Privacy update for this blog

Posted on Nov 12, 2023

Update: Dec. 8, 2024: I am removing the Onion Hidden Service access to this blog. I don’t have anything against it, I’m just cleaning up my servers and running a Tor proxy is on the chopping block. This site does not block Tor users and I don’t run any trackers on this site. I don’t set pixels, run analytics, or have advertising. If you access this site via the Onion Hidden Service URL I’d love to hear from you. I could be persuaded to re-enable it.

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Thank you for reading! If you would like to comment on this post you can start a conversation on the Fediverse. Message me on Mastodon at @cinimodev@masto.ctms.me. Or, you may email me at blog.discourse904@8alias.com. This is an intentionally masked email address that will be forwarded to the correct inbox.

If you enjoy the random stuff I write here, post to Mastodon, or watch on YouTube, and are feeling generous, I am open to tips of Ko-fi.

Privacy and accessibility are important to me and I strive to make all of my properties respect those rights.

This blog doesn’t use trackers or pixels of any kind. In my former career in marketing, I know how illicit these tools are and their use in the despicable adtech industry.

In addition to not tracking visitors, this blog is now accessible as an onion service on the Tor network. The site was always available to Tor users, just now it has an onion address. Doing this adds more privacy to clients reading the site from passive surveillance, including your (and mine) ISP, DNS, and location tracking. You can access the Onion Hidden Service here:

http://ymupdjont3ai63nlm2eiabwd6rky7dfutgqjcjt4tk5nqpj5zw5kbead.onion

As a self-hoster, I like that the site is available in a different way in case my ISP ever gets mad at me and blocks http(s) ports. I already have a port forwarding issue with my ISP, so it is not out of character to see even more pressure.

Setup

For those wondering how to do this, it was actually simpler than I thought it would be. Its as easy as installing Tor and updating the torrc configuration file to point to the IP address of the site you want accessible as a hidden service.

To keep a static URL, you map custom folder locations for data and the hidden service on your server.

My setup has the Tor service running in a VM, but could easily run from almost any low powered device like a SBC board. I really wanted it to run in Docker in the VM, but I was banging my head against permission issues with custom volume mapping. In the future I want to redo this setup with a Debian-based server with the Tor proxy running in an isolated container such as LXD or even DistroBox.