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Technical

I thank the contributors to production tools such as:

and programs such as:

and website software such as:

and free operating systems:

with the Xfce desktop environment.

I want to especially thank the Xiph.Org Foundation. Xiph has many great resources on audio and created the lossless FLAC audio format, the Ogg file container, and Opus audio. You can find Opus in Ogg (.opus) or encounter it through Zoom, Discord, and Mumble. Everything from Xiph is free to use in any way that you want.

On Windows or Mac operating systems, MP3Tag is a good solution instead of EasyTag (which is Linux-only). All other programs are cross-platform. Website software works on any web browser.

I recommend that you use Mozilla Firefox instead of Google Chrome or spin-offs such as Microsoft Edge and Opera if you don’t want someone tracking everything you type. Another Chromium-based browser, Brave, mines so-called crypto-currency. Vivaldi is also based on Chromium and is closed source. (You have no idea what Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Vivaldi actually do.)

For anonymous, encrypted, and verifiable communication, I highly recommend Signal.

Instead of iMessage, try Signal. It runs on cheap smartphones that cost $100—not $700. It does video calling. It uses signatures so that you can check that the conversation is only between you and your friend. It encrypts everything, and you can verify that it encrypts everything.

You don’t need to reveal a phone number to anyone else. You can set a screen-name and share that.

Anyone can disavow any message. You can say, “I didn’t write that,” and no one could prove otherwise. Only the beginning of the conversation carries unique signatures.

Signal is open source, and every build is reproducible. In other words, you know that the final program is exactly the same as the source code. No funny business is possible. Just check the file’s hash.

Android is an imperfect operating system, and with every version, Google puts more functionality into its secret-sauce add-ons. Unlike the iPhone’s operating system (iOS), however, Android can run on cheaper hardware.

For players, the open-source program Podverse is available on both Android smartphones and iPhones. AntennaPod is on Android.

All tools that I endorse (except for the Apple Podcasts player) are open source and freely licensed. Many are also “copyleft.” This is a type of license that demands that anyone who distributes the software, art, or text must keep it under an open license. The GPL and Creative Commons are some examples of copyleft licenses.

Innumerable other open tools and protocols enable the internet to do all that it does. These include ASCII, UTF-8, e-mail, SSL/TLS, HTTP, TCP, OpenSSL, HMAC, AES, SHA, RSA, EdDSA, ECDH(E), ChaCha20, Poly1305, DNS, and Argon2. No major tech company would be where it is today without the work of countless volunteers and public sector employees.

For research purposes, the following projects deserve your attention:

  • x264† for H.264 video
  • FFMPEG† for decoding, encoding, and muxing many audio and video formats

If you want to remain anonymous online, you may want to look into Tor. The easiest way to use Tor is by using the Tor Browser, which is a special version of Firefox that runs Tor. Thank you to everyone who volunteers resources as gateways or exit nodes.

* If you use VLC to decrypt content protection on DVDs or Blu-Rays or distribute binaries of VLC, then you may violate patent laws in a jurisdiction that respects software patents. (Fair warning)

† If you use either of these tools to encode content and are in a jurisdiction that respects software patents, then using the binaries from these programs could violate patent laws. (Fair warning)