Dunno (yet); i’d assume they’d scan your wallet QR?

I haven’t explored that yet as here is none nearby. There aren’t many vendors of these machines.

You may have an ATM near you.

You’ll be frowned upon. Severely.

You obviously didn’t format it.

The access is limited but of course…

Oh no…
Anyway…

Yes.

I know owning my domain will give me freedom to move my email elsewhere if I would want but I dont know if its worth it.

If you can’t answer neither can i.

whois lookup privacy?

Many tiers to chose from and no one will check if you live in Nowhere St 1337 anyway.

Proton and Tuta also offer custom domains.

IVPN perhaps?

Proton?

It’s a cosmic cabal! The aliens are coming!

Data packets through radio?

Software Defined Radio?

Check out the gemini protocol and the small web, lots of rabbit holes there.

Signal’s american and their infrastructure’s based on american Amazon, so there’s that…
You could use a VPN i guess.

Why swedes, why?

Paid tiers only i think, but yes.

If the hat fits, that’s up to you ;)

They may, as do morons.

Switzerland is one of the least shit so I fail to see your point.

I like to dish out advice without actually following it.

Was Minority Report a documentary too?

As legally required. Any company that wants to operate aboveboard needs to comply with local law - that includes Proton.

Proton’s CEO seems to be a right-wing jackass.

Tuta. Regardless of email provider, chose one that lets you use your own domain - that way it’s easier to change providers.

No, the real issue is that people don’t want to admit when they’ve been taken for a ride.

How ironic…

Grannyporn.

I’ve been happy with joker (de).

Ideally one wouldn’t need to pay to experience a form of art

Sure… music instruments and the electricity to feed a stage are free.

rip to a computer

99% of new PCs lack a CD drive.

I use BandCamp or HDtracks when i can’t find it in the former.
If you’re in the US, Privacy.com has CCs. There are some sites that over gift cards via XMR too.
Generally though, if there’s a CC involved, there’s almost always KYC.

Meh, not here for the karma.

Just keep in mind it’s a path, take your time.
Also, what may be important to you may not be for someone else and vice-versa, so look up and read up on threat modeling. This should probably be first on your list.

mini pc before the isp modem to filter dns

You mean after the modem and before your network? Then that solution is feasible, otherwise it really depends how The Net enters your domicile, odds are coax or fibre…
You may be able to flash your modem+router+switch black box the ISP provides, but YMMV on that one.
Regardless, you can set-up that mini pc inside your network as the authoritative DNS server to act as a DNS sinkhole — i.e. using a PiHole.

I have a pc w dual boot

Suggestion: linux-only with windows inside a virtual machine; other virtual machines can be used for self-hosting also.

backup data

Use 3-2-1 and make sure your backups are working.
Look into RAID and LVM or, better yet, ZFS.

dell optiplex

Lenovo Thinkpads tend to have a following in linuxland, but that’s personal preference.

What am I missing? Where should I look?

Techlore has a series of videos on the topic and, along with the new oil, they have a weekly video on security and privacy. Non-tech-friendly. There are quite a few podcasts on these topics.

You can further your privacy by using frontends to common abusive sites (which i link to, sorry), such as invideous for youtube, etc.

A programming language is always interesting, linux is mostly based on C and it’s not a bad start. I’ll duck for cover now. Shell scripting — bash in particular — will get you a long way, as well a command-line text editor to change config files.

They succeded in a way, XMPP lost a lot of users back then in the era when communications where migrating from group-focussed IRC to individual-focused Whatsapp (or their respective walled-gardened messengers).
Better than matrix in the ways 2poVoq@slrpnk.net listed above.

Suggestion accepted, looks nice.

Why is it in your opinion better?

It’s an open protocol, unlike 99% of chat protocols. It’s self-hostable and federated.
It’s IRC’s successor and been around a long time, first popularized by Jabber. Snikket made it even easier to use.
It was also EEEed by Meta and Google to lure users at a given point, with leads some to say “it’s dead” — far from it.
Edit: you may need to ensure OMEO versions are the same across all clients.

Depends. On. The. Country.
Any company will be subject to the country’s laws, be it ISPs, VPN providers or a second-hand clothing shop.

The good ones will get away with no logging if they can do it legally.

I think SimpleX is mesh?

So democracies and… US and China? I agree.

Have you tried a bank in your country? Mine have been providing virtual cards for over a decade.
Or Revolut. Or N26.