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The Panopticon

The panopticon is a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control, originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single corrections officer without the inmates knowing whether they are being watched.

Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched motivates them to act as though they are all being watched at all times. They are effectively compelled to self-regulate. The architecture consists of a rotunda with an inspection house at its center. From the center, the manager or staff can watch the inmates.

— Adapted from Wikipedia

The Internet is a place for freedom of expression, enabling individuals worldwide to share ideas and information without undue interference. This unique space fosters open communication, supports democratic participation, and drives social and political development. Protecting this value is essential to ensuring that the Internet remains an open, accessible, and neutral forum where diverse voices can be heard and respected, free from censorship and oppression.

That said, protecting one's privacy is essential to upholding the internet's freedom because privacy and freedom of expression are deeply interconnected. Privacy enables users to express themselves freely without fear of surveillance and censorship, and with minimal retaliation from egoistic authorities. When people know their personal information and communications are unprotected, as in the case of The Panopticon, they are unlikely to participate openly in discussions without self-censorship. This undermines the ability of various groups, from minority populations to independent media, to be heard, allowing governments and powerful actors like large corporations to control narratives, spread propaganda, and manipulate public opinion. Therefore, safeguarding privacy is fundamental to maintaining an open and free internet where everyone can exercise their right to free expression.

This is an undertaking that begs for a deep dive and exploration of endless possibilities, and few possess the grit and determination needed to reach an advanced stage. However, the first steps can take you surprisingly far by how simple they are to execute.

FOSS

Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software to everyone free of charge. It is an umbrella term encompassing free software (“free” as in “gratis”) and open-source software. Using open-source software has many advantages, especially when working towards safeguarding personal privacy.

Transparency: The code is open for anyone to inspect, which builds trust and allows users to verify security and functionality.

Proprietary software does not have its source code publicly available. This means that developers can hide functions behind the carefully curated interface, performing functions without the users' knowledge. Many proprietary applications collect user data for analytics, advertising, and surveillance, sometimes without clear user consent, risking personal information being misused or shared with third parties such as governments and data brokers. Figuring out what an application may be doing behind the scenes often requires labour-intensive reverse engineering.

Security: With many eyes viewing the code base, vulnerabilities are often quickly identified and fixed.

A global community contributes to development, troubleshooting, and innovation, leading to robust and high-quality software. On the other hand, the security of a user with proprietary software depends on the vendor, and users can only simply hope that vendors handle data responsibility. Furthermore, when vulnerabilities are discovered, users rely solely on the vendor for timely fixes. Delays and neglect can lead to significant data breaches.

Flexibility: Users can modify the source code to fit their specific needs, and vendor lock-in is avoided as users can easily switch providers.

Users become dependent on a single vendor, making switching to alternative solutions difficult and costly. Users have little control over the software's development, updates, and feature requests. If a vendor discontinues support of an application or goes out of business, users may be left without critical updates. This is often less of a risk in open-source software as the global community can simply pick up where the original developers left off due to the public codebase.

Free of Charge: Open-source software is typically free of charge compared to proprietary software.

Many say that if the product is free, then you are the product. This doesn't have to be the case. Due to the privacy advantages of open-source software, data collection in open source software is minimal and when something is free, it often really is free.

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[Everything from this point onward is a work-in-progress.]

The transition from proprietary software to privacy-respecting FOSS can be as easy as setting a default web browser or putting a different Notes app on your home screen. Here are some recommendations to switch to, away from the typical culprits, based on category:

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