A paper-only journal would defend against the state, but not against people you live with. A digital journal can be encrypted, but an intelligence agency could potentially gain access (like, them reading your anti-government rants that may involve violence… that sort of stuff).
So… how to defend against both threats?
(Also, I just realized, paper journals cannot really be easily backed up…)
Veracrypt hidden volume attached to an air gapped system. Unless someone kicks down the door and grabs you faster than you can click once, no one is getting at, or will realize that data exists.
Could even put it on a USB drive, so killing it is as simple as yanking the USB. Hell, if the feds come sniffing, you could just toss that bitch in the microwave.
There are no shortage of encryption software in the market, use one, any one, Veracrypt is fine, so is million other software for this.
Use a note taking app like Joplin, Obsidian, though not open source is just as fine. Sync its data folder to the encrypted vault created with encryption software of your choice, and you are good to go
Finally my moment to shine with incredibly niche knowledge!
Joplin, while it has the ability to encrypt the sync target (even if it’s a local folder synced with syncthing) does decrypt the content in the app data folder. The notes are in an unencrypted database while all attachments just hang out in the attachment folder.
This leaves the content vulnerable if the computer is compromised. But then again, apps that keep stuff encrypted at rest still have to decrypt it to memory - leaving the content vulnerable if the computer is compromised. 🤷♂️
All in all, Joplin is definitively one of the great, more secure note taking apps.
if you have legitimate concerns about the government coming after you, you simply do not keep a diary. At all. Not even one where you promise not to write anything incriminating.
I’m not sure if I have a legitimate concern. I have never attended a protest (too scared) and I never had any large online presence. I don’t even show my name or face on the internet. I don’t have any wikipedia pages.
So… maybe I’m just over-cautious… 🤷♂️
Starting your Wikipedia page now
I don’t have these legitimate concerns, and I STILL keep stuff like that as thoughts in my head. The only reason I’d journal my thoughts is if I eventually wanted someone to read them.
I keep my journaling for things I actually do in real life that I want to keep track of.
What is the purpose for writing it down? When you know that answer, then you look for the safest way to accomplish that purpose, which probably isn’t a diary.
I tried it for a while. Going back and reading it later just made me cringe so I stopped.
Some people just process these things better by forcing themselves to put them into words. Journals, for some people are not written to be read, but to be written.
I was like they in high school. Wrote out my thoughts. Lose-leaf paper in my binder with me other school stuff, so they didn’t survive more than a few months. But the writing was the point. No-one was ever going to read them, not even me.
Then simply write it in a text editor without saving it into a file, it’ll be lost after closing the program.
Unless you have a keylogger installed.
True, but then you have bigger problems than just the journal.
Agreed, but that was kind of the premise of the discussion, I think.
Well, there aren’t that many people who can read Gregg shorthand. That’s more encoding than encryption though
A paper-only journal would defend against the state, but not against people you live with. A digital journal can be encrypted, but an intelligence agency could potentially gain access
A digital journal doesn’t need to be any more government-accessible than a paper journal.
Depending on your threat model, this could require special hardware, special software, or both. In order of ease of setup, I would suggest:
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Keep all your data on your own physical media. No cloud services, period.
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Keep it encrypted.
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Disable network connectivity at every level that you possibly can, such as:
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OS level: disabling wi-fi, disable blutooth, and disable networking entirely.
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Firmware/BIOS level: If you BIOS has options to disable networking components (especially wireless ones), do that.
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Hardware level: If your laptop has a switch to disable wi-fi, use it. If ethernet, unplug the cable. Etc.
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Physical level: Remove any removable wireless cards or antennas.
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Wallet level: buy a computer than never had wi-fi or bluetooth in the first place. This could mean a retro computer, or could mean using a micro-pc like some models of Raspberry Pi.
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Dedicated, airgapped (not internet connected) device with strong password.
Keep it just in your head until Elon Musk forces Neural link on everyone, then you’re fucked.
They took black mirror as an instruction manual… 😭
Write everything in digital form … use text only because it’s easier to archive, manage, organize and refer to in the future
Encrypt as much as you can and keep a copy locally and in as much safe keeping and off line as much as possible whenever and however you can.
I wouldn’t worry about having the state come after you and use the information against you … or worry too much about intelligence agencies cracking your encryption and reading all your writing … really … who cares because if the state does want to come after you, they wouldn’t care what evidence was available … a journal might make their case easier but in the long run, they wouldn’t care any way.
I would think about the journal and writing from an archival point of view. You’re not writing and creating all that content for yourself … you’re writing and creating it for future generations to see and read. Sure, it might get destroyed or erased … but it also might have a chance of being stored, shared, archived and rediscovered in the future. It would be like reading journals and content written by people before the first or second world wars and historians would gain a valuable insight into the minds of people during our time period. The information we produce now doesn’t matter much to anyone right now whether for good or bad reasons … the information we create now will mean so much more to people far into the future.
So go ahead … write, write often and write as much as you can … the more you write, the more you leave behind for someone in the future to find.
A physical journal written in a secret code
This was my first thought as well. The code doesn’t even have to be very secretive to beat most people from figuring it out. Torture would be the only way and it still would have plausible deniability.
So eventually no decipherable, nor understandable decryption easily succeeds. (The previous sentence has a secret message.)
Ontop of the various good suggestions already mentioned you could also keep your choice of medium in a safe
Make sure it’s fireproof though.
Typewriter with UV reactive ink would stop a cursory local glance, and could start a new hobby.
Edit: the old ribbon could be used as a backup.
Write a paper journal and when there are sensitive stories write them in a cypher only you know the key to?
Digital with strong encryption, and protect the device so that it can’t be copied while unlocked. You’re probably not so important that they’d target you.
Security only works if you use it before you become a target.
You’re probably not so important that they’d target you.
Not actively, of course. I’m talking about when the authorities one day want to retroactively dig through stuff to find dirt.
The threat would be that they do a targeted attack on my devices and monitor for 72 hours, recording everything happening in my device, before they apprehend me.
(Not that the lack of evidence would stop them from trying, but the less info they get, the better chance I have)
If they’re on your device, you’ve already lost. To protect against that, you’d have to keep an offline device, either physical or digital. Digital encrypted, physical in a made-up language and script that only you know.
If you’re just worried about people you live with and passive scan type stuff I’d do a LUKS flash drive and a txt file. If you are worried about more active stuff from 3 letters then I still think digital is going to be the best bet, but you’d better use qubes or even dedicate an airgapped computer with an encrypted drive but even that is iffy for a serious anti gov threat model.
