Guides/Self-defence
Digital self-defence tools: a short, practical shelf
Digital self-defence tools are the small, boring programs that make surveillance more expensive without demanding a new lifestyle. Here is the short shelf, with the piece Elba occupies.
The shelf
A password manager (Bitwarden, 1Password). A private browser (Brave, Firefox with uBlock Origin). A no-log VPN when travelling (Mullvad, IVPN). End-to-end messaging (Signal). And, for files on your own machine: local encryption.
Where Elba fits
Elba is the ‘files on your own machine’ layer. It doesn't replace anything above, and nothing above replaces it — a sealed folder is a category the others don't cover.
Questions people actually ask
- Do I need all of these?
- No. A password manager and one form of local encryption is a reasonable minimum for most people.
- Is this overkill for an ordinary person?
- The tools above are the digital equivalent of curtains and a house key. Ordinary is exactly who they're for.
Take the island
Elba is one HTML file. It runs locally in a Chromium browser, seals a folder with AES-256-GCM, never phones home, and becomes open source on 1 January 2030.
- €49MMXXVI· now ·
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- €19MMXXIX2029
- FreeMMXXX2030
the price falls each year · free to all 1 jan 2030
pay once · no account · nothing leavesRelated guides
- Sovereign computing tools: owning a room in your own machine
Sovereign computing means the machine, the data, and the tool all answer to you. A short field guide, with Elba as an example.
- File encryption for activists and organisers
A small, offline, no-account way for activists to seal sensitive files. Elba is one HTML file with no metadata trail.
- How to encrypt files in countries with heavy censorship
Offline file encryption where the network is watched. Elba is a single HTML file — no downloads at runtime, no network calls, no server.