitely not the panacea
Speaker 2: that advertisers make them out to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those ads make it sound like the best thing
Speaker 1: since lifespread.
Speaker 2: Oh and yeah, hacker proof anonymous and yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Okay, Well, so you published a guide on
Speaker 1: your site about staying safe while you're shopping online. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious, especially as that is one of the things
Speaker 1: that probably how the money listeners care about is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what am I giving over when I'm shopping with a
Speaker 1: unique vendor or or with a website that I place
Speaker 1: orders from regularly. One of the things you tell people
Speaker 1: to do, which is impossible to do online but possible
Speaker 1: to do in real life, is to use cash more
Speaker 1: often when you're buying stuff, just to anonymize those purchases.
Speaker 1: But yeah, how do you think about staying safe when
Speaker 1: shopping online? Do you have any tips in particular in
Speaker 1: regards to that.
Speaker 2: Sure, it depends on what you're trying to stay safe from.
Speaker 2: If you're trying to and that's kind of a reoccurring
Speaker 2: theme with privacy. We call it a threat model, So
Speaker 2: if anybody goes to the website, you'll see a page
Speaker 2: about that. It's just a fancy way of saying what
Speaker 2: are you trying to protect and who are you trying
Speaker 2: to protect it from. If your goal is to not
Speaker 2: get your credit card numbers stolen, you probably want to
Speaker 2: stick with reputable vendors, like you want to go straight
Speaker 2: to the store like Walmart or Target or I'm not
Speaker 2: a huge fan of Amazon, but there is something to
Speaker 2: be said that we all know who Amazon are or is,
Speaker 2: we can probably trust their security fairly well. Here in America,
Speaker 2: we have access to a service called privacy dot com
Speaker 2: that I'm a huge fan of. It allows you to
Speaker 2: create virtual debit cards that lock to that vendor. So,
Speaker 2: for example, if you create one for let's say your
Speaker 2: Netflix account, it can only ever be used at Netflix.
Speaker 2: So if Netflix has a data breach, that card is
Speaker 2: useless to the people who stole it. It can't be used
Speaker 2: anywhere except Netflix.
Speaker 1: And there are other There are banks who have created
Speaker 1: products that go alongside their credit cards too, like Capital
Speaker 1: One has one of those two that creates virtual virtual cards,
Speaker 1: so it's yeah, that's a real helpful tool, Tore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that anonymized card is only available to be spent. You
Speaker 1: can only use it at that one vendor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. If you live outside the US or for
Speaker 2: some reason don't want to use privacy dot Com, definitely
Speaker 2: check with your bank. Is It's not a super common feature,
Speaker 2: but it's becoming more common. I'm seeing it a lot
Speaker 2: more for sure. Yeah. There's also things like using they're
Speaker 2: called alias emails, so services like simple Login add E
Speaker 2: dot io. These basically you can create an email address
Speaker 2: that still forwards to your inbox, so you can manage
Speaker 2: it all from one place and it's really convenient. But
Speaker 2: it really helps with like spam. If you shop online
Speaker 2: and they start spamming you, you can just turn off
Speaker 2: the email address. Or in terms of privacy, it also helps.
Speaker 2: It kind of breaks up your profile a little bit,
Speaker 2: so you're not using the same email address across multiple
Speaker 2: services and that helps protect your privacy.
Speaker 1: That sounds nice because unsubscribing can be like a full
Speaker 1: time job these days. Oh yes, yeah, sometimes, Nate. I
Speaker 1: don't know how this happens. I guess it's cookies, but
Speaker 1: you'll visit a site you won't do a darn thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe you like literally looked at one item and you'll
Speaker 1: get an email in your inbox ten minutes later, and
Speaker 1: they'll be like, are you still shopping? You're sure you
Speaker 1: didn't want to buy that thing, And I'm like, how
Speaker 1: did how did that happen? How did you get in
Speaker 1: my inbox? I didn't submit anything to you. It's kind
Speaker 1: of creepy.
Speaker 2: That is interesting. I haven't heard that one. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: would say cookies would probably be the primary offender there.
Speaker 2: I'd have to do some digging. I'm not sure, but.
Speaker 1: It's probably because I have an account there and I'm
Speaker 1: logged in and I'm looking at something that must be it.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's not fully anonymous. It's a site I've
Speaker 1: done business at before and so they know it's me
Speaker 1: coming back. But I'm sure that's not. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: how they'll be possible at a website that I've never
Speaker 1: spent a dollar at before, or never created an account at.
Speaker 1: You kind of just briefly mentioned how much you loathe Amazon,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you're kind of would love for people to
Speaker 1: use Amazon a lot less. I think myself included from
Speaker 1: I think most people's just this need response. It's like
Speaker 1: I think I might need that thing one click, by
Speaker 1: it's there the next day or two days later. And
Speaker 1: so people have just gotten used to spending money when
Speaker 1: they otherwise would have come up with a more creative
Speaker 1: solution in years past. So what's your reason for getting
Speaker 1: people off the Amazon train?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, there's a lot of them, and some of
Speaker 2: them are kind of political. So I don't want to
Speaker 2: go too deep into that because I know you guys
Speaker 2: aren't really a super political podcast. But there's a just
Speaker 2: to kind of very briefly brush over this, and I
Speaker 2: do have a recent blog post about this. I republish
Speaker 2: it every time Prime Week rolls around. They have teamed
Speaker 2: up with police to give police access to ring doorbell footage,
Speaker 2: so if I'm just walking past somebody's house, police can
Speaker 2: see me, even if I'm not on a list. I'm
Speaker 2: not suspected of anything.
Speaker 1: You look like a threat to me, Nate. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say. I think you belong behind bars.
Speaker 2: It's the tattoos. But yeah, there's also they're just very
Speaker 2: anti worker like workers in I believe this was in Alabama,
Speaker 2: workers tried to unionize and Amazon tried to get a
Speaker 2: camera above the ballot box to ensure election integrity and
Speaker 2: definitely not to know who voted yes and no.
Speaker 1: Of course not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course they would know. It's just they just
Speaker 2: do a lot of really shady things like that. And
Speaker 2: you could also make the argument that they're crushing out
Speaker 2: a lot of smaller businesses and making competition harder. So
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of reasons to avoid them,
Speaker 2: just from the idea of like centralization and trying to
Speaker 2: ensure a healthy competition. And like you said, I want
Speaker 2: to make it clear that I understand sometimes you need
Speaker 2: to buy on Amazon, like I buy things from there
Speaker 2: about two or three times a year, But like you said,
Speaker 2: what I want people to avoid is the knee jerk
Speaker 2: reaction of like, oh, I need something one click by
Speaker 2: when you know, maybe you could run down to your
Speaker 2: local store and buy it and sometimes that's even cheaper
Speaker 2: and you get it faster and yeah, so it's just
Speaker 2: kind of challenging that instinct of going straight to Amazon.
Speaker 2: I think would benefit a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about the ads that we see online. They're
Speaker 1: highly tailored. Now right, Matt's talked about seeing Instagram ads
Speaker 1: online for stuff that just like you're shocked. How does
Speaker 1: it know me so well? It knows me better than like,
Speaker 1: my wife never would have bought this awesome gift for me.
Speaker 1: She doesn't know me that well. And so, yeah, when
Speaker 1: it comes to the ads we're seeing, is that all
Speaker 1: just based on places we're stopping? Is there a way
Speaker 1: that's also kind of creepy for a lot of people?
Speaker 1: Is there a way to is it ad blockers? What's
Speaker 1: the what's the way to kind of make sure that
Speaker 1: ads aren't you know, so incredibly detailed as as they
Speaker 1: serve up, you know, before our eyeballs in a way
Speaker 1: that feels uncomfortable or maybe that we're giving way too
Speaker 1: much information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. There's the answer is there's
Speaker 2: a lot of ways that they track you, and fortunately
Speaker 2: that also means there's a lot of ways you can
Speaker 2: fight back. So ad blockers are a good one. My
Speaker 2: personal favorite is called you block Origin. I do mention
Speaker 2: that one on my website, and that one blocks more
Speaker 2: than just ads, It also blocks a lot of common
Speaker 2: trackers like Google Analytics and stuff like that, which I
Speaker 2: know is for the people who have a website. I
Speaker 2: know that's not great because that does damage your analytics,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately that's kind of the situation. I guess there's also.
Speaker 1: Better for the individual, and that's kind of who we're
Speaker 1: speaking to you right.
Speaker 2: Well, and I guess I will say on that note,
Speaker 2: if you're you can choose to whitelist certain sites. So
Speaker 2: if you say you're on YouTube and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I want to support the creators, you can tell U
Speaker 2: block Origin not to work on YouTube and see the ads.
Speaker 2: But there's also apps, especially apps with ads in them. Ads. Ironically,
Speaker 2: ads are right now, to my knowledge, like the biggest
Speaker 2: privacy invasion that are feeding its own ecosystem because they
Speaker 2: use a system called real time bidding, which again that's
Speaker 2: a whole thing, but basically, every time you see an AD,
Speaker 2: there is a within nanoseconds, there is an auction that
Speaker 2: goes on and your information is sent out to everyone
Speaker 2: who might be interested in that ad space. So even
Speaker 2: if they don't purchase the ad, they still basically get
Speaker 2: a copy of all your data. So one of the
Speaker 2: things I tell people is just remove as many apps
Speaker 2: as you can on your phone, things that you don't
Speaker 2: use very often. And this can have, like you know,
Speaker 2: personal finance benefits. We just talked about Amazon. If you
Speaker 2: take the Amazon app off your phone, you're not as
Speaker 2: likely to just instinctually open it and click one click
Speaker 2: by yeah, And you're also getting that privacy benefit things
Speaker 2: like Reddit. You know, Reddit is littered with ads. Taking
Speaker 2: those things off your phone will reduce the amount of
Speaker 2: data that's getting sent back to advertisers.
Speaker 1: So it's like a big win just to take some
Speaker 1: of those apps that you're man even just think about
Speaker 1: the habitual nature of like you press your finger to
Speaker 1: the thing because you know exactly where it is on
Speaker 1: your screen. Just taking it off there, you're gonna like
Speaker 1: hit that space and you like, what's happening now, Like
Speaker 1: there's there is something to the habitual nature. But then
Speaker 1: also to protecting your privacy, protecting your finances, that taking
Speaker 1: those apps off off the phone can be, it can
Speaker 1: it can be a serious move to help on all
Speaker 1: those fronts. All right, I want to get to more
Speaker 1: with you, Nate, and in particular, you're not a fan
Speaker 1: of smart TVs, so but I'm guessing most of the
Speaker 1: population out there has one loves it. So let's we'll
Speaker 1: throw you in the fire on that one in just
Speaker 1: a second with the audience. We'll be right back right,
Speaker 1: We're back still talking with Nate Bartram about defending your
Speaker 1: digital life and privacy and all that stuff. And there's
Speaker 1: just a lot more to get to Nate. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you've read the book. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: books of like kind of on this topic was Digital
Speaker 1: Minimalism by Cal Newport.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a great book.
Speaker 1: I love it so good, and I just love the
Speaker 1: way he thinks about just the way we have include
Speaker 1: technology in our lives. I think for a lot of
Speaker 1: people it's just this assumption that more technology is good
Speaker 1: and let's adopt everything that comes out and then maybe
Speaker 1: at some point we'll discard it. But he's very intentional
Speaker 1: from the get go about what he imports and what
Speaker 1: he likes, and he has never opened a social media
Speaker 1: account in his life. I don't think so. He's he's
Speaker 1: one of those rare birds. But yeah, you're not just
Speaker 1: doing it for productivity reasons or for attention reasons, which
Speaker 1: seem to be kind of Col's main motivation. Like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep this digital minimalism going because I
Speaker 1: realized it's going to distract me from those other things
Speaker 1: I want to accomplish. So why do you fall into
Speaker 1: that camp?
Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought that up, the thing I've noticed
Speaker 2: about privacy, And for the record, I will admit maybe
Speaker 2: this is a bias. Like you know they say, like
Speaker 2: when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the more I do the privacy thing, the more
Speaker 2: I notice that there are all of these like peripheral
Speaker 2: benefits that maybe privacy isn't like central to that, but
Speaker 2: there are little things so I mean, really there's a
Speaker 2: lot of them. Like for example, I'm thankfully i am
Speaker 2: not a visually impaired, but I'm told that advertising is
Speaker 2: chaos for like visually impaired people like screen readers, and
Speaker 2: so ad blockers can like make the screen a lot cleaner.
Speaker 2: That's like an example of a peripheral benefit for people.
Speaker 2: And I think I've noticed since getting into privacy that
Speaker 2: it really does clear up a lot of bandwidth. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of the flash in the pan news stories
Speaker 2: and the memes, the ones that don't really matter, that
Speaker 2: they're kind of out of the new cycle within a
Speaker 2: couple of days. I tend to miss a lot of those,
Speaker 2: and it just frees up a lot of bandwidth. I
Speaker 2: tend to miss a lot of not to sound like
Speaker 2: arrogant or anything, but just a lot of petty little
Speaker 2: drama that happens on social media. I found a lot
Speaker 2: of my interactions with people have gotten a lot more meaningful,
Speaker 2: even if they're the same interactions. Like, you know, my
Speaker 2: sister might send me a photo of my excuse me,
Speaker 2: a photo of my nephew, and you know it's the
Speaker 2: same photo she might post on Facebook, but the fact
Speaker 2: that she took time out of her day to send
Speaker 2: it directly to me, like, really feels a lot more meaningful. Person.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's just so many peripheral benefits. There's
Speaker 2: the peace of mind. There's just more mental bandwidth from
Speaker 2: not looking at ads, having that healthier relationship with technology.
Speaker 2: When I get frustrated, I can just turn off my
Speaker 2: computer and walk away and I'm disconnected.
Speaker 1: And I want to say, there was now a study
Speaker 1: that just dropped, like last week or something about just
Speaker 1: how our brains have become rewired in short order from
Speaker 1: our use of social media, and it is that we
Speaker 1: all know this intuitively as individuals and as a society
Speaker 1: when you look around and you're like, what are people
Speaker 1: doing when they get a down moment? Boom the phone, right, boom,
Speaker 1: the earbuds whatever, And so yeah, I think our attention
Speaker 1: spans truly have plummeted, and it impacts our relationships. It
Speaker 1: impacts a whole bunch of things in our lives that
Speaker 1: downstream effects are real. So with that in mind, I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I mentioned the smart TV thing. How much you hate
Speaker 1: smart TVs? Why do you hate them? What's the alternative
Speaker 1: for people who want to watch streaming content?
Speaker 2: I don't, to be honest, I don't think I hate
Speaker 2: is a strong word.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I put words in your mouth.
Speaker 2: No, you're good, You're good. I actually I will admit
Speaker 2: I do have a smart TV because my wife enjoys streaming.
Speaker 2: I think my issue with a lot of smart devices
Speaker 2: in general is that we have so little control over them.
Speaker 2: You know, you can go into the settings. Okay, Actually,
Speaker 2: this is a really good example. I was playing around
Speaker 2: with my smart TV and I noticed that in the
Speaker 2: menu I could disagree to the terms of service. But
Speaker 2: guess what happens when I do?
Speaker 1: They shut off the smart fe Sure, exactly.
Speaker 2: It's not a smart TV anymore. So I can either
Speaker 2: agree to all of their terms of service wholesale full stop,
Speaker 2: nor or I can just have a dumb TV, which
Speaker 2: is great if I want a dumb TV, but I don't.
Speaker 2: There's things we use that for.
Speaker 1: I want to say, years ago, Visio was recording people's
Speaker 1: viewing habits and they were selling the data on what
Speaker 1: people were watching.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are still doing that,
Speaker 2: actually a lot of manufacturers.
Speaker 1: So that's one of those things where again it's a
Speaker 1: trade off. It's like you better know that that's happening,
Speaker 1: because it seems like it seems like, oh, well, great,
Speaker 1: I got this product and now I can watch whatever
Speaker 1: I want to watch out my fingertips. It's super easy.
Speaker 1: But if you don't realize that part of that bargain
Speaker 1: is the fact that you are giving up the data
Speaker 1: on your viewing habits to Samsung or Visio or whoever
Speaker 1: it is, then you're not making that choice with all
Speaker 1: the data on the table exactly.
Speaker 2: And like you were saying earlier, that's by designs. They
Speaker 2: go out of their way to hide those things, or
Speaker 2: they like to dress it up and really fancy, like
Speaker 2: if you check a privacy policy. A lot of the
Speaker 2: time they'll say, oh, we collect this data to make
Speaker 2: your experience better. Yeah, and what they really mean by
Speaker 2: that is targeted advertising. Yeah, going to Tailor that.
Speaker 1: We're seeing it more too in the car space. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm curious how much you know or care about that, like,
Speaker 1: and that's I'm not gonna say that. This is my
Speaker 1: whole reason for driving old cars, but it makes me
Speaker 1: less inclined to upgrade my six Toyota when I realized
Speaker 1: that the new one is not only going to have
Speaker 1: more computerized parts that are more likely to break, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be harder to repair newer vehicles, and they're just
Speaker 1: more expensive to buy and own. But then, on top
Speaker 1: of that, when you think about the privacy concerns of
Speaker 1: newer cars, the fact that they're connected to the Internet
Speaker 1: wherever they go. Yeah, that seems like a plus. So
Speaker 1: you can listen, you can stream the new Tailor Swift
Speaker 1: album when it drops, right. But then there's other there's
Speaker 1: other things that come with that with that bargain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a reporter. Her name is Kashmir Hill k
Speaker 2: A s H M I R. If you look her up,
Speaker 2: she's done several pieces, I believe for New York Times
Speaker 2: that have kind of really brought this issue to the mainstream,
Speaker 2: which I'm really grateful for. I think you guys have
Speaker 2: actually mentioned her on one of your Friday flights. And
Speaker 2: it's Yeah, it's really tough because on the one hand,
Speaker 2: for now, that is an option you could drive an
Speaker 2: older car, which also saves you a lot of money,
Speaker 2: as you pointed out, But there's also My last car
Speaker 2: was a twenty ten, and I don't want to say
Speaker 2: what model it was, but it was a very very
Speaker 2: common model, Like I just saw one the other day,
Speaker 2: still making these cars. And the last time I went
Speaker 2: into AutoZone and I was like, hey, I need a headlight,
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, we don't carry that anymore for
Speaker 2: a twenty ten.
Speaker 1: It's too old.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, And I'm like, it's a headlight for a
Speaker 2: twenty ten, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: In their defense, it was a Ferrari, Nate, we all
Speaker 1: know it.
Speaker 2: I wish I made that kind of money, but yeah, no,
Speaker 2: it's that's the challenge we're going to face as things
Speaker 2: go forward. Is maybe right now you can find vehicles
Speaker 2: or maybe I could have ordered it online but it's
Speaker 2: going to become harder to find parts, and it's going
Speaker 2: to become more of a thing where you have to
Speaker 2: get creative or know somebody who's a mechanic. And it's unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I don't really have any good solutions in that space,
Speaker 2: and I don't think anybody does. There's a good organization
Speaker 2: called Privacy for Cars who is doing a lot of
Speaker 2: research into this and trying to lobby for better consumer rights.
Speaker 2: But I mean, right now, it's you know, again, like
Speaker 2: I said, companies do it on purpose. They want you
Speaker 2: to dig through pages and pages illegal ease to find
Speaker 2: the email address to email them and opt out, and
Speaker 2: of course nobody has time for that, so it's it's
Speaker 2: a really difficult thing.
Speaker 1: So what are you doing when you're signing up for
Speaker 1: something new? The terms of service, of course are I mean,
Speaker 1: it's laughable how long they are, how small the type is,
Speaker 1: and how ninety nine point nine plus percent of people
Speaker 1: quickly use the scrolly thing on their mouse to jump
Speaker 1: to the bottom and click. Okay, So but what are
Speaker 1: we signing when we say yes, when we hit accept
Speaker 1: and what is there a different tact we should take?
Speaker 2: Good? Question? So there's a there's another website called terms
Speaker 2: of Service didn't read TSDR for short, kind of like
Speaker 2: the what's the abbreviation TLDR too. Yeah, they list a
Speaker 2: surprising number of websites and they explain the terms of
Speaker 2: service in plain English and like bullet points. I will
Speaker 2: be honest, I think some of the stuff that they
Speaker 2: cover is a little bit pedantic, but I do appreciate
Speaker 2: that they give you that level of information and that'll
Speaker 2: kind of tell you and some of it is kind
Speaker 2: of common. Like I'm not saying this makes it right,
Speaker 2: but a lot of websites, like Instagram, for example, when
Speaker 2: you sign up for Instagram, they basically say we can
Speaker 2: use your photos for anything. So if you see one
Speaker 2: of your photos and an Instagram ad, you don't get
Speaker 2: royalties because you sign that away with the terms of service.
Speaker 2: So that's a really good website for maybe helping to
Speaker 2: vet some of the terms of service and understand what
Speaker 2: you're signing away. In terms of alternatives, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a few options there in there's a really good website
Speaker 2: called Alternative two Alternative two dot net, and it is
Speaker 2: exactly what it says, Like you can type in Instagram
Speaker 2: and it'll give you all the different alternatives to Instagram,
Speaker 2: and you can filter it by Android, iPhone, if it's free,
Speaker 2: if it's paid, all kinds of things, and they have
Speaker 2: all kinds of websites and services. So I would say
Speaker 2: maybe start with that, because it really depends what you're
Speaker 2: talking about with these different services. But yeah, there's honestly
Speaker 2: there usually is a good alternative out there in my experience.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you Apple or Android? I know, at least
Speaker 1: in the marketing, Apple seems to be better on the
Speaker 1: privacy front. How true is that? And which one do
Speaker 1: you prefer?
Speaker 2: So I'm cheating. I use Android, but I'm using a
Speaker 2: custom version of Android that has had all the googly
Speaker 2: parts removed or as many as possible. I should say
Speaker 2: so Apple. If we're talking about normal Android, like the
Speaker 2: kind you would buy over the counter, versus Apple, I
Speaker 2: would make the argument that Apple is more private and secure.
Speaker 2: But I also make the argument on my website that
Speaker 2: there are a lot of things you can do, like
Speaker 2: changing the settings in the phone, replacing the stock apps
Speaker 2: with more privacy respecting apps. And I think if you
Speaker 2: do all of that and you practice, I call it
Speaker 2: good Internet hygiene. Like again, we talked about not keeping
Speaker 2: every app on your phone, being careful what links you click,
Speaker 2: the kind of basic stuff. I think between all of that,
Speaker 2: the difference is really minimal at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: And so I think depending on how you use it.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you get an IF and you download
Speaker 2: every sketchy app from the app store and you never
Speaker 2: change the settings, like, I'm pretty sure I can make
Speaker 2: an Android much more private than that. Sure, but depending
Speaker 2: on how you use it, I think they can both
Speaker 2: be I think they're both a good choice.
Speaker 1: Apple seems to do a better job of prompting you
Speaker 1: to ask you questions about whether or not you want
Speaker 1: to share certain information on the rag with certain apps.
Speaker 1: But you're right, it's all about settings the apps that
Speaker 1: you're using, and you can make either one of those
Speaker 1: phones incredibly intrusive, allowing people access to all sorts of
Speaker 1: data that you didn't intend to, depending on how you
Speaker 1: use it. What about web browsers. We've already talked about
Speaker 1: email providers and proton mail being a good option. What
Speaker 1: about web browsers, and like Brave is typically recommended as
Speaker 1: one of those browsers, it's better for people who care
Speaker 1: about their privacy and then yeah, how much information are
Speaker 1: we giving away if we're using one of the stock
Speaker 1: or one of the more well known browsers.
Speaker 2: So Chrome is definitely the worst. I'm sorry all the
Speaker 2: Google fans out there. Chrome is missing a lot of
Speaker 2: basic privacy protections that other browsers have already implemented because
Speaker 2: it's run by an ad company. I've also heard that
Speaker 2: it uses a lot of device resources, like some of
Speaker 2: the hardware memory and stuff like that. Brave is my
Speaker 2: typical recommendation for most people because it's based on the
Speaker 2: same trying to figure out how to put this in
Speaker 2: a not super techy way. So the basic code of
Speaker 2: Chrome is open source. Anybody can use it and make
Speaker 2: their own version of Chrome, and that's basically what Brave did.
Speaker 2: But they've added on all kinds of really cool on
Speaker 2: by default privacy preserving features that the average person would
Speaker 2: never even know is there. It also includes an ad
Speaker 2: blocker and a tractor blocker by default, which is based
Speaker 2: on you Block Origin that I mentioned earlier. So Brave,
Speaker 2: I think for most people it's going to feel like Chrome.
Speaker 2: It's going to be able to use all the same
Speaker 2: extensions as Chrome. It's just going to work right out
Speaker 2: of the box. You don't need to mess with it
Speaker 2: a whole bunch. There is like a built in like
Speaker 2: cryptocurrency wallet that you can disable in the setting. So
Speaker 2: I just I do want to be upfront about that
Speaker 2: there is some stuff that most people don't have a
Speaker 2: use for. The other one that's commonly recommended is Firefox,
Speaker 2: and Firefox is just it's great as well. The only
Speaker 2: thing I would give with that is that when you
Speaker 2: do have to do a little bit more tinkering to
Speaker 2: get the same level of protection, like you have to
Speaker 2: go manually add you block origin and it's based on
Speaker 2: a different set of source codes. So there it's rare.
Speaker 2: But you may find a couple of extensions that aren't
Speaker 2: really compatible. But either of those I think are going
Speaker 2: to be a huge step up from something like Chrome
Speaker 2: or Safari.
Speaker 1: Even Okay, I was thinking search engines like Google became
Speaker 1: the de facto a word for doing a search for
Speaker 1: a reason, yes, and yet there were other there were
Speaker 1: other alternatives, Duck duck go being like what it seems
Speaker 1: like is the best for privacy. But now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: with ai op ai that you know, going to chatch
Speaker 1: ebt has become more common for especially younger folks, instead
Speaker 1: of using traditional search engines. So how do you think
Speaker 1: about your security when doing search on the web, whether
Speaker 1: it's with an AI tool or with a service like
Speaker 1: Duck Duck go o or Google.
Speaker 2: So there are a number of privacy preserving search engines,
Speaker 2: which again I do list those on my website. I
Speaker 2: think they're under the miscellaneous habits section. There's a few
Speaker 2: different search engines because like Duck Duck go for example,
Speaker 2: they're technically really just a proxy of Bing. They're not
Speaker 2: building their own search engine, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 2: There's a couple other start Page does the same thing
Speaker 2: with Google. There are some providers like Brave. Brave has
Speaker 2: their own search engine now and they're actually doing their
Speaker 2: own indexing, so you're not using for the most part,
Speaker 2: you're not using Google or BING or anything. There's another
Speaker 2: one called Cogi. I think I'm pronouncing that wrong. It's Kagi.
Speaker 2: I think they give you like one hundred free queries
Speaker 2: a month, but otherwise it's a paid service. And a
Speaker 2: lot of those same providers actually are starting to offer
Speaker 2: alternatives to AI. So Brave has an AI summary in
Speaker 2: the search engine. They also have in the Brave browser
Speaker 2: their own AI called Leo, which you can use same thing.
Speaker 2: The free version has like a limited number of queries,
Speaker 2: but there is a paid version if you get a
Speaker 2: lot of value out of that, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: proxying your queries back to mistroll or chat GPT or whoever.
Speaker 2: Duck Duck Go also has one called Duck Ai Cogi has.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they have the actual LLM, but
Speaker 2: they do have the search summary like I just mentioned,
Speaker 2: and I think you can even disable that one if
Speaker 2: you want to. So yeah, there's actually and again on
Speaker 2: that note, I did actually, I think a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago, I added another section to the bottom of
Speaker 2: that same page where the search engines are about privacy
Speaker 2: preserving AI. So okay, okay, there's plenty of options out
Speaker 2: there's a growing number of options out there for this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, it seems like Brave is a good solution that
Speaker 1: kind of encompasses a few different places where your privacy
Speaker 1: is at risk, and with Brave it seems like a
Speaker 1: one stop solution for at least a few parts of that.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, what about protecting our credit? And Matt and
Speaker 1: I we've talked about credit freezes on the show and
Speaker 1: how the credit lock products are in fear and they
Speaker 1: cost money and it's just a waste of your time
Speaker 1: and money to do that. Credit freeze, fortunately now federally
Speaker 1: is available to everyone or free. So what's your take
Speaker 1: on credit freeze is is that good enough? Do we
Speaker 1: need additional services on the front? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2: So? Yeah, I smile every time you guys mentioned that
Speaker 2: because I agree one hundred percent. Credit freezes are the
Speaker 2: way to go. They're free in America. There's no point
Speaker 2: in paying. I know it's relatively cheap, it's like one
Speaker 2: hundred bucks a year or something, but there's no need
Speaker 2: to waste that money on something like LifeLock or whatever.
Speaker 2: If you want to add a little extra protection, there's
Speaker 2: a oh gosh, what are they call it? Fraud alerts?
Speaker 2: Is that what they call?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the only drawback with fraud alerts is they
Speaker 2: do need to be renewed every year. I know you
Speaker 2: probably know this, but for listeners, they do need to
Speaker 2: be renewed every year, So set yourself a little reminder
Speaker 2: in your calendar. But the nice thing is you only
Speaker 2: need to play them with one agency and then they
Speaker 2: kind of pass it around to the others, so that
Speaker 2: the way I describe it, and these do work. I
Speaker 2: actually have a quick story about this. I call it
Speaker 2: two FA for your credit, two factor authentication because even
Speaker 2: if you unfreeze your credit, two stories now that I
Speaker 2: think about it. So, a few years ago, we went
Speaker 2: to buy a car. We unfroze my credit. We went
Speaker 2: to the dealership and while I was sitting in I know,
Speaker 2: I took out a loan. I know that's not great.
Speaker 2: But while I was sitting in the dealership, my phone
Speaker 2: rang and when I answered it, they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is so and so from you know, experience or whoever.
Speaker 2: We're just making sure this is a legitimate credit pull.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm sitting in the
Speaker 2: dealership right now, like please do it. I really appreciate
Speaker 2: the call. So, and then about a year or two ago,
Speaker 2: I had the exact opposite where I was at work
Speaker 2: and my phone rang and I picked it up and
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, somebody's trying to unfreeze your credit. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, Nope, not me, don't do that. So it's
Speaker 2: really effective. I highly recommend that.
Speaker 1: It's less like lockdown protectionary, which is what the credit
Speaker 1: freeze is, but it's more like a head's up which
Speaker 1: can help prevent you getting into trouble.
Speaker 2: With also, so exactly, Yeah, it's super awesome.
Speaker 1: Okay, love it. I'm curious you mentioned crypto recently, the
Speaker 1: crypto wallet and the Brave browser. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on crypto and is that, especially as crypto becomes, you know,
Speaker 1: more mainstream, is that a way to protect yourself when
Speaker 1: let's say you're considering it not just as And that's
Speaker 1: what makes crypto so hard to talk about sometimes, is
Speaker 1: like it's a speculative asset, but it's also a potential
Speaker 1: way to buy thinks. So it just depends on what
Speaker 1: websites accepted, and it's is becoming more common. So what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on that as a privacy mechanism Using
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency to facilitate some mirror transactions as.
Speaker 2: A privacy mechanism. I think the only real comment I
Speaker 2: have is I want people to know that bitcoin is
Speaker 2: not anonymous. Uh that's you. You typically hear those words
Speaker 2: together like the anonymous cryptocurrency bitcoin. Bitcoin by default does
Speaker 2: not have a name attached to the wallet. However, Most
Speaker 2: people buy bitcoin through an exchange such as coinbase or
Speaker 2: crypto dot com, and when you do that, you have
Speaker 2: to you have to submit ID for the whole anti
Speaker 2: money laundering they call them KYC or Know your Customer Laws.
Speaker 2: And once you do that, bitcoin is very easily traced.
Speaker 2: So once you buy bitcoin that is attached to you
Speaker 2: and they can very there's a coup called chain analysis.
Speaker 2: This is their whole job. They can chase trace where
Speaker 2: all that bitcoin goes and where you spend it, and
Speaker 2: it's it can be anonymized, but it's incredibly difficult to do.
Speaker 2: There are other cryptocurrencies like minarow or z cash that
Speaker 2: are privacy by default or more privacy respecting. Minaro is
Speaker 2: my personal favorite. The thing I like about Minaro specifically
Speaker 2: is that it's also a lot faster. I've tried to
Speaker 2: buy things with a bitcoin before, and I end up
Speaker 2: sitting there for like, you know, twenty minutes waiting for
Speaker 2: the transaction to go through, whereas with Minaro, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, five or ten. I actually just renewed one
Speaker 2: of my VPN subscriptions with Minaro, kind of just to
Speaker 2: see how to do it. I don't know Honestly, it's
Speaker 2: something I don't really have strong opinions about. I think
Speaker 2: it's something that if you're interested in it and you're
Speaker 2: willing to dive into it, I don't have any issues
Speaker 2: with it. Definitely be aware that it is not anonymous,
Speaker 2: like I just said, and don't I wouldn't recommend going
Speaker 2: all in on cryptocurrency by any means, but I think
Speaker 2: if it's something you want to dabble in, I think
Speaker 2: it's a really cool technology and it certainly fun.
Speaker 1: I guess all right, a few more questions to get
Speaker 1: to with you, Nate, and I want to specifically kind
Speaker 1: of get back to that spectrum question and talk about
Speaker 1: maybe low hanging fruit that maybe the first things that
Speaker 1: people should tackle on this privacy list. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that right after this. We're back with Nate Bartram talking
Speaker 1: about your digital life. And Nate, I mentioned low hanging
Speaker 1: fruit just when you're talking, and we talked about the
Speaker 1: spectrum thing, and hey, there's trade offs. But if you're
Speaker 1: like younger sister came to you now, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if you have one, but she's like eighteen and
Speaker 1: she's in she's going to college, and she's like from
Speaker 1: the get go, like, what what are like the three
Speaker 1: to five things I should be doing that are going
Speaker 1: to have the most bang for my book? Talking about
Speaker 1: the eighty twenty what is that twenty percent of things
Speaker 1: that's going to have the eighty percent impact? What few
Speaker 1: things would you put on that to do list?
Speaker 2: I think first and foremost would be passwords. I think
Speaker 2: it's something that most of us agree, like, ah, use
Speaker 2: the same password everywhere or you know, we know we
Speaker 2: can do better.
Speaker 1: And is that also, by the way, because if one
Speaker 1: password gets hacked and you're using that password on one
Speaker 1: hundred websites, that, like, your whole digital life could be upended.
Speaker 2: So yes, actually there is an attack. It's called credential stuffing,
Speaker 2: which is where the attackers get your username and password
Speaker 2: and they just plug it into every website and see
Speaker 2: where you have an account, So they'll check Amazon, they'll
Speaker 2: check Netflix, they'll check Gmail if it's a Gmail username,
Speaker 2: And this does happen. In twenty nineteen, Facebook was caught
Speaker 2: storing passwords in plaintext, which is basically like your password
Speaker 2: in a readable format was stored on their servers, which
Speaker 2: should never ever, ever, ever happen ever, but especially not
Speaker 2: for a company as big as Facebook, Like, I can't
Speaker 2: stress that enough. Yeah, we've had a number of serious
Speaker 2: data breaches happen because of credential stuffing. And one of
Speaker 2: the examples I like to give people is your email.
Speaker 2: If I can get into your email, I can issue
Speaker 2: password resets all day, and I can get into everything else.
Speaker 1: On that front. Then is there you talked about two
Speaker 1: factor authentication just a little bit when it comes to
Speaker 1: banks and investment sites, how important is that? And is
Speaker 1: the email the best way to go? Or are there now?
Speaker 1: With certain phones? Right? That's like it only the app
Speaker 1: will only open if with facial recognition, So what's the
Speaker 1: best way to go about that?
Speaker 2: I think so the one you want to try to
Speaker 2: avoid is the text message where they text you a code.
Speaker 2: If at all possible, you should try to avoid that.
Speaker 2: But if that's all they offer, then I mean, it's
Speaker 2: better than nothing. When it comes to the phones, I
Speaker 2: would argue that it really depends because, for example, right
Speaker 2: now we're seeing this thing called passkeys, which I'm sure
Speaker 2: you've heard about, which I do highly recommend, But right
Speaker 2: now there's the issue of portability. It's really hard to
Speaker 2: export your pass keys, and so Let's say you guys
Speaker 2: are listening to this and you say, Okay, cool, I
Speaker 2: want to go get a password manager. If you have
Speaker 2: all your pass keys in your Android phone or your iPhone,
Speaker 2: it might be possible. I'm not sure. I haven't checked
Speaker 2: in while, but I know when they first came out
Speaker 2: there were no plans to be able to export your
Speaker 2: passkeys and move them to another password manager. So now
Speaker 2: you're locked into that phone. So if you decide one day,
Speaker 2: well I think I'm gonna switch to whatever the other
Speaker 2: phone is, Android or iPhone, you may have to like
Speaker 2: disable all those passkeys and recreate them all over again. Okay,
Speaker 2: but that depends. If your bank is doing it through
Speaker 2: their app, you probably won't have that problem. But if
Speaker 2: it's like based on your phone, that's something to consider.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, if you know that you're
Speaker 2: always going to be an iPhone person, then I mean
Speaker 2: that's a pretty good level of security I would ark.
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to that list for your sister. Sorry
Speaker 1: I diverted us a little bit. Now you're get what
Speaker 1: else would you say? So passwords?
Speaker 2: So password managers, and closely related to that is the
Speaker 2: two factor you mentioned going to the website settings or
Speaker 2: the app settings and seeing if they offer two factor
Speaker 2: Definitely switching browsers I mentioned, like switching to Brave or
Speaker 2: something like that. And the thing about a lot of
Speaker 2: these privacy tools is there's things that they seem like
Speaker 2: a lot of work, but they're not so, like, for example,
Speaker 2: switching to Brave when you download Brave and you install,
Speaker 2: and this is true of Firefox as well. For the record,
Speaker 2: when you're setting it up, it asks you, hey, do
Speaker 2: you want to import all your bookmarks and your history
Speaker 2: and your all that stuff from your old browser. So
Speaker 2: it's really not that hard to switch. It just sounds
Speaker 2: like it's hard. But then there's things like switching to
Speaker 2: a password manager. Ideally, when you make that switch, you
Speaker 2: should also be upgrading your passwords to be unique and secure,
Speaker 2: and so that might take weeks or months to kind
Speaker 2: of go through those. So there's there's kind of a
Speaker 2: sliding scale there of how difficult some of these things are.
Speaker 2: But password managers, browsers, I think we mentioned removing apps
Speaker 2: off your phone, checking the settings, making sure that the
Speaker 2: settings are you know, you've got the two factor enabled,
Speaker 2: you're not, your profiles not public, or something real quick
Speaker 2: actually Venmo. I think you guys have mentioned this on
Speaker 2: Friday flight, but Venmo by default has all your transactions public,
Speaker 2: which may not be a huge deal, but also maybe
Speaker 2: it's weird. Yeah, it's just definitely weird.
Speaker 1: When I go in there, like why is this social
Speaker 1: media for who we're sending money to? Like this makes
Speaker 1: that makes no sense?
Speaker 2: And I yeah, and people put little inside jokes on
Speaker 2: the memo and just yeah.
Speaker 1: So like I don't want people saying that about me exactly.
Speaker 2: So just checking and knowing what are your options and
Speaker 2: what data is being shared and can you do anything
Speaker 2: about it? I think those would probably be my main things.
Speaker 2: But then there's also things we mentioned, email aliasing, encrypted email,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff that's all on the website
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else specifically on the personal finance fronts?
Speaker 1: You're a personal finance nerd, you also are a data
Speaker 1: and privacy nerd those things and sorry to refer to
Speaker 1: you as a nerd. I include myself in that category.
Speaker 1: But with those things overlap, is there anything specifically in
Speaker 1: the personal finance space where because you're talking to an
Speaker 1: audience who probably overlaps with us at least on one
Speaker 1: of those things, right, What are the biggest privacy moves
Speaker 1: to make when it comes to protecting our money.
Speaker 2: We already mentioned freezing your credit I think that's probably
Speaker 2: the biggest thing for most people, especially the fraudler is
Speaker 2: an extra layer of protection that takes a couple of minutes. Definitely,
Speaker 2: the mass credit card thing or paying in cash whenever possible.
Speaker 2: And and I think there's also something to be said
Speaker 2: for just because I know that kind of contradicts some
Speaker 2: of the advice that you guys give about like using
Speaker 2: credit cards. And I think credit cards are a good
Speaker 2: way to go to because of the protections you've mentioned
Speaker 2: and the fact that like if somebody maxes out your
Speaker 2: credit card, you still have your debit account, you know,
Speaker 2: as opposed to if somebody maxes out your debit card,
Speaker 2: you're up a creek.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there are just fewer federal protections if
Speaker 1: someone abuses your debit card than if they abuse your
Speaker 1: credit card exactly.
Speaker 2: But I think, yeah, there's a lot of Like I said,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of peripheral things that overlap, like the
Speaker 2: ads and the ad blocking and the tractor blocking really
Speaker 2: helps with reducing targeted ads, and something we actually haven't
Speaker 2: mentioned that viewers should definitely look up when they get
Speaker 2: a minute. Is this concept of surveillance pricing, which I'm
Speaker 2: not sure how prevalent it is, but I know for
Speaker 2: sure Target is doing it where basically they will use
Speaker 2: your data to try and tailor the price to you,
Speaker 2: and of course that means they're going to try and
Speaker 2: get the most amount out of you. And one example
Speaker 2: they that I read a story about I believe from
Speaker 2: the markup is if you go to a Target parking
Speaker 2: lot and you check their website, the price on the
Speaker 2: item is going to be a little bit higher than
Speaker 2: if you checked it at home, because their reasoning is
Speaker 2: you're already in the parking lot, You're probably not going
Speaker 2: to drive somewhere else, so they may as well charge
Speaker 2: you a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Interesting. So yeah, that's when it comes to them, Hey,
Speaker 1: is your location data sharing with that app on or not?
Speaker 1: And this really is a new dynamic pricing has been
Speaker 1: around for a while, but even that, it's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: Nate and Joel get offered the same price when we're
Speaker 1: looking at a flight to Phoenix on Tuesday at ten am,
Speaker 1: but it might change for both of us Tuesday at
Speaker 1: eight PM so, but that's dynamic pricing. So now there's
Speaker 1: all this talk of yeah, more surveillance pricing where it's
Speaker 1: tailored to your search habits and specific information that retailers
Speaker 1: know about you, which opens up another can of worms.
Speaker 1: And I think that probably makes some of this privacy
Speaker 1: stuff even more important as we move forward into a
Speaker 1: world where our data is being used against us, It's
Speaker 1: being wielded in new ways that we hadn't even suspected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a lot of the privacy stuff can be
Speaker 2: used to help cut down on that data that they
Speaker 2: can then use for this kind of surveillance pricing, or
Speaker 2: even just a lot of financial decisions now or not
Speaker 2: just taking into account your credit score, but a lot
Speaker 2: of other data as well. There's another story that I
Speaker 2: list on my website where I believe it was American
Speaker 2: Express lowered somebody's credit limit because he shops at Walmart
Speaker 2: a lot. And typically people who shop at Walmart are
Speaker 2: not always great about repaying their loans, which is ridiculous, right,
Speaker 2: because it's like you would shop at Walmart to save money.
Speaker 2: They're inexpensive. Yeah, so it's almost like penalizing people for having,
Speaker 2: you know, thrifty habits and.
Speaker 1: It's based on too much surveillance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly so, but yeah, I mean as far as
Speaker 2: the staples, I think, like I said, the password managers,
Speaker 2: freezing credit, those are things that will come in immediately helpful.
Speaker 2: Real quick story. I bought a concert ticket one time
Speaker 2: and then about six months later, I got the email
Speaker 2: that They're like, oh no, we had a data breach,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, I used a privacy dot com card,
Speaker 2: so I'll just go show off that card now. I
Speaker 2: don't care if my data was stolen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So just a simple way to protect yourself
Speaker 1: on the front end so that you're not dealing with
Speaker 1: cleaning up the mess on the back end, which is
Speaker 1: time in annoyance for sure. So Nate, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining joining us today on the show where where
Speaker 1: can have a money crowd find out more about you
Speaker 1: and what you're up to. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, like you mentioned, my website is thenewoil dot org
Speaker 2: like data is the New Oil. That's where the phrase
Speaker 2: comes from. The website is kind of the main focus.
Speaker 2: I do some blogging. I do a weekly current events
Speaker 2: podcast called Surveillance Report. If anybody you know it's podcast,
Speaker 2: So if anybody wants to listen to that, but definitely
Speaker 2: check it out. If anybody has any questions, shoot me
Speaker 2: an email. I try to respond to them as best
Speaker 2: I can, and especially if you see any room for
Speaker 2: improvement on the website. Like I don't claim to be perfect,
Speaker 2: so if something isn't making sense or you have any questions,
Speaker 2: that that means there's room for improvement, and I'm definitely
Speaker 2: open to that feedback.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Nate, thanks so much for joining me today, man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for having me all right.
Speaker 1: Always nice for a novice like me to learn more
Speaker 1: about a subject that I don't feel well versed in,
Speaker 1: and I think Nate did a good job covering a
Speaker 1: lot of helpful news you can use information about how
Speaker 1: to protect your privacy online. I think my big takeaway
Speaker 1: from that conversation was kind of really what we're talking
Speaker 1: about at the end, and I haven't really known how
Speaker 1: to think about in some ways, some of the AI
Speaker 1: persuaded pricing and the surveillance pricing that seems to be
Speaker 1: becoming more common, and then when companies are accused of it,
Speaker 1: they run away with their hands up saying no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what we were doing. What are you talking about.
Speaker 1: I'm referring to Delta specifically in this case where they're
Speaker 1: like AI pricing. No, we're not doing that. But I
Speaker 1: think the tools at the disposal of companies to surveil
Speaker 1: us and then use that data against us when it
Speaker 1: comes to what they charge us for things is becoming
Speaker 1: more pervasive and it's just improving. So when it comes
Speaker 1: to protecting our data, I think the stakes are only
Speaker 1: ramping up, not just as far as like scams people
Speaker 1: breaking into our accounts if we don't have enough protections,
Speaker 1: but in as far as literally what we pay for things.
Speaker 1: So I think it's becoming more important to at least
Speaker 1: do the twenty percent that's going to give the eighty
Speaker 1: percent impact some of the things that Nate mentioned today.
Speaker 1: And I think he's wise to say you don't have
Speaker 1: to because it's gonna be hard to persuade people that's
Speaker 1: go one hundred percent all in privacy to the max.
Speaker 1: But I think it should be fairly easy to persuade
Speaker 1: us to just change our browser, which can have a
Speaker 1: big impact, or just use a password protector like a
Speaker 1: couple of these things can have high impact, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of one of those things where if you're being
Speaker 1: chased by a lion and your friends next to you,
Speaker 1: you don't have to outrun the line, you have to
Speaker 1: outrun your best friend. And sorry, Matt if that means
Speaker 1: you get mauled by the lion in this scenario. But
Speaker 1: I think it's similar to that right where we don't
Speaker 1: have to be a million percent buttoned up on privacy.
Speaker 1: But if we can do a few of these things,
Speaker 1: not only will it help make us more secure, I
Speaker 1: think it'll help save us money by being less just
Speaker 1: influenced by technology in general, less enamored with our screens
Speaker 1: but that digital minimalism kind of thing, But at the
Speaker 1: same time will also just be more secure than the
Speaker 1: average person out there, which means we're less likely to
Speaker 1: experience the brunt of the full time or part time
Speaker 1: job that can exist if our privacy is breached. So
Speaker 1: I hope this episode was helpful to you. Please share
Speaker 1: it with a friend if you think it would be
Speaker 1: helpful to them, and thanks, as always for listening. There's
Speaker 1: more money saving information up on the site at howtomoney
Speaker 1: dot com. Until next time, best Friend out
Speaker 2: You don't know Hoop