Outsmart Fascists & Weirdos By Fixing This Terrible Password Habit

Hi! Welcome to our educational — and hopefully funny — podcast miniseries about how to protect yourself from fascists and weirdos. It's called Stupid Sexy Privacy, and it's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and where all good podcasts can be found.

If you are a subscriber to StupidSexyPrivacy.com — it costs nothing! — you will be able to access the full transcript for today's episode.

Just a couple of notes before we begin:

1. Stupid Sexy Privacy is sponsored by our friends at DuckDuckGo. So if you like the show, go check them out and let them know we sent you.

2. Aside from the new introduction and live read, this show was originally recorded and aired back in October of 2022. We’re re-airing these episodes with the new introduction because the content in it has mostly held up. Occasionally, we may slip in new content as well.

In today’s episode, comedian Rosie Tran explains why you should get a Privacy Notebook. We’re going to talk a lot about the Privacy Notebook, and what goes inside of it, at StupidSexyPrivacy.com. So make sure you visit our website and subscribe to the new newsletter that accompanies this podcast.

Rosie also shares the first thing you'll want to put inside your privacy notebook. Hint: It’s your master password for your password manager — 1Password or something similar, like the free, open-source equivalent KeePassXC. 

For most people in most cases, we recommend 1Password or BitWarden since they are easier to use and less cumbersome than KeePassXC; however, KeePassXC is more secure because it stores everything offline. 

KeePassXC also doesn’t cost you anything, whereas with BitWarden and 1Password you’ll have to pay a small fee. You’re going to hear us say this a lot though: Yes. There are often free, open source, and often better equivalents to some of what we’re going to tell you about. But. What you save in money you’re likely to spend in time learning how to use those equivalents and setting them up properly. 

At Stupid Sexy Privacy, our goal is just to get you to use a Password Manager in the first place.

At the time of this writing, in August of 2025, 1Password will cost you about $4 a month, and BitWarden will cost you about $1 a month. (BitWarden also offers a free tier.)

If you’re choosing between BitWarden and 1Password, in the original audio edition of this episode, you can hear Rosie recommend 1Password, but we’ve since changed our opinion and suggest people use BitWarden instead.

If you’re more technically inclined, or have time you’re willing to invest in learning a new program, KeePassXC is the best option of the three. (Here’s the guide on how to set it up.)

Also in this episode: We share with you more from B.J. Mendelson's first book on privacy, "Privacy: And How We Get It Back." Roger Wayne, the narrator of the world-famous "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck," is the voice actor who narrated the audiobook. There are definitely some things we’ve changed our opinion on since that book was first published, back in 2017, but we’re re-airing the excerpts so you can hear what we said originally. When we release our new book, “How to Protect Yourself From Fascists & Weirdos” — for free, by the way, thanks to our friends at DuckDuckGo — we’ll call out what we got wrong, and what we got right, from this original book.

Listen to this episode to learn: 

• Why you should have a physical notebook to manage your most important passwords.
• Why you should care about who has access to your data — and what they do with it (hint: they make a lot of money while you get punished by algorithms.)
• What the end goal of all this privacy stuff is (and no, it’s not necessarily getting completely off the grid. Although, if you’re looking to do that, we can’t recommend Alaska enough.
  

Key Episode Takeaways

-Get a physical notebook (and spend some money on it): When you have a physical notebook that you’ve actually spent a bit of money on, like the Leuchtturm — it creates a bit more of a commitment because of the way our brain chemistry typically works. You made a decision to buy it. You paid money to do so. And now it’s a physical object for you to hold. All of this makes you more committed to using it. 

If you’re using a notepad you got for free in the mail, or some random piece of paper, you’re not going to mentally commit to using it in the same way. 

-Create a BitWarden or 1Password account: Write down your master password in the privacy notebook. Don’t make it easy for fascists and weirdos to hack you. Big hacks often occur because of bad password management. Make sure to write your new master password from on the inside cover of your privacy notebook.

Episode Highlights

💡 Our goal is to educate & entertain so, we may sound a bit ridiculous. Some might say snarky even.

We want you to remember what we’re saying, so we will say it multiple times and in many different ways, including some which may be aggressive or hilarious. We’re trying to find an inroad into the deepest pathways of your brain and your memory so you’ll remember what we say.

 💡 This is a realistic take on what data privacy can look like for all of us.

By using the Internet, intrinsically, we give up some of our data and to use so many of our favorite services a bit more. But we probably aren’t ever going to stop using them completely, and so all of this advice is given within that framework. We can minimize the amount of data being collected by doing simple things like taping over our camera and using browsers like DuckDuckGo instead of Chrome.

 💡 It’s about respect and fair compensation when companies are making billions off your data

In the original, 2017 book, BJ talks about how we should get compensated for our data. In 2025, we’re beyond the point where we should be compensated for the personal data we’re sharing. 

While you should still be compensated for your data — in an arrangement where you get to dictate the how, when, and why concerning that data’s usage, as well as the terms governing how long a company can retain that data and how they use it — what’s become more important in recent years is establishing a global framework for every country to join that would regulate who gets your data, how they use it, and what your rights are concerning the elimination of that data when needed.

Once that’s in place, THEN we can talk about getting people compensated in exchange for their data.

Top Quotes

[4:51] “Just imagine how much fun Instagram would be if you didn’t have any friends on there.”

[6:50] “What makes this book compelling and unique among other books on privacy is that it deals exclusively with things that are entirely within our power to fix. That is, dealing with the use and abuse of our data.” 

[7:10] “If I’m successful, I’ll have helped motivate you to contact your state, not federal, representatives to push for legislation and regulations that will hold these companies accountable for how they use your data.” (Note: It’s our position at Stupid Sexy Privacy that, in 2025’s America, nothing is getting done at the federal level that’s going to put people before corporations. So if you’re looking for privacy regulation, it’s going to come from the States.)

[8:44] “Your data is worth a fortune. Whether you actively use the Internet or not, the odds are solid that there’s a data file on you out there, and companies and criminals will stop at nothing to get that data.” 

SFX for the Ring Bell Provided by ZapSpalt 

Support The Show (No Affiliate Links.)

• Our Website: StupidSexyPrivacy.com
• Get In Touch: StupidSexyPrivacy@Duck.com 
• Our Sponsor: DuckDuckGo
• BitWarden.com
• KeepPassXC
• 1Password
• Get Your Privacy Notebook: Get your Leuchtturm1917 Official Bullet Journal here.
  
  

Did You Know?

In this week’s book excerpt, you can hear Roger reference the big Equifax data breach. This book was written in 2017. 

In 2020, The Department of Justice accused four hackers working on behalf of the Chinese military, for engineering the Equifax data breach..

On February 26th, 2023, BJ got a $5 rebate from Equifax for this data breach. 

You probably did too. 

There’s absolutely no reason for Equifax, and other credit reporting agencies, to exist. 

If you're a registered member of Stupid Sexy Privacy, you can access the full transcript for today's show, as well as the updates to BJ's first book on Privacy, below ...