We are Techlore, a team spreading privacy & security to the masses. AMA

Hello r/cryptocurrency!

We are Techlore from the privacy community, where we are fighting a similar battle as cryptocurrency enthusiasts for user freedom and independence. We hope to accomplish this through our core mission in spreading privacy and security to the masses – we believe privacy should have the lowest possible barrier to entry and are dedicated to educating users on its importance.

We have committed ourselves to this mission for the last several years, avoiding sponsors and remaining independent every step of the way. Here are some of our most notable projects to date:

Go Incognito: A Guide to Security, Privacy, & Anonymity

Go Incognito is an entirely free course teaching users the mindset required to live a private and secure life in our invasive digital age. From using cryptocurrencies privately, to proper password management, pseudonymous, Tor, and much more – this 55 lesson course is designed for anybody to enter the world of privacy where they learn to develop a threat model and begin their journey towards digital freedom. (We are thrilled to announce we just started accepting XMR for premium viewers recently!)

Surveillance Report: Weekly Security & Privacy News

A large problem that needed addressing was the fast-paced evolution of the privacy and security world, making it difficult for end-users to keep up with the newest updates. Surveillance report is our weekly podcast dedicated to keeping people updated – be it the newest cryptocurrency breaches, the latest cybersecurity advice, or any other relevant research. We collaborate with The New Oil – a phenomenal resource we recommend people visit to learn more about privacy.

Plexus: Android App Compatibility for De-Googled Devices

Avoiding big tech is challenging, especially in regards to smartphones. The most common path people choose is de-googling their phones through custom Android ROMs, such as LineageOS, CalyxOS, or GrapheneOS. However, a glaring issue is the uncertainty of which applications will work once you install your new ROM. To address this, we developed Plexus, an open source project crowdsourcing what apps work and don’t work on de-googled phones, in addition to any possible workarounds. You’ll find several cryptocurrency-related apps work perfectly with de-googled phones, and we encourage you to consider these amazing ROM options to improve your privacy & security!

VPN Toolkit: Transparent, community-driven VPN Tools

VPNs are one of the most over-marketed tools in the privacy world. (And one of the slimiest industries!) We are bringing transparency to the industry through our VPN Toolkit. We have a public systematic scoring protocol that users can view and contribute to, open source data for users to directly compare differences in VPN providers, self-scoring VPN tools for users to choose a VPN based on their own individual needs, and a lot more in development. Our tools admittedly feel in beta at the time of this AMA, and we are working hard to develop these throughout 2021 for a one-stop-shop for users to comfortably choose a trusted service. For more information on VPNs, we recommend watching the collaboration we did with The Hated One covering common myths and misconceptions. (YouTube)

Our Video Content!

Our largest following is on YouTube, where we develop educational content, guides, cryptocurrency content, and much more. We crosspost all of our content to LBRY/Odysee, as well as PeerTube thanks to PrivacyToolsIO allowing us to post through their instance. (Did I mention we are proud sponsors of PTIO!)

Our Wonderful Communities

Finally, we host several communities dedicated towards privacy & security. We felt many privacy-focused communities didn’t keep the individual in mind – not everyone requires an extreme threat model, and we believe improvements are improvements. We are strongly opposed to gatekeeping and encourage an open-minded approach to the complex world of privacy & security. Our goal is accommodate all threat models and do our best to educate users on the downfalls of each platform they choose to join, with the ability to move to better platforms over time.

The AMA – Ask Us Anything!

We want to answer all of your questions, be it future plans, finances, ideas of what we can do next, really anything! (The worst we can say is no and give our reasons for saying no 😃) We have been large proponents of cryptocurrencies due to their extremely valuable use-case for user privacy – specifically Monero due to its privacy & anonymity benefits.

I follow r/cryptocurrency using my personal Reddit account so this was an absolute honor and we want to thank the moderators and members for having us – we are super excited to be here!

– I (Henry) own Techlore and will be responding to comments – u/myfeetsmellallday (Long Story)

– Jonah Aragon is our community manager and he will also be getting back to some comments – u/JonahAragon

– We have two other employees part of our production team (Tori & Aydan). I have told them to standby in the event people show interest in the more video/creative side of things. View our team here.