Privacy

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Is it okay to log in to my actual social media account via Tor? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If I log in to my account that includes my name, will my previously anonymous device now be associated with my account? What if I do the same in TailsOS?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

A lot of that depends on your architecture and how you use your systems.

Nothing will keep your activities separated if you do two things in the same session. Depending on your browser you could persist cookies across sessions, or browser plugins, or just a outdated version of whonix could be enough to link accounts

What is your objective in your use case?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

My objective is to make my actual personal identity not be traced across the web to the many accounts I have made on sites where I chose not to give any personal info.

If I open Facebook under my own name, then log into lemmy, I do not want my own identity to be linked with my lemmy account. I know I will be tracked if I do both in the same session or via my browsing history/cookies on the same browser. But what can I do to seperate the link between them?

Is using another browser/rebooting enough? Should I change my Tor connections? Or do I have to use TailsOS on a USB where I restart the PC before logging in to different accounts?

I want to know how much is just enough so my two accounts/identities don't get linked.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

ok, let me restate - You want to use TWO social media services at the same time without them being linked to each other and yourself. Fair enough.

Some methods:

Qubes - Setup a VPN netvm, to a different VPN, for a VM tied to each social media account. This ensures your network paths, cookies, browsers never cross
SPN Is interesting, each site would have its own circuit, then you use independent browsers for each account. This is more experimental, but a interesting option, not as guaranteed as Qubes.
Run your own VMs, one per identity, with their own TOR connections, and their own VPNs on whatever computer you normally use (you could use the VMs for whonix or whatever); Just don't cross contaminate the TOR circuits

Whatever you do, only one account/identity per setup, never mix! Never re-use.
These types of setups are vulnerable to timing information (you turn on the computer and connect to the same 2 social media accounts at the same time, and turn off the computer and disconnect at the same time, every day for example)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Holy shit, How fast do you type? And your explainations are so detailed, thanks a lot!

Is running two different operating systems on different VPNs and different devices also good enough?

Is using one service on the clearnet normally and the other service later after rebooting with TailsOS also a viable option?

Also, QubesOS seems like the perfect solution for me, thank you for the suggestion.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

good enough?

That is such a problematic statement, depends on your threat model, how much effort they are willing to spend to identify you. Honestly, truly, read the EFF guides, and privacy guides to help you establish your threat models.

Any two online identities that use different, and consistent paths, without cross contamination will be sufficient for social media like having two facebook accounts so one for friends and family and one for your alternative lifestyle without cross contamination.

Qubes is great, I recommend you play with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

One more option I forgot to mention, if you're not really worried about your security, this is more of a nice to have:

Some VPN software like mullvad browser extension Will let you set site specific VPN exit points. So you could have multiple profiles of Firefox or even Chrome running, each with the browser extension, each specifying different VPN exit points. I wouldn't consider this high security, but for having two social media accounts coming from two IP addresses with separate browsers and separate cookies this will work

Under the hood, it just uses different socks proxy servers that known IP addresses, so you could set it up without using the extension, but the extension makes it really easy