User:Captaincaveman/Complete Retards Guide To Freedom

Hello there friend. If you came to this guide, perhaps you learned 1 of the thousands of ways the NSA or one of your countries agencies spies on it's citizens. Or maybe you learned that something called Windows 10 has a privacy policy so terrible that even Russian Lawyers are trying to get it banned from their country. Whatever the reason, you don't feel secure and you want some privacy. No matter what the FBI says, human privacy is a human right, and we're here to help you with that. Just remember: The NSA has way too many tricks up it's sleeve, and to be truly secure in this day and age either means learning and making many sacrifices, or straight up adopting the Amish lifestyle...for now. But you can still be pretty secure without giving up too much, and as long as you take the first 4 steps of this guide, you'll be more secure than 90% of the population. We'll even give you progress updates.

Guide not complete.

Useful stuff not fully implemented into the guide yet:

Whats all this fuss about?

The fuss is about many things, and we'll do our best to tell you as many known ways your privacy is being violated online.

Online Advertisements and Scripts in Webpages

Ever since the early 90's advertising agencies have often hid malicious code in advertisements that put things called "tracking cookies" on your computer.

Government Agencies

If your one of the types who completely trusts world governments, you'll probably turn click the back button awfully fast, but we urge you to at least read this and the next paragraph with an open mind. You may remember a couple years ago when a man named Edward Snowden who worked at the United States National Security Agency (NSA) leaked a great load of documents for all of us to see, and fled the country to avoid the heavy persecution. The news media made him out to be an evil traitor who leaked classified documents that could aid America's enemies. This could be true technically, but in the end what he leaked were a ton of documents that have revealed what lengths the US government is spying on it's citizens in this post 9/11 society. Under what was the Patriot Act, and many other laws still in act, the goverment collects out phone records, emails, and is allowed to spy on a alot of things we do online. They are trying to pass laws like the Trans Pacific Partnership that will allow them to get away with even more stuff. Microsoft is

Why is this a big deal? I got nothing to hide.

Do you really? Thats a pretty broad statement. We really hate to start this segment with this fearmongering sounding stuff, but it's the only thing that seems to get peoples attention: Are you sure you don't mind the government, slimy advertisers, individuals who got malware on your computer, corporations, or your ISP knowing what kind of porn you look at? Do you send pictures of your junk to your significant other? Guess what, the government collects those pics! Okay, maybe you who don't do either of these things. But what about your son/daughter? Some of the younger members in the NSA pass around nudes they found in people files without the persons consent. If that isn't a crime, I don't know what is.

Installing Linux

The Linux Mint Cinnamon Desktop. The default look isn't so great, but we'll show you how to change it.

A variation of the Elementary OS Desktop.

The Linux Mint MATE Desktop. Ugly, but faster than those two.

What kind of Linux should you try?

I use windows, I want things to look fancy and I don't really want to learn too many new things/new things yet:

• Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition: The easiest Linux distribution for windows converts. if all you want to do is browse the internet, you will notice no difference.
• Manjaro Cinnamon Edition: This one will be a bit harder for you to learn, but it comes with great advantages as it's a simplified version of Arch Linux, a much harder to use distro with a wiki like no other that will teach you many things, combined with great support, from the Arch community.

I use Mac. I don't want anything that looks like windows, and I want things to be easy:

• Elementary OS: The easiest Linux Distro for Mac converts. You will have to adjust a bit, but you will have a similar experience. Installing Linux on a Mac is a bit of a pain sometimes, so it's best to just start off with this over something a bit harder like Manjaro Pantheon Edition.

I have a pre-2008 computer/I have a very cheap computer/I'm willing to make a few sacrifices to have a faster experience:

• Linux Mint MATE Edition: Easy and very similar to windows.
• Lubuntu: An ugly, but fixable distro that is easy to use.
• Xubuntu: an elegant distro that takes up more system resources than Lubuntu or Linux Mint Mate, but is faster compared to everything else on the list.
• Manjaro LXDE/MATE/XFCE Edition: This one will be a bit harder for you to learn, but it comes with great advantages as it's a simplified version of Arch Linux, a much harder to use distro with a wiki like no other that will teach you many things, combined with great support, from the Arch community. Note that the XFCE edition will take up more resources than the other two.

There are other distro's that you will hear other people talk about, however most of us recommend you stay away from of them for now until you are more comfortable. You may find some of them beneficial later on. We have a bigger section on them here.

Getting On the Internet

Look on the bottom left. See the picture of a fox hugging the earth? Thats Firefox, the program we'll be using to get to webpages. Click on it. You probably have gone through a lot, so why not surf the web for a while. If Firefox is foreign to you, just try using it like you used Google Chrome (which you can install later if you want) or Internet explorer. This isn't really recommended if you want to be secure, but chances are you'll be able to fix whatever this causes (you'll find out about all this later on). If Firefox can't connect to any webpages, that probably means you have to connect wirelessly to your password protected network, other wise it would have done all this for you. Look on the bottom right. Do you see a faded icon of two plugs disconnected from each other? Click on that, and under "Wireless", click whichever thing is directly under "wireless" unless you know what you are doing. Now type the password you got earlier.

Update Your System

Done with the break? Look down on the bottom right. Do you see a shield with an exclamation mark on it? That's Linux Mint's way of telling you it has software that must be updated to the newest version. Updating your software when Linux Mint alerts you so is highly important, as many times these updated versions fix security holes that could have allowed a hacker to compromise your system. Microsoft Windows does this too with Windows update, except unlike Windows, Linux mint doesn't try to silently update stuff and restart your computer without warning you.. Click the shield, and on the "update manager" that pops up click "install updates". You may have to do this a few times because sometimes it's the update manager itself that needs a crucial update. While your computer is updating, let's help you get comfy with your new installation.

Getting Comfy

Q: How do I get to my programs?

It's like windows. That "menu" button you see is pretty similar to the "Start Menu" on windows. Click it and you will find that there are more shortcuts to the left of the menu that pops up, and the very bottom of that list is the shutdown button. On the right you will find that your programs are organized by catagories like "Graphics" and "internet". Put your mouse pointer on those catagories and you'll see when I mean. There will be things you wont recognize right away, so I'll name off what already installed programms you'll probably be using:

• Banshee: General Purpose media player, but it's best used a music player. It's a great alternative to Itunes.
• Firefox: Our already aquainted web browser.
• Brasero : You Burn CD's with this. I don't know why they packed it though, brasero is awful and you should replace it with XFburn when you know how.
• Hexchat: Know what IRC is? Question probably answered. Don't know? You probably wont be interested. IRC isn't very secure anyways.
• GIMP: It's pretty much Photoshop with less features, but at least it doesn't cost $600.
• Libreoffice: Linux's answer to Microsoft Office.
• Pidgin: Are you one of the last people on earth who use Msn/Yahoo/Aol messenger? Then this program is for you. If not, you can hook it up to connect to facebook chat. That's not recommended though, as you'll find out later.
• Thunderbird Mail: If you prefer using a program to browse your email.
• Transmission: For those of you who know how to torrent. Many people like this program, but honestly there are 2 better programs for linux known as Deluge and Rutorrent. You should try them out when you know how to install.
• VLC: General Purpose media player, but best used for videos. You should replace it with MPV when you know how to.

Q: How do I install and remove programs?

You know how on Mac and Windows they've recently added a way to download your apps by going to a program and searching for them? Linux has used this system long before them, and you can find it by going to Menu >Administration > Software Manager. Actually linux has all sorts of different programs to manage this sort of thing, depending on what distro you downloaded. In linux mint's case if you want a more advanced program select "Synaptic Package Manager" in the same menu. You can't have both programs up at once though. Looking for Steam, Skype, or Google Chrome? Well beware. Those programs, ESPECIALLY SKYPE AND GOOGLE CHROME, are insecure and DO NOT respect your privacy. Install them AT RISK, look for alternative like jitsi or Firefox which you used earlier, or learn in this guide how you can secure them a bit. But you know what? if your done installing whatever you wanted, how about we show you the easiest (and ironically enough most intimidating) way to install software? Don't worry, if this intimidates you, you wont have to use it if you don't want to after this step.

On the bottom left, see that small picture of a box with a >_ in it? Click on that. once it's open, type this in: [code]sudo apt-get update[/code] Then hit enter, enter your password (don't worry that you can't see the *'s), hit enter again. What you did was give the system restricted privileges (with the sudo command) to update it's database that it used to know where to download software from. Now type this: [code]sudo apt-get install keepassx wine winetricks[/code] Press Y and enter if the program asks you too.You wont have to enter your password again for this one. What you did was install a nifty password manager, and two programs you'll need if you want to run Windows programs that you'll probably miss.

Afraid? Then click out. If you want to implement everything you use in this very guide, you'll probably have to get comfortable with that terminal program, but if you want to use half of this guide, you won't have to touch it again.

Q: Actually im not afraid and more intrigued. What is this thing? What can I do with it?

It's a terminal emulator, it's very similar to the one you'll find hidden on a Mac, and sortof similar to windows command line and windows powershell. Like Windows and Mac, if you truly want to master Linux it's best you know how to use the terminal. As for what you can do? All sorts of crazy shit! Give this a try and wait a bit: [code]telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl[/code] If you want to know more about the terminal, check out this guide: NOTHING HERE YET

Q: Where are my files? Where can I get to my USB drive? Where is the Recycle Bin?

Look at the bottom left. See a folder? Click on it. If a usb drive or CD/DVD is in your computer, you'll see them on the left menu. Recycle Bin is "Trash Can".

Q: Oh god why do things click when I don't want them to!?

The people who designed your laptop were probably total masochists and built in a clicking function on the computers trackpad (aka the thing you move the arrow on your computer with). Either you fixed this on windows and forgot, or someone fixed it for you. Never fear, this is easily fixed! Click on Menu > preferences > Scroll down to Mouse and Touchpad and click that > on the program that pops up click Touchpad > Turn Tap to Click off.

Q: Why can't I scroll with two fingers?

That for some reason is turned off by default. You can fix this, but it will still be different if your used to the Macbook way, instead it's like Windows: Instead of moving your fingers up to scroll down and vice versa, you do it the more logical way. Here's how you turn this on: Click on Menu > preferences > Scroll down to Mouse and Touchpad and click that > on the program that pops up click Touchpad > Set "Panel Layout" to "two finger scrolling"

Q: Okay this is all well and good, but in my oppinion this all looks ugly. How can I fix it?

Most ways are pretty easy! Click on Menu > preferences > Themes > Add/remove desktop themes > Wait for it to finish loading and click "Available Themes (online)" Checkmark whatever theme looks interesting to you, hit "install or update selected items", go back to installed themes, and as a shortcut double click that theme or click it then click "apply theme". If your unsure, try "loki", which is what I picked. However if you want to change other stuff like icons and mouse pointers, thats a bit more complicated. It's nowhere NEAR impossible though, but we'll cover this on another part of the wiki.

How secure am I now?

You are much more secure then you were, but you still have ground to cover. But guess what? In the next step we'll bring that up astronomically. So far you have ensured that unless you use Bing, microsoft and some other corporations are receiving no more of your data. You have ensured that unless anyone knows your LVM password, they cannot steal your computer and access your files in any way unless they know a very sophisticated exploit (spoiler: very very slim chance). You have also ensured that 99% of viruses and trojans that could spy on you will not be able to get in. But on the negative side, since you don't know a lot of stuff covered in the next step, theres a good chance the people who provide you internet, the NSA or your local government, some advertising agencies, the people you got your networking equiptment from, the people who manufactured your pc parts, unknown things, and possibly google know you did a lot of this. Want to know how to get around a lot of this? Keep on reading!

Strengthening Firefox and Changing Your Habbits

Get rid of that extra space on firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/hide-caption-titlebar-plus-sma/ Look and feel > on "skin" dragon down to select "Auto. Current Theme's skin (fixed position) Look and feel 2> Uncheck "Enable custom Firefox 'Home' Button. Three Line Button > Customize > right click bookmark bar > uncheck bookmarks toolbar > exit customization

Your Router is insecure

Make firefox look nicer > on search type