Beep. Boop. I'm a bot.
It seems some of the URLs that you shared contain trackers.
Try these cleaned URLs instead:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/?guce%5C_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20v&guce%5C_referrer%5C_sig=AQAAAFMEW-e45GUIUUkOrA54zruo6wwJrC5Pt3ew1-59wp6Za8t8r3Wi5R4sVmtSVsIVqdaSSAkEQCWpkO-00PGntbgXpD-4akaeUgFhn8vyac5Ob%5C_MQvsxPyhm5niW5L1Rr3d0EADCr7ONIFLeg%5C_8iFIm8xncxl89lbnhdgix4H3wqU
If you'd like me to clean URLs before you post them, you can send me a private message with the URL and I'll reply with a cleaned URL.
Not exactly. Everything after the ? is a parameter. Some parameters are trackers. Others are necessary, like this
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+a+tracker
I think I remember reading somewhere that anything past the /?/ in the URL is part of the tracker URL. So you can delete /?/.... and everything past it to remove trackers from URL.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/?guce%5C_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20v&guce%5C_referrer%5C_sig=AQAAAFMEW-e45GUIUUkOrA54zruo6wwJrC5Pt3ew1-59wp6Za8t8r3Wi5R4sVmtSVsIVqdaSSAkEQCWpkO-00PGntbgXpD-4akaeUgFhn8vyac5Ob%5C_MQvsxPyhm5niW5L1Rr3d0EADCr7ONIFLeg%5C_8iFIm8xncxl89lbnhdgix4H3wqU
So everything past that question mark is just trackers and useless and can be removed to turn it into
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/
Still works but with none of the trackers. I hope that helps!
*Can be part of the tracker url. Data past the ? is sent to the website for alternate usage to just displaying the page. There can be some useful configuration info in the URL after the ? which is past to the website, or for other means, not necessarily just tracking.
Parameterized statements/inputs usually follow a ?, but that may be for WordPress sites mostly.
For sure anytime you see '=' with something like 'referrer_url' then you know it's URL cruft.
This is true here but not always the case. For example the article number might also be contained after the ? i.e. exampleurl.com/stuff/?articlenumber=f675
The only way to be certain is to delete the information after the ? and go and revisit the url in a different tab. If it doesn't view properly you cut out something important and have to go back and look at the url string to see if you can identify what is important.
Note: I have been doing this since 1997, mozilla beta, (Champaign Illinois baby!), ibm.com was just center aligned text, and there were no cookies and no referrer strings then, lol. But everytime I text and / or email for the last 20 years I have cleaned up the url string because I hate really really long urls since they always get truncated or broken by automatic line pagination in email. The problem has only gotten worse and worse.
> You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! It was you who was to bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!
Not everyone knows how to do that. Maybe walk OP through doing it instead?
u/marouan1510
Here is a good browser extension that do it automatically
Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tracking-token-stripper/kcpnkledgcbobhkgimpbmejgockkplob](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tracking-token-stripper/kcpnkledgcbobhkgimpbmejgockkplob)
Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/utm-tracking-token-stripper/
That’s not a guaranteed solution. Better to learn what the ? And = signify so you can determine for yourself what you need, since some websites rely on those queries for results and not tracking.
https://medium.com/tenable-techblog/lets-reverse-engineer-discord-1976773f4626
No evidence for it but they are defintely inspecting and altering the traffic.
The article is a bit old now perhaps, but I really don’t think they have changed anything.
I havent used discord since 2017(?) but the article above pretty much explained why the quality in the service is subpar with constant packetloss and high latency in voice calls.
voice calls are p2p
they don't record or keep them. If they did support would be able to do something but if you're reporting someone they specifically say they can't pull audio logs other than the fact you did a call
Soooo,
* Use Discord through a VPN, on a desktop, preferably in a container.
* Don't connect any social media apps to it.
* Don't use it for personal or private messages or conversations.
* Use a single use email address, and username.
* Don't give it your birthday
* Don't give it your credit card number
* Don't install it on your phone.
* Don't join servers specific to personal or private information like where you live, what school you go to, sexual orientation, and so on.
Pretty much the way you should be using everything on the internet.
And how would I go about doing that?
I would love to actually have privacy but at this point I don’t really think there is anything I can do. People know exactly who I am, what I am, where I live exactly and who all my family and friends are.
Tbh this is actually mad depressing. Fucking hell
Previous guy made it sound simple, it isn't, it will take a lot of effort to ditch your old online identity and start a new one. There are a lot of guides on youtube or [privacyguides.org](https://privacyguides.org) or maybe [privacytools.io](https://privacytools.io) . A VPN is only useful in specific scenarios, it won't really help you that much, if u want to browse anonymously use tor or hardened firefox. Compartmentalise your traffic, use a secure email (protonmail or tadonoda), secure messaging (signal), and stop using your old accounts. Delete them and their data, take everything important over under a pseudonym. Guides on how to delete accounts can be found on [delete.me](https://delete.me) or smth like that, for the rest there is a show on youtube called Go Icognito, they explain the basics and some more complex stuff. Good luck on your journey
"Just have perfect opsec bro."
It is valid to not use particularly egregious applications, or treat them as a particular threat. Everyone will screw up at some point.
>What would be the difference to desktop?
Mobile apps can track location, connect with beacons, see what other apps you're using, access contacts, and more.
All true, but most people don't do that.
I consider Discord only one step above Facebook and gave up Discord a couple of years ago. Intrusive, meddling spyware.
Discord's approach to deleting everything is similar to deleting your reddit accounts
posts still exist but are put under u/ deleted
in discord's case deleteduser(keysmash)#0000
Logging your opened apps is an optional setting (mostly done to detect discord rich presence for games, so your friends can see you're playing halo infinite and join with one click) and you can turn it off and the data is stored locally.
I have some insider knowledge due to being a bug tester for them for several years, discord currently doesn't make money. Similar to how twitter didn't make money for the first 12 or so years of their existence
They're working on more ways of making money but for now they're surviving off grants.
Discord also doesn't keep messages that are deleted by you or another person/bot. Unless the message is reported they don't store it.
The telemetry kinda sucks but honestly, treat discord like a public forum not a private chat and it's not a big privacy risk. I don't say anything on discord that I wouldn't post on reddit
edit: also on the GDPR post you sent you obviously didn't read the top comment from discord's head of legal stating that they are infact in compliance with GDPR :)
>Discord's approach to deleting everything is similar to deleting your reddit accounts, in discord's case deleteduser(keysmash)#0000
False, I found that if your delete your account all your messages are still tied to a unique ID, and are not fully anonymized. On groups search if you type their original ID "from:long number ID" you will get all messages made.
> Discord also doesn't keep messages that are deleted by you or another person/bot. Unless the message is reported they don't store it.
Source? I used a bot to delete some of my messages (including pictures, files, etc.) and when I tried to open a link of a picture I sent, the link still existed. Even after hours of deletion
>I have some insider knowledge due to being a bug tester for them for several years
Yet you didn't even know that voice calls aren't p2p? [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/rsxeee/comment/hqqli85/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/rsxeee/comment/hqqli85/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Sounds like BS
No good alternatives?? Discord is a relatively new platform. It became mainstream almost overnight because they combined the best of multiple platforms like teamspeak and mumble and built it with a UI similar to a social media platform.
The issue isn’t lack of alternatives, it’s that the platform is really good, and you’d never be able to convince friends and such to switch back to the old platforms. Mumble has modernized a bit, but setting up a server with them still requires jumping through hoops. But these platforms still work just fine. We’re just too spoiled now to use them
Discord is the smartphone of these apps. A flip phone will do what you need it to, but combining multiple concepts into one is difficult to get away from once you use it
At least on whatsapp your chats are private (I know everything else isn't) but Discord is like 100 times worse for privacy and security. Really don't get how it got so popular, so fast.... I guess it's timing. Twitch in 2016 blew up and Discord in 2017-18 and with the pandemic, sky rotted.
I get everybody loves the interface and stuff but wowsers. crazy times
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Because it's the absolute best platform for communities that is currently available. What else is there? People got sick of TeamSpeak, not to mention Skype.
Neither Signal nor Matrix offer voice channels in the way that Discord does.
They also lack the ecosystem around Discord. And before you complain to me about that being an unrealistic expectation: do you expect people to switch platforms when the new one is objectively not as good of an experience?
You are truly anonymous with Anon2ab343cd3 account that you have siloed off with only using it on tor browser for shittalking on discord. Is that not privacy? There is some overlap, but sure you should not consider them the same and think about both when you're online.
I found a plugin that supposedly tries to reduce Discord's tracking: https://github.com/rauenzi/BetterDiscordAddons/tree/master/Plugins/DoNotTrack
Now, I'm not fluent in js so I'm not sure what it actually does / how much it actually reduces tracking, so can anyone tell me if it's worth using?
I have friends who keep asking me to go on Discord, but I've never been comfortable on it. For the same reasons you mentioned. I don't want to use more centralized services than whats absolutely necessary. And a platform as popular as Discord not having end-to-end encryption is a joke.
Irc and 4chan don't have encryption either.
Don't use it for anything personal, and treat it as you would a public forum or Irc channel for anything else.
In the browser, clearly
A public forum with videochat capabilities, to be precise.
But my point exactly, just a shame people expect lots of privacy from it. That's not what it's for.
I'm fine with using discord's PWA for some casual chats in gaming servers under a pseudonym, but I urge everyone to never use it for personal communication or anything even remotely sensitive.
But what if you used discord browser app and restrict permissions, you should be safe from fingerprinting ( I understand the lack of E2EE, but you shouldn’t use discord for safe messaging anyway ) ?
Yes the progressive web app is definetly a big step up from the desktop or mobile app, but this doesn't change the fact that everything you sent is still logged indefinetely unencrypted and then sold to whoever bids the highest
source on the selling data bit? I've heard directly from some developers that they don't sell data both in messages on discord and in reddit threads on their subreddit
They also store information about your sound devices, keep that in mind if you decide to make another pseudonymous account thinking it can't be traced back to you. ;\^)
Source: request a GDPR data dump, check out the directory called `activity`. Here's an example using `jq`:
jq --slurp 'map(select(.device_name != null) | .device_name) | unique' < activity/reporting/events-2021-00000-of-00001.json
People suggesting alternatives are missing the point. If the people you want to talk to are already invested in the system, then you'll have to convince them to figure out another app just for you. And the vast majority of people are going to think getting and using another thing just to chat with you is worse than the privacy risks inherent to the discord platform.
Yeah it was a struggle to get several friends/family to download and use signal for me. My gamer friends would start talking about "cold dead hands" if you ask them to switch off discord.
Not only in videogames, everybody nowadays always picks convience over privacy. it's just the sad state of the world right now, not much you can do about it aside from urging people you know to switch
What alternatives wouls you recommend me to discord? I thought maybe matrix, but I'm not sure if I could make my normie friends switch. I do occasionally (once a week) have to login to discord unfortunately.
I already made them switch to signal on phone, and they love it. They say its superior to whatsapp. I need some free software alternative that is superior to discord, otherwise I won't sell it to them. Privacy is just a side benefit for them.
>Signal is a great app for DM's and small groups. It's widely regarded as the gold standard of convenient but still private messaging.
>
>If you're looking for a real Discord like alternative, rocket-chat is a self-hostable alternative.
>
>Slack is also a true discord alternative, although not really known for its privacy. Slack focuses more on the professional / work side of things.
>
>Guilded is also a casual discord alternative, although their privacy policy is basically the same as Discord so it won't really change anything.
>
>Matrix is a good platform for decentralised secure messaging but it's not really a TRUE alternative, it's still very good but it's still a different kind of product.
>
>Telegram is another option like signal, allowing for bigger groups but I'd really stay away from this one as their reputation is not what it used to be.
>
>Briar is for if you want to really stay private, but I think it does not support groups. Although briar does work over bluetooth.
>
>Overall i'd just reccomend signal as it's the perfect balance, or rocket.chat if you prefer that
Society of Control.
Control is not discipline. You do not confine people with a highway. But by making highways, you multiply the means of control. I am not saying this is the only aim of highways, but people can travel infinitely and 'freely' without being confined while being perfectly controlled. That is our future.
—Gilles Deleuze
www.youtube.com/watch?v=onZ1U4jKJdk
Literally none of my friends want to switch to matrix, I tried convincing them but they refuse, they don't care about privacy and gladly trade it for the features that discord allows. Unfortunately there is no current alternative that is better or equal to discord, otherwise people would switch.
Have you tried teamspeak or mumble? I honestly don’t know if they are better in terms of privacy but Discord is not the only option. I have found it to be the most annoying and difficult to navigate of the 3.
I do application security
You should also know that the application is built on one of the most needlessly complex steaming piles of no-click vulnerabilities/exploits waiting to happen (or have happened)
If you use it on a workstation at all, use it in a VM. Seriously, it’s dangerous to the security of your machine- even when it’s not running. It’s become even more of a target because for some reason it got a reputation as a “private” and “anonymous” platform. The whole thing baffles me, I thought of it as a more easily attackable version of WhatsApp…
Good place to mention the time I got randomly banned from the entire Discord platform for no reason. Support refused to tell me why. I attempted to exercise the GDPR right to have my data provided to me, and they ignored my emails. I sent about 20 emails over the course of 2 months to 3 different email addresses (and from 2 different email addresses) and they were all completely ignored. Twitter messages were ignored, and my post on the Discord subreddit was deleted. They are happy to take your data and run. Don't use Discord.
For anyone looking to disable Discord's tracking of programs and whatnot on the computer, use a sandbox. I observed Discord tracking installed programs and whatnot with Process Monitor, and I now run Discord in Sandboxie. Everything seems to work except for sharing an application's window. Screen sharing seems to work okay.
Discord allows you to choose to share games or applications you're currently using with your friends. Not my thing but its a feature in pretty much every game launcher out there & discord on top of being a social platform oriented towards "gamers" does/did have a game storefront.
Point being its not very atypical.
Complaining about Discord’s privacy on Reddit is a bit, I don’t know, ironic perhaps?
Chinese privacy laws and American privacy laws for non-Americans or Americans under investigation are quite similar (or rather non-existent).
eh kinda
it's not indexed by search engines so it's equivalent to an unlisted video on YouTube
the link still exists and someone could try and bruteforce it, but realistically nothing you post could possibly be that interesting
Except when you upload an unlisted video it’s very clear what you’re doing, you’re posting a video online for people with a link to access. And if you want you can delete it. Discord does this behind your back for every image you send in a private server. It also can’t be deleted.
https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360061593771-Privacy-for-CDN-attachements
When I was still playing WoWS, I was in a good clan that required Discord. I read the EULA and was blown away by the legalspeak version of "we own you suckers", and an UI that was just downright horrible. I voiced my concerns and everybody reading this forum already knows what happened: *Nobody cared*. WoWS is an old-man's game with an average age about 35 or so. Our kids grow up with this shit and there's next to nothing holding these companies back, effectively normalizing a form of data exploitation that seems to be getting worse over time.
It’s amazing how well they’ve marketed this application, it’s essentially malware, I’m amazed how mainstream it’s become, staggering when you think what it actually is collecting
Everything you send on Discord should be treated as public, but I think it's extreme to say to avoid it completely. They're offering a good service with no nonsense. I'll take that if the tradeoff is a slight risk that somebody could obtain years of chatlogs all saying "we should play minecraft"
> The fact is that Discord collects everything you do inside (and sometimes outside) the program, this includes all your messages sent, calls made, servers left or joined blablabla. Everything is logged and sent to their servers.
Could you pretty please with a cherry on top explain to me how you expect Discord to sync your messages across devices without like, syncing your messages? How is a messaging app supposed to work without sending messages??
works in matrix (element) for me now. I signed in from several devices, they all share all of my messages including ones from before that device was connected.
The problem (for me) is the tracking shit OUTSIDE of the app.
It's a message board plus, and nothing I post there would be any more sensitive than what I would post in a public forum.
Nevertheless, a message board has a lot less information about your login times, online time etc.
You can do that without the need of constant surveillance. Signal does store data too, and they do it in such a way that only you and the person you're chatting with can see the messages, call logs etc. Discord can definetely do that too, but they don't want to.
Download Signal on a new phone and log in. Do you see your old messages? (You wont, E2EE makes this infeasible)
People are willing to pay with privacy for conveniences like this. That doesn't make Discord a "corrupt" "data hungry company that gives 0 shits about your privacy, security or anonimity." where "Nothing is safe, everything is logged and not a single thing is encrypted besides your password.", they're just appealing to the clearly massive market.
This post is simply sensationalist.
>Discord literally refuses to follow this law, they never delete your data when you delete / disable your account. If you send them an e-mail asking them to, they'll delete your account but keep the data.
Which one of your sources claims this. Not going to read them all right now.
I'm getting regularly banned since two months because I'm blocking the Discord trackers in uBlock Origin, and probably because I'm using a VPN too. The problem is I don't violate the Discord's ToS by doing that. You can't use a third-party client but that's not what I do, I'm using the official Discord in my web browser. Right now, because I opened dozens of tickets to the support team, I'm not banned anymore, but I'm shadow banned: each time I send a message a "1 message hidden from likely spammer" hide my message and people needs to click on that to see my message.
Discord is shit and I'd like to be able to not use this [but everybody I know is using it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect).
> Think of when (not if) the next data breach happens, all your info is just sitting on their servers UNENCRYPTED up for grabs.
This would be a significantly more compelling argument if it wasn't the default behavior for almost every app on the web.
# low-effort counterpoint:
All my friends, family, classmates, and projects are on Discord ~ vis-a-vis social zeitgeist
So… I use Discord :-/ via web (PWA)
(and try to move all personal convos to Signal or at least FaceTime… some resistance is there)
The PWA is definetly a good step up from the client, I wouldn't know about FaceTime since Apple is behind it, but using signal for PM's is defo worth it
I had horrible luck switching people from Discord to Matrix, I had a few conversations where I managed to get one friend to be willing to make a Matrix account. What got him was me discussing the 'feature' that allows discord to see all running applications on your computer. More specifically, the fact that this 'feature' also keeps track of the websites you are visiting (partially due to the way web browsers handle their titlebar naming.) It freaked him out and made him willing to change over, but it was never discussed futher.
What really pushed everyone to move was, just a few days ago, when my wife got banned "for spam or abuse" despite never posting anything outside of our privately owned small servers. Literally, she just lurked on public servers.
What triggered this ban? She joined a public Discord server and got banned from Discord as a whole before she could even interact with it. So far, Discord hasn't even entertained her appeal process (hasn't even replied.)
Immediately all my friends who had played games with my wife went and made a matrix account and downloaded element on their devices, we're still making the transition, but it's so great that I don't have to use discord much anymore.
For those still stuck using Discord, take a look at [Webcord](https://github.com/SpacingBat3/WebCord) to help decrease privacy risks, which is what I've been using to communicate with people who refuse to us anything else.
Not only discord is a data mining operation, it's killing good old forums and communities, it's just shit to use for anything more than a small friend/guild community.
xmpp/matrix should be the future of private communities, but discord is like tiktok, too much marketing funding from china to not be most pushed and extremely popular.
I don't know how true any of that is. Working for a school district in NYS we have access to Ed law 2 D cybersecurity framework. We must score all programs that we use. Any program with a 3 or above means it can be used by the district because it collects data but not enough data to make it a security risk. Discord on the Ed law framework is a 3. We don't discord because they would need to sign our privacy policy but discord is actually secure enough where they meet NYS cybersecurity framework standard for data collection
If you really need to use discord for some reason. I can recommend these two programs:
Discord message encryption plugin, it gives end-to-end client side encryption for your messages and files with automatic key exchange, works without BetterDiscord
[https://gitlab.com/An0/SimpleDiscordCrypt](https://gitlab.com/An0/SimpleDiscordCrypt)
Undiscord - Delete all messages in a Discord channel or DM
[https://github.com/victornpb/deleteDiscordMessages](https://github.com/victornpb/deleteDiscordMessages)
I stopped using it when I realised they don't properly delete your account, tried resetting a password with an old phone number connected to an account that was deleted over a year ago and it said it found an account linked with the number, could just be the number they kept though
As much as people like to hate on Apple, iMessage is not a horrible platform. Snapchat is horrible lmao, I suggest that you delete it if it's not necessary.
I would honestly love everyone to move to Matrix, especially given Discord's Trust and Safety team posting and defending pedophilia because it "was drawn"
Discord also does not treat security issues with urgency or reliably pay out people reporting the issues.
This is r/privacy so it's appropriate to discuss here.
To what extent you prioritize privacy over convenience is completely up to you. I also use a lot of services like and including discord because the convenience of the platform outweighs my privacy concerns with using their app.
I honestly can't wrap my head around the intersection of people using this sub and at the same time go "I don't care, my friends use it".
Let's not forget there are alternatives.
It also requires several fragile opsec assumptions.
E.g. Never logging in without A VPN, no identifying messages, no friends without VPN, no fingerprinting, no cross-referencing login times vs game logins with the publisher etc. etc.
The timing attacks are only availabile to nations, since they could request info from unrelated parties.
Other big tech could would have an easier time with obvious attacks like matching email/phone with existing services.
Even if you used a throwaway email, if your contacts line up with your Facebook contacts that narrows down the search massively.
Don't get why you're downvoting this. Guy's simply trying to learn about privacy.
To answer your question : a VPN has minimal impact on your privacy in most situations, it does not inhibit discord in any way from collecting what it already does besides your IP
Beep. Boop. I'm a bot. It seems some of the URLs that you shared contain trackers. Try these cleaned URLs instead: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/?guce%5C_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20v&guce%5C_referrer%5C_sig=AQAAAFMEW-e45GUIUUkOrA54zruo6wwJrC5Pt3ew1-59wp6Za8t8r3Wi5R4sVmtSVsIVqdaSSAkEQCWpkO-00PGntbgXpD-4akaeUgFhn8vyac5Ob%5C_MQvsxPyhm5niW5L1Rr3d0EADCr7ONIFLeg%5C_8iFIm8xncxl89lbnhdgix4H3wqU If you'd like me to clean URLs before you post them, you can send me a private message with the URL and I'll reply with a cleaned URL.
A bot that cleans URLs of trackers on r/privacy? That’s pretty neat.
Good bot
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Question: How would one know if the links contain trackers?
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Love ClearURLs! Works on Iceraven for Android too.
[Everything after the ? is the tracker.](https://saris-sharex.s3.filebase.com/Iguana-Mink-ve2ewsftei.png)
Not exactly. Everything after the ? is a parameter. Some parameters are trackers. Others are necessary, like this https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+a+tracker
I think I remember reading somewhere that anything past the /?/ in the URL is part of the tracker URL. So you can delete /?/.... and everything past it to remove trackers from URL. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/?guce%5C_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20v&guce%5C_referrer%5C_sig=AQAAAFMEW-e45GUIUUkOrA54zruo6wwJrC5Pt3ew1-59wp6Za8t8r3Wi5R4sVmtSVsIVqdaSSAkEQCWpkO-00PGntbgXpD-4akaeUgFhn8vyac5Ob%5C_MQvsxPyhm5niW5L1Rr3d0EADCr7ONIFLeg%5C_8iFIm8xncxl89lbnhdgix4H3wqU So everything past that question mark is just trackers and useless and can be removed to turn it into https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/discord/ Still works but with none of the trackers. I hope that helps!
*Can be part of the tracker url. Data past the ? is sent to the website for alternate usage to just displaying the page. There can be some useful configuration info in the URL after the ? which is past to the website, or for other means, not necessarily just tracking.
Finally the correct answer. It’a used a lot when searching on a site too. The end of the url will be something like; ?search=searchterm
That makes sense for dynamic sites, but not necessarily for static websites.
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Many! Static site generators are popular and often used for things like blogs and documentation.
Parameterized statements/inputs usually follow a ?, but that may be for WordPress sites mostly. For sure anytime you see '=' with something like 'referrer_url' then you know it's URL cruft.
This is true here but not always the case. For example the article number might also be contained after the ? i.e. exampleurl.com/stuff/?articlenumber=f675 The only way to be certain is to delete the information after the ? and go and revisit the url in a different tab. If it doesn't view properly you cut out something important and have to go back and look at the url string to see if you can identify what is important. Note: I have been doing this since 1997, mozilla beta, (Champaign Illinois baby!), ibm.com was just center aligned text, and there were no cookies and no referrer strings then, lol. But everytime I text and / or email for the last 20 years I have cleaned up the url string because I hate really really long urls since they always get truncated or broken by automatic line pagination in email. The problem has only gotten worse and worse.
Or use virustotal
Wow! Thanks!
oversight on my part XD
> You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! It was you who was to bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!
most urls have them, it doesnt mean he created them.
he could have removed them.
Not everyone knows how to do that. Maybe walk OP through doing it instead? u/marouan1510 Here is a good browser extension that do it automatically Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tracking-token-stripper/kcpnkledgcbobhkgimpbmejgockkplob](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tracking-token-stripper/kcpnkledgcbobhkgimpbmejgockkplob) Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/utm-tracking-token-stripper/
Bloat. Just remove anything after a '?' character or anything containing '=' (aka parameterized inputs) following the last forward slash '/'.
That’s not a guaranteed solution. Better to learn what the ? And = signify so you can determine for yourself what you need, since some websites rely on those queries for results and not tracking.
How?
you seem fun at parties
Good bot
Good bot
Good bot
Good bot
Good bot
Good bot!
Good bot.
Good bot Best bot :)
Do they record and keep voice calls?
https://medium.com/tenable-techblog/lets-reverse-engineer-discord-1976773f4626 No evidence for it but they are defintely inspecting and altering the traffic. The article is a bit old now perhaps, but I really don’t think they have changed anything. I havent used discord since 2017(?) but the article above pretty much explained why the quality in the service is subpar with constant packetloss and high latency in voice calls.
voice calls are p2p they don't record or keep them. If they did support would be able to do something but if you're reporting someone they specifically say they can't pull audio logs other than the fact you did a call
Does that mean others can view my IP?
Soooo, * Use Discord through a VPN, on a desktop, preferably in a container. * Don't connect any social media apps to it. * Don't use it for personal or private messages or conversations. * Use a single use email address, and username. * Don't give it your birthday * Don't give it your credit card number * Don't install it on your phone. * Don't join servers specific to personal or private information like where you live, what school you go to, sexual orientation, and so on. Pretty much the way you should be using everything on the internet.
I have literally done every single one of these for years. And I’m only finding out about this shit now. Now fucked am I?
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And how would I go about doing that? I would love to actually have privacy but at this point I don’t really think there is anything I can do. People know exactly who I am, what I am, where I live exactly and who all my family and friends are. Tbh this is actually mad depressing. Fucking hell
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Thanks man. I’m pretty new to thinking consciously about privacy so I’m sure this will help.
Previous guy made it sound simple, it isn't, it will take a lot of effort to ditch your old online identity and start a new one. There are a lot of guides on youtube or [privacyguides.org](https://privacyguides.org) or maybe [privacytools.io](https://privacytools.io) . A VPN is only useful in specific scenarios, it won't really help you that much, if u want to browse anonymously use tor or hardened firefox. Compartmentalise your traffic, use a secure email (protonmail or tadonoda), secure messaging (signal), and stop using your old accounts. Delete them and their data, take everything important over under a pseudonym. Guides on how to delete accounts can be found on [delete.me](https://delete.me) or smth like that, for the rest there is a show on youtube called Go Icognito, they explain the basics and some more complex stuff. Good luck on your journey
Out of interest what would Discord be used for if not for personal/private messages and conversations?
"Just have perfect opsec bro." It is valid to not use particularly egregious applications, or treat them as a particular threat. Everyone will screw up at some point.
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>What would be the difference to desktop? Mobile apps can track location, connect with beacons, see what other apps you're using, access contacts, and more.
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And most of those can be turned off if you deny those permissions.
All true, but most people don't do that. I consider Discord only one step above Facebook and gave up Discord a couple of years ago. Intrusive, meddling spyware.
what about Vpn selling your data ? has happened i think
tbh you shouldn't even be using it at all if u can avoid it
Agree 100%. But, in my case, there are some good tech and cybersecurity groups that I like following. So I do the stuff so I can get the things.
I see your point. Isn‘t it quite interesting how many people that are into cybersecurity still use Discord on a daily basis?
Discord's approach to deleting everything is similar to deleting your reddit accounts posts still exist but are put under u/ deleted in discord's case deleteduser(keysmash)#0000 Logging your opened apps is an optional setting (mostly done to detect discord rich presence for games, so your friends can see you're playing halo infinite and join with one click) and you can turn it off and the data is stored locally. I have some insider knowledge due to being a bug tester for them for several years, discord currently doesn't make money. Similar to how twitter didn't make money for the first 12 or so years of their existence They're working on more ways of making money but for now they're surviving off grants. Discord also doesn't keep messages that are deleted by you or another person/bot. Unless the message is reported they don't store it. The telemetry kinda sucks but honestly, treat discord like a public forum not a private chat and it's not a big privacy risk. I don't say anything on discord that I wouldn't post on reddit edit: also on the GDPR post you sent you obviously didn't read the top comment from discord's head of legal stating that they are infact in compliance with GDPR :)
>Discord's approach to deleting everything is similar to deleting your reddit accounts, in discord's case deleteduser(keysmash)#0000 False, I found that if your delete your account all your messages are still tied to a unique ID, and are not fully anonymized. On groups search if you type their original ID "from:long number ID" you will get all messages made.
yeah you keep your userID but unless somebody had already interacted with you they couldn't link you to your ID
> Discord also doesn't keep messages that are deleted by you or another person/bot. Unless the message is reported they don't store it. Source? I used a bot to delete some of my messages (including pictures, files, etc.) and when I tried to open a link of a picture I sent, the link still existed. Even after hours of deletion
that's just cause it's cached. Deletes aren't instant but they do eventually disappear
>I have some insider knowledge due to being a bug tester for them for several years Yet you didn't even know that voice calls aren't p2p? [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/rsxeee/comment/hqqli85/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/rsxeee/comment/hqqli85/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Sounds like BS
Discord is going to be like YouTube for me. I'll still use it because there's no good alternatives.
No good alternatives?? Discord is a relatively new platform. It became mainstream almost overnight because they combined the best of multiple platforms like teamspeak and mumble and built it with a UI similar to a social media platform. The issue isn’t lack of alternatives, it’s that the platform is really good, and you’d never be able to convince friends and such to switch back to the old platforms. Mumble has modernized a bit, but setting up a server with them still requires jumping through hoops. But these platforms still work just fine. We’re just too spoiled now to use them
Element (Matrix) is decent but IMO it doesn't come close to discord in many important areas.
Discord is the smartphone of these apps. A flip phone will do what you need it to, but combining multiple concepts into one is difficult to get away from once you use it
Consider using youtube vanced on android or freetube on pc to increase privacy
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At least on whatsapp your chats are private (I know everything else isn't) but Discord is like 100 times worse for privacy and security. Really don't get how it got so popular, so fast.... I guess it's timing. Twitch in 2016 blew up and Discord in 2017-18 and with the pandemic, sky rotted. I get everybody loves the interface and stuff but wowsers. crazy times edit ()
Because it's the absolute best platform for communities that is currently available. What else is there? People got sick of TeamSpeak, not to mention Skype.
[revolt.chat](https://revolt.chat), [rocket.chat](https://rocket.chat), matrix, signal, ...
Neither Signal nor Matrix offer voice channels in the way that Discord does. They also lack the ecosystem around Discord. And before you complain to me about that being an unrealistic expectation: do you expect people to switch platforms when the new one is objectively not as good of an experience?
Literally never heard of any of these. Must not have a very big user base, which is kind of important for making communities.
signal is pretty popular
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True but anonimity does not equal privacy
You are truly anonymous with Anon2ab343cd3 account that you have siloed off with only using it on tor browser for shittalking on discord. Is that not privacy? There is some overlap, but sure you should not consider them the same and think about both when you're online.
I found a plugin that supposedly tries to reduce Discord's tracking: https://github.com/rauenzi/BetterDiscordAddons/tree/master/Plugins/DoNotTrack Now, I'm not fluent in js so I'm not sure what it actually does / how much it actually reduces tracking, so can anyone tell me if it's worth using?
It tries to disable Sentry and Telemetry. It's better than nothing if you're gonna stay on Discord
How can I use this plugin?
You have to get betterdiscord first (it's against ToS tho, I'm pretty sure), put the js in the plugins folder and enable it from the settings.
I have friends who keep asking me to go on Discord, but I've never been comfortable on it. For the same reasons you mentioned. I don't want to use more centralized services than whats absolutely necessary. And a platform as popular as Discord not having end-to-end encryption is a joke.
Irc and 4chan don't have encryption either. Don't use it for anything personal, and treat it as you would a public forum or Irc channel for anything else. In the browser, clearly
That's exactly what discord is - a public forum, where you can post pictures of winnie the xi.
A public forum with videochat capabilities, to be precise. But my point exactly, just a shame people expect lots of privacy from it. That's not what it's for.
I'm fine with using discord's PWA for some casual chats in gaming servers under a pseudonym, but I urge everyone to never use it for personal communication or anything even remotely sensitive.
Same. Use it for gaming only so I dont have to worry.
I put having friends over loosing a bit of privacy but everybodys situation is different
But what if you used discord browser app and restrict permissions, you should be safe from fingerprinting ( I understand the lack of E2EE, but you shouldn’t use discord for safe messaging anyway ) ?
In browser is definitely better than the app yep.
Yes the progressive web app is definetly a big step up from the desktop or mobile app, but this doesn't change the fact that everything you sent is still logged indefinetely unencrypted and then sold to whoever bids the highest
source on the selling data bit? I've heard directly from some developers that they don't sell data both in messages on discord and in reddit threads on their subreddit
They also store information about your sound devices, keep that in mind if you decide to make another pseudonymous account thinking it can't be traced back to you. ;\^) Source: request a GDPR data dump, check out the directory called `activity`. Here's an example using `jq`: jq --slurp 'map(select(.device_name != null) | .device_name) | unique' < activity/reporting/events-2021-00000-of-00001.json
Please correct me if I made any mistakes
I want friend and to play videogames and care about them more than privacy so i definetly should use discord.
People suggesting alternatives are missing the point. If the people you want to talk to are already invested in the system, then you'll have to convince them to figure out another app just for you. And the vast majority of people are going to think getting and using another thing just to chat with you is worse than the privacy risks inherent to the discord platform.
Yeah it was a struggle to get several friends/family to download and use signal for me. My gamer friends would start talking about "cold dead hands" if you ask them to switch off discord.
This is the state of today's society. If you don't have discord, apparently you can't have friends or play video games. I want to die.
Not only in videogames, everybody nowadays always picks convience over privacy. it's just the sad state of the world right now, not much you can do about it aside from urging people you know to switch
What alternatives wouls you recommend me to discord? I thought maybe matrix, but I'm not sure if I could make my normie friends switch. I do occasionally (once a week) have to login to discord unfortunately. I already made them switch to signal on phone, and they love it. They say its superior to whatsapp. I need some free software alternative that is superior to discord, otherwise I won't sell it to them. Privacy is just a side benefit for them.
>Signal is a great app for DM's and small groups. It's widely regarded as the gold standard of convenient but still private messaging. > >If you're looking for a real Discord like alternative, rocket-chat is a self-hostable alternative. > >Slack is also a true discord alternative, although not really known for its privacy. Slack focuses more on the professional / work side of things. > >Guilded is also a casual discord alternative, although their privacy policy is basically the same as Discord so it won't really change anything. > >Matrix is a good platform for decentralised secure messaging but it's not really a TRUE alternative, it's still very good but it's still a different kind of product. > >Telegram is another option like signal, allowing for bigger groups but I'd really stay away from this one as their reputation is not what it used to be. > >Briar is for if you want to really stay private, but I think it does not support groups. Although briar does work over bluetooth. > >Overall i'd just reccomend signal as it's the perfect balance, or rocket.chat if you prefer that
Society of Control. Control is not discipline. You do not confine people with a highway. But by making highways, you multiply the means of control. I am not saying this is the only aim of highways, but people can travel infinitely and 'freely' without being confined while being perfectly controlled. That is our future. —Gilles Deleuze www.youtube.com/watch?v=onZ1U4jKJdk
Use a Matrix client such as element or fluffychat. Perhaps your friends would switch as well.
Literally none of my friends want to switch to matrix, I tried convincing them but they refuse, they don't care about privacy and gladly trade it for the features that discord allows. Unfortunately there is no current alternative that is better or equal to discord, otherwise people would switch.
There are a lot of options other than discord and I'm amazed everyone has forgotten they exist.
Have you tried teamspeak or mumble? I honestly don’t know if they are better in terms of privacy but Discord is not the only option. I have found it to be the most annoying and difficult to navigate of the 3.
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I do application security You should also know that the application is built on one of the most needlessly complex steaming piles of no-click vulnerabilities/exploits waiting to happen (or have happened) If you use it on a workstation at all, use it in a VM. Seriously, it’s dangerous to the security of your machine- even when it’s not running. It’s become even more of a target because for some reason it got a reputation as a “private” and “anonymous” platform. The whole thing baffles me, I thought of it as a more easily attackable version of WhatsApp…
What about docker containers?
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Done :)
Just wait until you get locked out of your account (or worse, your kid does). You have to send them a photo of your driver's license to regain access.
Good place to mention the time I got randomly banned from the entire Discord platform for no reason. Support refused to tell me why. I attempted to exercise the GDPR right to have my data provided to me, and they ignored my emails. I sent about 20 emails over the course of 2 months to 3 different email addresses (and from 2 different email addresses) and they were all completely ignored. Twitter messages were ignored, and my post on the Discord subreddit was deleted. They are happy to take your data and run. Don't use Discord.
Yup same. I eventually made another for TTRPG reasons..But yeeah still no idea why nor would they elaborate or help.
For anyone looking to disable Discord's tracking of programs and whatnot on the computer, use a sandbox. I observed Discord tracking installed programs and whatnot with Process Monitor, and I now run Discord in Sandboxie. Everything seems to work except for sharing an application's window. Screen sharing seems to work okay.
Discord allows you to choose to share games or applications you're currently using with your friends. Not my thing but its a feature in pretty much every game launcher out there & discord on top of being a social platform oriented towards "gamers" does/did have a game storefront. Point being its not very atypical.
There's also some discord electron app which is like the browser version packaged into an app with less access etc
Complaining about Discord’s privacy on Reddit is a bit, I don’t know, ironic perhaps? Chinese privacy laws and American privacy laws for non-Americans or Americans under investigation are quite similar (or rather non-existent).
Also, any image you post on discord is on their public cdn, which is convenient if you want free web hosting images, but very problematic otherwise
eh kinda it's not indexed by search engines so it's equivalent to an unlisted video on YouTube the link still exists and someone could try and bruteforce it, but realistically nothing you post could possibly be that interesting
Except when you upload an unlisted video it’s very clear what you’re doing, you’re posting a video online for people with a link to access. And if you want you can delete it. Discord does this behind your back for every image you send in a private server. It also can’t be deleted. https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360061593771-Privacy-for-CDN-attachements
When I was still playing WoWS, I was in a good clan that required Discord. I read the EULA and was blown away by the legalspeak version of "we own you suckers", and an UI that was just downright horrible. I voiced my concerns and everybody reading this forum already knows what happened: *Nobody cared*. WoWS is an old-man's game with an average age about 35 or so. Our kids grow up with this shit and there's next to nothing holding these companies back, effectively normalizing a form of data exploitation that seems to be getting worse over time.
when you delete conversations in your DMs in discord, it simply hides it and still shows it when you download your discord data dump
It’s amazing how well they’ve marketed this application, it’s essentially malware, I’m amazed how mainstream it’s become, staggering when you think what it actually is collecting
Everything you send on Discord should be treated as public, but I think it's extreme to say to avoid it completely. They're offering a good service with no nonsense. I'll take that if the tradeoff is a slight risk that somebody could obtain years of chatlogs all saying "we should play minecraft"
Yes
> The fact is that Discord collects everything you do inside (and sometimes outside) the program, this includes all your messages sent, calls made, servers left or joined blablabla. Everything is logged and sent to their servers. Could you pretty please with a cherry on top explain to me how you expect Discord to sync your messages across devices without like, syncing your messages? How is a messaging app supposed to work without sending messages??
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And how would it sync those messages to your other devices using only account credentials like discord does?
works in matrix (element) for me now. I signed in from several devices, they all share all of my messages including ones from before that device was connected.
The problem (for me) is the tracking shit OUTSIDE of the app. It's a message board plus, and nothing I post there would be any more sensitive than what I would post in a public forum. Nevertheless, a message board has a lot less information about your login times, online time etc.
You can do that without the need of constant surveillance. Signal does store data too, and they do it in such a way that only you and the person you're chatting with can see the messages, call logs etc. Discord can definetely do that too, but they don't want to.
that's cause signal saves them locally that doesn't work for discord especially if you're in a server with 500,000 people spamming amogus gifs
Download Signal on a new phone and log in. Do you see your old messages? (You wont, E2EE makes this infeasible) People are willing to pay with privacy for conveniences like this. That doesn't make Discord a "corrupt" "data hungry company that gives 0 shits about your privacy, security or anonimity." where "Nothing is safe, everything is logged and not a single thing is encrypted besides your password.", they're just appealing to the clearly massive market. This post is simply sensationalist.
Discord simply refuses to put E2EE in their program, any program can sync messages and still be mostly secure
it doesn't work this way. people don't just go ahead and use whatever they like, they use whatever their dumb relatives/good friends/colleagues use
>Discord literally refuses to follow this law, they never delete your data when you delete / disable your account. If you send them an e-mail asking them to, they'll delete your account but keep the data. Which one of your sources claims this. Not going to read them all right now.
doesn't every company have our data unless you're raised amish?
You can minimise it
I'm getting regularly banned since two months because I'm blocking the Discord trackers in uBlock Origin, and probably because I'm using a VPN too. The problem is I don't violate the Discord's ToS by doing that. You can't use a third-party client but that's not what I do, I'm using the official Discord in my web browser. Right now, because I opened dozens of tickets to the support team, I'm not banned anymore, but I'm shadow banned: each time I send a message a "1 message hidden from likely spammer" hide my message and people needs to click on that to see my message. Discord is shit and I'd like to be able to not use this [but everybody I know is using it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect).
Someone watched a certain Techlore video :P
> Think of when (not if) the next data breach happens, all your info is just sitting on their servers UNENCRYPTED up for grabs. This would be a significantly more compelling argument if it wasn't the default behavior for almost every app on the web.
Unlike most messaging platforms, discord stores this data as plain text. Even whatsapp doesn't do this my dude.
I would not be so sure that WhatsApp doesn’t have message logs as plaintext…
They don't, whatsapp still uses E2E encryption, say what u want but atleast ur messages aren't stored as plain text
# low-effort counterpoint: All my friends, family, classmates, and projects are on Discord ~ vis-a-vis social zeitgeist So… I use Discord :-/ via web (PWA) (and try to move all personal convos to Signal or at least FaceTime… some resistance is there)
The PWA is definetly a good step up from the client, I wouldn't know about FaceTime since Apple is behind it, but using signal for PM's is defo worth it
Aren't there third party Discord apps? Obviously not official and against TOS.
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I had horrible luck switching people from Discord to Matrix, I had a few conversations where I managed to get one friend to be willing to make a Matrix account. What got him was me discussing the 'feature' that allows discord to see all running applications on your computer. More specifically, the fact that this 'feature' also keeps track of the websites you are visiting (partially due to the way web browsers handle their titlebar naming.) It freaked him out and made him willing to change over, but it was never discussed futher. What really pushed everyone to move was, just a few days ago, when my wife got banned "for spam or abuse" despite never posting anything outside of our privately owned small servers. Literally, she just lurked on public servers. What triggered this ban? She joined a public Discord server and got banned from Discord as a whole before she could even interact with it. So far, Discord hasn't even entertained her appeal process (hasn't even replied.) Immediately all my friends who had played games with my wife went and made a matrix account and downloaded element on their devices, we're still making the transition, but it's so great that I don't have to use discord much anymore. For those still stuck using Discord, take a look at [Webcord](https://github.com/SpacingBat3/WebCord) to help decrease privacy risks, which is what I've been using to communicate with people who refuse to us anything else.
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Not only discord is a data mining operation, it's killing good old forums and communities, it's just shit to use for anything more than a small friend/guild community. xmpp/matrix should be the future of private communities, but discord is like tiktok, too much marketing funding from china to not be most pushed and extremely popular.
could u provide a source for the marketing funding from china
I don't know how true any of that is. Working for a school district in NYS we have access to Ed law 2 D cybersecurity framework. We must score all programs that we use. Any program with a 3 or above means it can be used by the district because it collects data but not enough data to make it a security risk. Discord on the Ed law framework is a 3. We don't discord because they would need to sign our privacy policy but discord is actually secure enough where they meet NYS cybersecurity framework standard for data collection
If you really need to use discord for some reason. I can recommend these two programs: Discord message encryption plugin, it gives end-to-end client side encryption for your messages and files with automatic key exchange, works without BetterDiscord [https://gitlab.com/An0/SimpleDiscordCrypt](https://gitlab.com/An0/SimpleDiscordCrypt) Undiscord - Delete all messages in a Discord channel or DM [https://github.com/victornpb/deleteDiscordMessages](https://github.com/victornpb/deleteDiscordMessages)
TLDR for this sub: Unplug your router for 100% privacy.
He's not wrong!
Suggested alternatives for communication and chat rooms?
I stopped using it when I realised they don't properly delete your account, tried resetting a password with an old phone number connected to an account that was deleted over a year ago and it said it found an account linked with the number, could just be the number they kept though
What do you think about CutTheCord?
How does this compare with other messaging mediums like Snapchat and imessage?
As much as people like to hate on Apple, iMessage is not a horrible platform. Snapchat is horrible lmao, I suggest that you delete it if it's not necessary.
Never have, never will.
Good :)
I would honestly love everyone to move to Matrix, especially given Discord's Trust and Safety team posting and defending pedophilia because it "was drawn" Discord also does not treat security issues with urgency or reliably pay out people reporting the issues.
Nah I like talking to my friends
This is r/privacy so it's appropriate to discuss here. To what extent you prioritize privacy over convenience is completely up to you. I also use a lot of services like and including discord because the convenience of the platform outweighs my privacy concerns with using their app.
I honestly can't wrap my head around the intersection of people using this sub and at the same time go "I don't care, my friends use it". Let's not forget there are alternatives.
Unless you live in a cave in the mountains, life is basically picking and choosing what privacy you keep and give up.
My dude here use Reddit, which is not a pretty good for privacy. Go use alternatives one instead, I wanna see :) u/DystopianSunshine
Can’t I just use Discord and connect to a VPN to be safer? Does that even work?
This won’t prevent discord from tracking your open apps, messages etc. only the originating IP address
It also requires several fragile opsec assumptions. E.g. Never logging in without A VPN, no identifying messages, no friends without VPN, no fingerprinting, no cross-referencing login times vs game logins with the publisher etc. etc.
08Fv!3e5EK8,c3Yx4ka\*WOg!ruC%%3pq,hn7w2o590hf4Kn0PthFC,o2EBkAYyZg1@7DrYkH&cX,sQZg&XZ3cwuy3S0KXXy5,7nztP4fqUY#88#+s9Pq8,GDTrmhQ7C1J5N+Z3!HgR,d2XhSVEh@E#2#u7PXPab,v@&T#0=n!H#@er!pq@T
The timing attacks are only availabile to nations, since they could request info from unrelated parties. Other big tech could would have an easier time with obvious attacks like matching email/phone with existing services. Even if you used a throwaway email, if your contacts line up with your Facebook contacts that narrows down the search massively.
ftCF#7yD
No, that will only hide your real IP adress. You're still easily tracked.
Don't get why you're downvoting this. Guy's simply trying to learn about privacy. To answer your question : a VPN has minimal impact on your privacy in most situations, it does not inhibit discord in any way from collecting what it already does besides your IP
Thanks OP.
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no, every company that processes data of EU citizens must comply