The Privacy Diet James Patrick

Start Here · iPhone · Your path

Use AI privately

Chatbots without handing over your life, and models that run at home. Work down the list — each step builds on the ones above it.

Pick a different goal · Change device

Start here

  1. In the book

    Using AI without giving yourself away

    AI's Wide Shut · The whole book

  2. On this site

    Local models, kept current

  3. On this site

    An up-to-date robots.txt

    If you run a website and want AI crawlers kept out.

  4. In the book

    Lumo, Proton's AI assistant

    Proton Suite: The Definitive Guide · Chapter 16

    If you have a Proton account.

Run it yourself

Optional, and a bigger step: host it on a small server at home so the data never leaves your house. Do these in order — each one assumes the last.

  1. In the book

    Plan the server: threat model, hardware, networking

    Be Your Own Cloud · Chapters 1–4

    Decide whether self-hosting suits you before buying anything.

  2. Compare

    Self-Hosting Trade-offs

    What you gain against what you take on, stated plainly before you invest.

  3. Compare

    Homelab Hardware

    Six starting points by cost, power draw and what each is good for.

  4. Tutorial

    Installing Ubuntu Server for a Home Lab

    From USB stick to a headless, static-IP, auto-patching box you can SSH into — the machine every self-hosting guide assumes you already have.

    beginner⏱ 60 min

  5. Tutorial

    SSH: Key-Only Login and Sensible Hardening

    Turn off password authentication, lock down root, and stop the log noise — the twenty minutes that closes the most-attacked door on any server.

    beginner⏱ 25 min

  6. Tutorial

    Docker and Compose, Properly Installed

    The right repository, the docker group and what it actually grants, a Compose file you can read, and the update routine that keeps a homelab from rotting.

    intermediate⏱ 45 min

  7. In the book

    Storage

    Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 7

  8. In the book

    Reverse proxy, HTTPS and local DNS

    Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 8

  9. Tutorial

    Reverse Proxy and HTTPS, Set Up Once

    Chapter 8's Nginx Proxy Manager from empty folder to a trusted padlock: the shared proxy network, a DNS-only API token, one wildcard certificate for every service, and a way to test it all before Pi-hole exists.

    Every service page assumes this is done.

    intermediate⏱ 45 min

  10. In the book

    Secrets and .env files

    Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 9

  11. In the book

    The Sanitiser, Presidio, Ollama and Open WebUI

    Be Your Own Cloud · Chapter 16

  12. Tutorial

    The Sanitiser, Presidio, Ollama and Open WebUI: Going Deeper

    Chapter 16's two tiers of local AI, built step by step: the Sanitiser behind your proxy, wiring Presidio in so it catches names, and Ollama with Open WebUI on a GPU.

    advanced⏱ 90 min

  13. On this site

    AI's Wide Shut: the book's code