BJ:
Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of Privacy Tips. This is the podcast for stupid sexy privacy. I'm your host, BJ Mendelson. Today's show is made possible by our friends at DuckDuckGo. So if you enjoy what we do, check out our DuckDuckGo subscription. It comes with a simple and easy to use VPN, identity theft protection, data removal service, and more. Additional information can be found at DuckDuckGo.com slash subscribe. And of course, some features and offerings will vary based on your location. Now, my friends, let me ask you something. Do you have a moment to talk about backing up your data in three different locations?

BJ:
No? Okay. How about backing up your data using three different methods? Still no? All right. Well, I guess I'll just sit here and read slouching toward Bethlehem on my Kindle until you're ready. Just let me know. Anytime now. And yes, I know I need to stop using the Kindle. We'll talk about how to de-Amazon your life in another episode. All I'll say right now is that if you can, and not everyone can, but if you can, you should cancel Amazon Prime.

BJ:
Right after you cancel your subscription to Paramount Plus. At this point, I think you know why. Now, in the original edition of Stupid Sexy Privacy, we talked about how the cloud is actually the bad place. You shouldn't put anything down there. And so usually when we say that is people will go, hey, so smart guy, where do I put my stuff instead? So it's a complicated question.

BJ:
For most people, in most cases, this is what we recommend. You use an external hard drive like the Western Digital My Passport Ultra 5 terabyte hard drive. Like I said before on the show, we will never recommend something that we don't use. So this is the hard drive I use. I've been using it for a long time. I have yet to run into a situation where I've run out of space, and it's been pretty great. So.

BJ:
I can't recommend it enough. Again, we're not paid to tell you that, which is just what we use. So the Western Digital My Passport Ultra 5TB hard drive. Using any external hard drive means you're now backed up in at least one place, right? So if you got it on your computer and you got an external hard drive, that's two. You might be wondering about the third. Another thing is that if you are using your laptop to protect your data, you want to make sure that it's encrypted. So if you've got like an Apple, you want to make sure file vault is turned on, for example. And one other thing we just want to make clear, if you're going to use your device to have to be a single, you know, one of your sources to back up, you always want to make sure that you're not using biometric. So if it's your phone, you don't want to use facial recognition. You don't want to use the thumb prints you want.

BJ:
The long passcode. And if you're on a laptop, you always want to set it so that anytime you step away from the computer, a password is needed to access it. So if you don't know how to do any of that, again, don't worry. We're going to get to everything in this series. But today, I'm just kind of giving you an overview. So if you have this question of like, all right, how do I get my data from my laptop to my phone to my external hard drive? That's going really depend on what kind of device you have and what kind of OS you have. For most people, in most cases, the best laptop is a MacBook Pro for reasons we talk about throughout this series. That's the computer we recommend. That's the computer we use. We have a lot of problems with Apple as a company. I just found consistently that when I've tried to tell people to use Ubuntu, which we're gonna get to in a second, or if I try to get them to use something made by like system 76 and I tell them to run PopOS, their eyes start to glaze over.

BJ:
The MacBook Pro for most people in most cases is the most secure device. For those of you that are looking for maximum privacy, any device purchased from system 76, running Pop OS is the thing you want to use. And if you are using Windows, God bless you, that's totally fine. But you should know of three options. Just mentioned Windows is the worst. And if you're using Windows, there is good news. We recommend you try Ubuntu.

BJ:
And see how you like it. Ubuntu is free. It's popular and it's much more customer friendly than most other versions of Linux. You can try it. It doesn't cost you anything. You can get rid of it if you don't like it, but just by using Ubuntu on your Windows computer, you've already made your computer more secure. So you can download Ubuntu to a flash drive, pop it into Windows, give it a test run and see if you like it. And we'll of course, we'll spend some more time later in this series talking about how to do that. So.

BJ:
Because you know, I make it sound easy, but these things take a lot of steps and takes a lot of time and you got to be able to find who you want to and then download it properly. So I'm telling you in advance, I recognize that I make it sound easy. I know it's not, but right now again, we're just trying to give you the overview. So if you are not using an Apple product and really this applies to Apple products too, the best way to move your files from one device to an external hard drive is free file sync. Like the name implies, it is free.

BJ:
Free file sync. I have to say its user interface is not great. But a lot of the software we're going to recommend to you, I think we've mentioned this before, there's always going to be this trade off, right? Where you've got like Bitwarden versus KeePassXE. Bitwarden has got a really nice user interface and it's easier to use, but it's going to cost you some money, right? Versus KeePassXE, which does the same thing as Bitwarden in storing your passwords, but it's a little clunkier.

BJ:
And there's a little bit of a learning curve in terms of how to use it. So that's sort of the same deal here. Like FreeFileSync is free. It's great. The user interface sucks. So if you use an Apple product, you have an alternative. It's called iMazing. And you can use iMazing to move your files around. So that's pretty good. So you might be thinking, all right, BJ, what's this third backup method? And I'm glad you asked.

BJ:
Let's say you got a MacBook Pro and file vault is turned on what you should do if it's not turned on you should go and turn it on right now and Let's say you've got your Western Digital My Passport Ultra 5 terabyte hard drive. What's the third place to back up your data? So this is where your friends family or trusted third party like an attorney come in What you want to do is back up your most important data on one additional device like a 1 terabyte micro SD card

BJ:
Then you want to take that micro SD card and give it to a friend or family member for safekeeping. People have fun with this. My favorite example of having fun with this is the privacy expert, Michael Bazel. And he recommends using like a one terabyte SanDisk micro SD card and place it inside of a hollow nickel. He then takes the hollow nickel and he like covertly places it inside of his friend's house. And his friend has no idea where it is. That's fun.

BJ:
If you want to do that and entertain yourself, think that's great. The only downside to that, of course, is that if you want to retrieve the micro SD card at some point and make sure it has the latest information, it might be a little awkward constantly trying to find excuses to come over to your friend's house and then like reading around in their stuff. So I don't know if I'd what Mr. Bazzill does, but just to give you an idea, you can have fun with this. I know that it's very serious, but that third backup thing is definitely something you want to have and how you choose to store it.

BJ:
Is up to you, but this is just examples. So the point here is if you have someone you trust, you give them the micro SD card to hold onto. If you don't have someone you trust, and I totally get it, you can place this micro SD card inside of a fireproof safe. That is fine if you want to do that. But the only way to defeat the fascist and weirdos is by building strong offline connections and community. So if you don't have someone you can trust right now, that's okay. We're going to help you find your people. And one of those people can be trusted with your micro SD card.

BJ:
Today's episode of the privacy tips was recorded in Hollywood, California and is sponsored by DuckDuckGo. It was written, produced and hosted by me, BJ Mendelsohn. Before we go, I wanna give a shout out to the production team at Stupid Sexy Privacy, which includes Andrew Van Forhis, Rosie Tran, and Amanda King. And of course, our friends at DuckDuckGo who make this all possible.

BJ:
If you enjoyed today's show, we hope you'll take a moment to leave a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you may be listening. This won't take more than two minutes of your time. You see, we have this crazy goal and we need your help to achieve it. We want 5% of Americans to be 1% better at protecting themselves from fascists and weirdos. Leaving us a review can help make that happen. That's because your reviews will help other people find the show. So please take a moment to leave us a review and I'll see you next time on Privacy Tips.