Privacy & Anonymity Resources
Primary sources behind the guides on this site: project documentation, security-planning material from established organisations, testing tools, and the research and policy record. Links go to the original, not to a summary.
Start Here
- Your Security Plan — EFF Surveillance Self-Defense
The threat-modelling walkthrough almost every other guide is downstream of. Five questions, worked through properly.
Electronic Frontier Foundation #guide - Privacy Guides
Maintained, criteria-based tool recommendations with the reasoning published alongside them.
Privacy Guides community #guide - Digital Security Training
Training material written for newsrooms and source protection rather than for a general audience.
Freedom of the Press Foundation #org - Digital Security Helpline
Free rapid-response support for civil society, journalists, and activists facing an active incident.
Access Now #org
Anonymity Networks and Operating Systems
- The Tor Project
The only download source to use, plus the signing keys needed to verify a build.
Tor Project #docs - Using Tor Browser Safely
The project's own operational rules, including the ones about torrenting and opening downloads.
Tor Project #docs - Tails — About
How the amnesic live system works and what it deliberately does not protect.
Tails #docs - Whonix — Architecture
The gateway and workstation split that makes an IP leak architecturally impossible.
Whonix #docs - Qubes OS — Introduction
Security through compartmentalisation, and the hardware requirements it demands.
Qubes OS #docs
Encrypted Messaging
- Signal — Legal Process Guidelines
What Signal is actually able to produce under legal demand, which is close to nothing.
Signal #docs - Sealed Sender
How Signal hides sender identity from its own servers, and the limits of that.
Signal #docs - Session — FAQ
Registration without a phone number, and the trade-offs of onion routing over a decentralised network.
Session #docs - Hiding Room Metadata From Servers
What a federated Matrix homeserver can observe about a room, from the people building it.
Element #docs
Mobile Hardening
- GrapheneOS — Features
Hardened allocator, network and sensors permissions, storage scopes, and sandboxed Play, described by the project.
GrapheneOS #docs - GrapheneOS — FAQ
The stated reasoning behind the narrow supported-device list, which is the part most comparisons omit.
GrapheneOS #docs - CalyxOS — Features
microG, the Datura firewall, Seedvault backups, and the monthly update commitment.
Calyx Institute #docs - CalyxOS — Device Support
Current and extended-support devices, and the bootloader-relocking requirement behind the list.
Calyx Institute #docs
Browser Fingerprinting and Testing
- Cover Your Tracks
Measures how distinctive your browser is and shows which attribute is making you rare.
Electronic Frontier Foundation #test - AmIUnique
A second fingerprinting dataset with a different population, useful as a cross-check.
AmIUnique #test - Anti-fingerprinting
The uniformity strategy and letterboxing, explained by the project that depends on them.
Tor Project #docs - Fingerprinting Defenses 2.0
Farbling: per-site, per-session randomisation, and an honest account of where uniformity fails.
Brave #docs - Firefox expands fingerprinting protections
What is blocked in ETP Strict and Private Browsing, with Mozilla's measured effect on uniqueness.
Mozilla #docs - Tracking Prevention Policy
Apple's published position treating fingerprinting as covert tracking, and what it commits to.
WebKit #policy
Metadata and Documents
- Why Metadata Matters
Why the record of who contacted whom is frequently more revealing than the contents.
Electronic Frontier Foundation #guide - Safely Cleaning Document Metadata
The practical procedure, including the formats where stripping is unreliable.
Tails #docs - ExifTool
The reference command-line tool for reading and removing embedded metadata.
Phil Harvey #tool - mat2 — Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit
Format-aware metadata removal that rebuilds the file rather than blanking fields in place.
jvoisin #tool - Dangerzone
Converts untrusted documents into a sanitised PDF inside a disposable container.
Freedom of the Press Foundation #tool
Removing Personal Data
- Results About You
Google's documented monitoring and removal-request flow for personal contact details appearing in Search.
Google #tool - Remove select personally identifiable info from Search
The removal policy itself: what qualifies, what does not, and what is required to request it.
Google #docs - Bing Content Removal
The equivalent request tool for Bing, which people routinely forget to file.
Microsoft #tool - Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP)
California's single-request mechanism directed at registered data brokers.
California Privacy Protection Agency #policy - Have I Been Pwned
Checks an address against known breach corpora, which is where most exposure actually starts.
Troy Hunt #test - How to Manage Your Digital Footprint
A realistic account of what can be removed and what can only be buried.
Electronic Frontier Foundation #guide
Research and Policy
- Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium
The venue where most anonymity-system results are published; proceedings are open access.
PETS #research - A Large-Scale Analysis of Free Web Proxies
Thirty months of measurement across more than 640,000 free proxies, including content modification and RCE exposure.
Mehanna et al. #research - Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability
The report that established the public record on how broker profiles are assembled.
US Federal Trade Commission #policy - Protecting Americans From Harmful Data Broker Practices
The Regulation V rulemaking text, useful for the definitions rather than the headlines.
US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau #policy - What is Monero?
Ring signatures, stealth addresses, and confidential transactions, described by the project.
Monero Project #docs