How can I prevent old accounts (privacy unfriendly, will be deleted) from mixing up with new ones (priv friendly, for future use), if I still need to log in to both using same pc?

Privacy and Security Get Advice
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What do you want advice about?

how to prevent mixing of old and new account/identity while cleaning things up if I have only one computer? I have things to clean like g. accounts, other accounts, old information and logins, which require me to log in privacy unfriendly sites while I do it. it will take quite long.

the problem is I also need to create my new things using privacy friendly sites, however it will need to stay on same pc, and I would not like to mix them in any form. like for example, old g. account knowing my new proton account belongs to me, or other gov and important accounts which can not be deleted. they will have my old info there however it needs to be updated.

What have you considered or looked at already?

I was thinking, is two vpns sufficient? one for new things, other for old. but some accounts like g. sometimes do not let log in with vpn. would also using 2 different linux distros to separate them be enough?

tor is not suitable for this case

example (on same computer):
1st linux distro (lets say, ubuntu) + free proton vpn (sometimes turned off for when I am not permitted to log in) = used for deleting and managing old stuff and log ins, privacy unfriendly

2nd linux distro (like debian?) + another vpn provider = used only for new accounts and things, more privacy friendly, should not be correlated to first linux distro

is this enough or am I missing something? do let me know what you would do

also the router and wifi connection are the same, I am not permitted to change that

In brief, tell us about your privacy threat model?

I would say a 7 out of 10, simply I do not want to be always tracked mostly by big tech, gov is not much of issue. I prefer to not have old accounts linked to my new privacy set ups, not too strict.

thanks for any responses :slight_smile:

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  • 1st piece of advise, unless you truly need it throw perfection out the window. Its not attainable without bigger tradeoffs than most people can/are willing to make and it leads to paralysis and disillusionment. You can pursue as moderate or extreme of a solution as you want, just don’t consider perfection to be attainable
  • As to the question, based on your priorities I think there are a number of ways you could approach this. It just depends where on the spectrum between ease-of-use and full compartmentalization you want to go.
    • One example, here is what I might do in your situation.
      • PC with Linux as the host OS, this is where all of my privacy respecting accounts, and day-to-day browsing happens.
      • Separate Linux VM setup with a reputable (paid) VPN w/ built-in ad/tracker blocking DNS servers and a firewall setup to block all connections except to specific VPN servers, and Firefox+uBO or Brave Browser. This is where I would contain the privacy-invasive services. (Optionally: you can further compartmentalize the various privacy invasive services from one another by repeating this setup with additional VMs or separate browsers within a single VM if weaker separation is okay).

I don’t think you’d need two separate VPNs, I suspect this would be unnecessary and overkill, unless your threat model considers legal or state level actors or targeted surveillance. I think you would be more than fine choosing two separate VPN servers with the same service provider.

If the above sounds too complicated or like overkill (and it might be) a weaker approach that would still compartmentalize your browsing to a degree would be to use separate browsers on the same host OS. This is what I do for things. There are stronger approaches as well but I think they are out of scope for this.

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If you use the same VPN, what’s your threat. The bad sites now know your using a VPN. Probably not bad. Perhaps your last IP addressed is saved. First in First out.
If a service will not let you use a VPN then just use your old system to log in. Do not use your old set up to create new services/accounts.

The new privacy respecting services will know your using a VPN, once again that’s OK. I agree with two different servers, perhaps using the slowest one as your server for deleting accounts.

Using two different distro’s is cool, using a similar browser with your old accounts may help. Such as you used Google Chrome, now use Brave as it looks similar chromium based. Browser isolation may be enough for your needs.

Some efforts too delete accounts take a while. I will use one disposable email for a week, and often log back in to verify changes.
Deleting all non required PII, falsifying all required PII, edit all credentials to disposable credentials and deleting your account is a massive amount of work if you have lots of accounts.
In my journey I am getting to the point where I am doing the equivalent to “google take outs”, saving 10 years of Amazon purchase history is important when you want to reorder.

My identities are in KeePass folders with entries of accounts.
I mention the difficulty and time to be thorough to emphasis don’t over complicate things as often do.
You might use one KeePass database on one system to manage what you do on that system and another file for the other system.
Duplicating your work would be unproductive so it might help to have a journal or a back up of your progress if your running two systems on one PC.