Privacy Activist Kit

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Large Language Models (LLMs) ​

Difficulty: ★★

ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek. All these chatbots are revolutionizing our daily lives, but they all have one thing in common: they love to collect your data.

Any information these LLMs absorb can potentially be extracted. Let's analyze some offline and privacy-oriented solutions to enjoy AI chatbots locally.

Prerequisites: ​

  • A desktop PC with a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM.
  • A GPU with as much VRAM as possible.

No model running locally will ever match the quality and speed of the famous, well-funded services, mainly due to the limitations of your computer's power.

If you want to experiment and run some models locally, the simplest solution is Ollama.

  1. Download and install Ollama.
  2. Download one or more models from the internet. Look for models ranging from 1B to 8B parameters; anything larger becomes impossible to run at a sufficient speed on most home computers.
  3. Start the model and begin chatting.
  4. Optional: Install a graphical interface to make interacting with the model more comfortable. My favorite is Open-WebUI.

VPS and Internet Domains ​

Difficulty: ★★

Do you need to create websites, buy domains, or host personal services on rented servers? Here are some services that I find interesting.

Web Domains: ​

  • Njalla: For over 10 years, Njalla has been the standard for anyone who wants a privacy-oriented web domain. They require no KYC, work over Tor, and accept payments in Bitcoin.

Server and VPS Rental: ​

  • LNVps: A provider where you can rent servers in Ireland or Canada without a traditional account (just a Nostr account). They require no KYC, no personal data, and accept Lightning payments. Server availability is low, and the service is a bit raw, but it's suitable for small self-hosting projects.
  • VPSbg: A server provider in Bulgaria. They accept Lightning payments, and I have personally hosted my Tor exit node with them. After years of collaboration on various projects, I have always been very satisfied from a security and privacy perspective. They are not particularly cheap.
  • Alexhost: This provider doesn't have particular features for anonymity, but they offer good VPS, accept Bitcoin, and have data centers in interesting jurisdictions like Switzerland.

There are many other privacy-oriented providers that accept Bitcoin (e.g., 1984hosting, Cockbox). Look for services that fit your technical needs (bandwidth, jurisdiction, CPU). I have tried all the services mentioned above and have always been satisfied.