Unfortunatly, we can no longer trust our institutions to preserve and maintain privacy. Social media communication is subject to whims of rogue prosecutors. Banks routinely provide information on their customers without warrant. Edward Snowden has shown that where we go and where we have been on the internet is monitored by big tech and by government. If you say something that is counter to the prevailing, often false, narrative then you are subject to silencing, shadow banning, and demonetization. This is the China model that is creeping into our lives without our knowledge or consent.

How to we solve the censorship problem ? One way is to never use centralized communication. That includes X (twitter), Threads, Facebook to name a few. What are the alternatives ?

Censor Resistant Alternatives

invisible internet protocol (i2p) – A darknet alternative that anonymizes its users. This network can be made to work with the bitcoin and monero cryptocurrencies. Any host can be a participant router. Nostr – Distributed global X (twitter)-like message board
Interplanetary File System (IPFS) – Global distributed content (unencrypted) storage. Any host can be a participant storage platform.

Cryptocurrency

Transacting in either Bitcoin and Monero are two ways to avoid societal deletion. Governments keep people silent and controlled by limiting access to money and bank accounts. Cryptocurrency helps resist that. We run both a Bitcoin and a Monero node for convenience. We do not hold wallets. It is recommended that one runs his own node to improve the networks.

Bitcoin looks to be accepted as a valid asset. It is not a private coin. All transaction are published to a public ledger for everyone to see. Anyone can know how much bitcoin anyone account has. It is difficult to be anonymous as most bitcoin are purchased from “Know your customer” (KYC) facilities, such as a broker or an exchange.

Monero, on the other hand, is private, and that is why many countries outlaw it. There is no way, to our knowledge, for transactions to be tracked or for anyone to know how much Monero one has. It is the ideal fungible currency, but more difficult to obtain.

Home Networking Hardware

We encourage you to “cut the cord”. TV supplied via cable is ofter redundant to what you can get free already by way of various streaming services. Shutting down TV service also makes a statement that you don’t pay for propaganda.

We suggest you install your own firewall computer between your local and outside networks. For our firewall, we are using a Beelink 5105 4 core CPU with 500GB Storage and 16 GB of memory running the IPFire OS. The small form computer has two gigabit ethernet ports. One connects to the Verizon ONT box and the other to an internal router using a coaxial cable connection with two MOCA2.5 endpoints. MOCA is a way to reutilize old TV cable to move internet signals without rewiring. The router is set to “bridge” mode, as the bridging functions are now handled by the firewall computer.