CENTER FOR
PRIVACY & SECURITY
INFORMATION
Privacy & security of our personal information
through the open-source community –
People for People
Greetings to Oz-Harmony Temple’s comers,
This service comes to share the privacy and security process chosen by our team, which grants personal privacy as a natural and basic right for all.
I will share with you that over the years, as personal information has become more visible, exposed and for all to see, I have felt a greater need to pay closer attention to my personal privacy and my basic right to decide how much I want to reveal myself when I use my cell phone, computer, iPad and/or any other device in my possession.
After examination, investigation and receiving help from experts in the field of privacy and security, up-to-date information is written here that upgrades and preserves my/our rights to choose our privacy.
What made me offer this information here through the temple?
During the last year, I was asked more and more about my steps regarding my privacy, which at some point motivated me, and gave me the energy to accept the challenge and write all the information in a way that anyone who wants to open up and maybe even be supported by the knowledge offered here, is welcome to read what I discovered, that works for me and for the temple’s team.
Table of contents
(You can jump directly to specific chapter by clicking the link)
1. INTRODUCTION – PERSONAL PRIVACY IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE
2. WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE?
3. VOICE CALLS, TEXT MESSAGES AND VIDEO CALLS
4. BLUETOOTH & WIFI
5. EMAILS
6. VPN (Encrypting our browsing)
7. USE OF MOBILE PHONE
8. USE OF PERSONAL COMPUTER
9. MY PERSONAL JOURNEY TO PRESERVE MY PRIVACY
PRESERVATION OF PERSONAL PRIVACY
IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL SPACE
Introduction
As someone whose field of technology is not my forte, I may not surprise you when I write that the common lines of communication that most of us use in the field of technology, whether it is through text messages, video calls, and voice calls, are kept in various databases that can be used by various bodies, both public and private, in the name of “our consent” when we download different apps to our mobile or computer.
In the past’ during the stages of downloading applications and using these different lines of communication, I would automatically click on the “Privacy Policy” acceptance button without reading and deepening what it is all about, especially when it is written in legal language, sections upon sections with implications that I did not understand at all, and still, in order to use the application and/or any other technological service, it is explicitly written that it is mandatory to click on the “Privacy Policy” button in order to use those applications and/or communication lines and this is the condition for using the service they provide.
When we approve the “Privacy Policy” without going deeper into their intent, and we have been doing so for years and even decades, we actually give up our privacy and even give consent that our personal information can be collected for use.
The collected information can even be passed on to other parties, which creates the collection of information and the establishment of a profile containing our conduct, our needs, with whom we are in contact, what kind of relationship, what goes on with us, what we feel, think, where we are at every given moment and everything we express which is often very private, personal and sensitive. All of this information is being saved, processed, linked to our profile and it is possible to use this profile, that was collected and developed about us over years to influencing and even divert our thinking patterns towards a certain overt or covert consumption, this can be very intrusive and annoying (in my experience), for example I have often come across that I start looking for something personal like a toothpaste for example and the next time I browsed, a display of various advertisements about toothpastes had already appeared and this is just one visible example.
With love
Irit, Founder
WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE?
.A movement/community has been created that advocates open resources and the sharing of information with everyone.
This community, which is growing and expanding, consists of people and companies that support full transparency and sharing of the information for all interested users, with an attitude that everything should be conducted openly, for all. meaning, the software, applications and all products created by this community are developed in a method that I will call: the open source community.
The meaning of open source is that everything is visible to everyone and there is nothing hidden and/or a hidden motive and/or financial gain and/or personal favors but everything is open, visible and allows each and every one of us to go through all the developed codes and thoroughly examine:
– Product features
– What is collected?
– What is being sent?
– Where it is being sent to?
– What kind of information is being processed
– The level of privacy and security
The open source community is motivated by the service of people for people. There are many programmers in the world who understand codes and information security and they go through and review all the lines of code of those open source products and then share their findings with everyone.
VOICE CALLS,
TEXT MESSAGES
AND VIDEO CALLS
The temple offers you solutions that we have used and which are also recommended by some of the most senior professionals in the world who talk about privacy and recommend transferring all communications to applications whose communications are encrypted, and which do not belong to for-profit business companies that generate it’s profit through us.
A solution used by the temple’s technological team –
Signal – An open source application built and supported by a non-profit organization. Our profile in it is still linked to our phone number – therefore the application is very easy and intuitive to operate.
Session – An even more private application than Signal, where our profile is not linked to a phone number, or email or any other identifying information. By installing it, we receive a (very long) identification code, that is used to connect to us. That’s why this application is much more private, on the other hand however, it is less intuitive, and you have to get to know how to operate it, and check whether it is comfortable for you.
kMeet – An open source application that serves as replacement for Zoom and Skype. It allows multi-user video calls, with familiar options such as screen sharing, real-time surveys, and more. In addition to having dedicated applications for both computers and mobile phones, participants can connect using the link to the meeting through their browsers without the need for any installation or creating an account.
BLUETOOTH & WIFI
We recommend to pay attention that when our mobile’s Bluetooth and WiFi are open, our phones are constantly communicating with other networks, other phones, specific services of commercial companies, and more. We also have recommendations in this context.
A solution used by the temple’s technological team –
EMAILS
For many years we used the popular free platforms that exist in the market.
In order to maintain our privacy, we chose to switch to using a private email.
FYI, Most of the private providers allow you to sign up for a free initial plan in which you can experiment and when you feel comfortable with the use, you can purchase advanced plans that allow a larger storage space, and in addition an encrypted and private drive for your content. At a cost of about $4 a month you can receive 10 private email addresses, encrypted storage space and more…
Personally, I have been using a private email for over six months and everything feels really friendly.
A solution used by the temple’s technological team –
Proton Mail – A company known for maintaining privacy and providing email services, VPN, encrypted storage in the cloud, encrypted password management and more… Every email sent between different Proton email accounts is encrypted and even to the company itself cannot read it.
** There are solutions for additional private emails such as:
Tuta Mail, and others.
VPN
(Virtual Private Network)
With the help of the VPN, we actually create a virtual network that encrypts our browsing data. And provide us with much better privacy when surfing the Internet.
When the VPN is on, our internet provider can’t track where we browse and what we search on the internet. In addition, the companies that provide the VPN service have servers located in all kinds of locations in the world and this provides the encryption of our real, physical location.
How does it work?
Using a tool (VPN) that is installed on the computer/phone/tablet, encrypts all our information. When we surf to a certain website or search for some information, our request goes encrypted through the company that provides us with the VPN, meaning, it is hidden from our internet provider so the provider does not know where we surf. In addition, the website we surf to also does not know where we surf from since we reach it through the VPN server, and the address the website sees is that of the server, and not of our network.
For example
There may be a situation where the physical surfing will take place in Switzerland,
And when we use a VPN we will choose to surf through a specific country from the list of options that the VPN provides. For example, we chose to connect through a VPN server in Africa, and for every website we surf to, it will show that the surfing is done from Africa even though we are physically in Switzerland.
Important! Since there are hundreds of VPN providers and quite a few have been found to be trading in our information, we recommend connecting only to a company that has reliable recommendations from experts in the field, whom you trust, and that the solutions they offer really resonate with you.
In our experience, there are currently few VPN companies that can be trusted.
A solution used by the temple’s technological team –
Proton VPN
There are two more services recommended by privacy experts we trust and they are:
Mullvad VPN
iVPN
USE OF MOBILE PHONE
Here too, we recommend the use of an operating system developed by the “open source community” whose code is exposed to all. Most of these systems are at an excellent, stable level, they have countless private applications and as I mentioned above, are user-friendly.
There are several such operating systems on the market, they are called De-Google OS, which means they are built on the part of Android that is open source so it basically allows you to install most of the applications found in the Google Store. However, we recommend using other app stores, which support and provide privacy.
FYI,
Most of the popular apps have an open source replacement which is friendly and even more. In my experience, the open source applications, really think about the convenience of the users, even for people like me who needs the information in the technology field, to be presented at a level that I call “First Grade”.
A solution used by the temple’s technological team –
Graphene OS operating system, installed on a Google Pixel phone.
USE OF PERSONAL COMPUTER
Like with other devices we have, everything we do on the computer, every software we open, and almost every action, is monitored, so we recommend rethinking the way we all use our laptops and desktops in order to preserve our privacy.
We currently place here two solutions in which you can act to increase your privacy.
Solution 1
Switching to open source software
For example, to use open source software such as LibreOffice, and Only Office,
They are developed by the community, their code is regularly tested by security and privacy experts, and they are easy to operate and no less convenient than what we are used to after a relatively short adaptation period.
Another example:
– Instead of using Zoom or Skype, you can use kMeet (Which we already mentioned above, in section 3)
Solution 2
Switching to a Linux operating system
It is an open source operating system, which has all the capabilities of the operating systems we know, including the software we know, or proper replacements.
There are quite a few versions of the Linux operating system, they are free, and most of them are very user-friendly.
A solution used by the temple’s technological team –
Linux Mint
Another solution that we recommend is: Zorin OS
