It is a recurring topic on the reddit Journaling sub, Mom accidentally read my Journal, or My cousin read my diary, and so on. Bet it a cousin, a dad, a mom (my mom read my journal when I was a kid and my life changed, not for the best), siblings, SO, colleagues,… People may rightfully feel devastated after someone read their journal without their permission.
It goes without saying that no one should read a journal without being invited to. And that there is no such thing as an ‘accidental reading’ of a journal.
Anyone accidentally reading more than a few words of the first page in a journal is doing it on purpose. They decided to read (a little, or a lot more of) the intimate thoughts and words of another other person because they wanted to read it.
Do you protect the privacy of your journal? And if so, how?
I used to, as a kid (after the ‘mom even’ I mentioned). I learned to replace names with fictitious ones, and to hide my journal in odd places. I also very quickly learned to write in English, because she could not read English and because, back in those days, there was no such thing as the Internet with instant-translation. Also, I knew very well she would never dare ask anyone to translate it for her, she was way too afraid of people reaction and judgment. She did try to coerce me into translating it, though… with little luck. Later, I learned to… destroy all my old journals, in order to preserve my privacy.
As a young adult, I kept it hidden in a box or in a drawer with a lock.
And as a less young adult, I quit hiding it. I did kept regularly destroying it, alas. A sad habit I only quit recently.
Nowadays, my journal sits on my desk (and the few remaining old ones are in plain sight on a bookshelf). My spouse could easily take it and read it the moment I turn away. But I know she would never do that, not without me telling her to read it. Like she knows I would never go through her paper without her permission. In the 25 years we’ve been together, we’ve learned to trust each other and to be OK with not sharing everything together, We both have our little if not secret at least they’re private gardens. But I also realize I’m very lucky to live with someone like her.
Have you ever experimented such an intrusion in your privacy? Or would that be ok for you?
If privacy matters to you, how do you manage to protect it? Do you ask to your SO other, or kids or whomever to simply respect your privacy, do you store it in some place? Do you use a password protected digital journal? Or?
Digital is safer?
As much as I prefer a paper and pen journal, I must admit that a digital journal is probably the best option for anyone concerned with privacy.
Be it in most word processors, like LibreOffice Writer (which is free), MS Word, or even Apple Pages, it’s very easy to password protect a document so no one can open it without knowing that password. And if you’re using a dedicated journaling app (like DayOne that I have used for many, many years next to my paper journal), there is an option to password protect it. And I’m pretty sure it’s the case with most if not all apps.
Feel free to share your own experience!
digital is safer in the terms that family wouldn’t read it. Personally I gave up trying digital though because every diary I have tried so far either looked like trash, didn’t run on Debian or lacked a meaningful password protect (one that didn’t keep the file plain text and have the lock on the software itself)
I would rather have some random person I the internet steal it over my family steal it, the chances of it actually being leaked to someone meaningful is low enough that it’s not a worry to me, but I can’t shake the feeling if I forget to lock my system family could access it freely, which would be devistating.
It’s not that I write about the family but that they are meant to show you in your more vulnerable states, and that’s not something I would like my family being involved in.
If you want to be really secure you can encrypt it. By hand it would be difficult, but with enough time I think you could get used to it.
On digital you may have an encrypted drive with a fake password. That way using your fake password it shows some decoy files that you don’t care about. And using the real password it shows your journal.
If you want to be really secure you can encrypt it. By hand it would be difficult,
And weak too, I’m afraid. As a kid I used to change names and avoid using certain words I knew would trigger my mother’s attention. It helped develop my imagination, but it did not work well ;)
On digital you may have an encrypted drive with a fake password.
How would you do that? I mean I know you can (we all should, I encrypt all mines even USB sticks) encrypt our drives but how would you do the fake/real password thing? That’s sounds clever.
Check veracrypt. It allows you to create a “partition” that looks as a file and you can have that option of the fake password.
Its been several time since I’ve used it, so I don’t remember the exact details. If you need help I could make a tutorial
If you need help I could make a tutorial
I’ve been thinking a lot more about your proposition. And I think I have now a clear idea how we could put your tutorial to good use right here, have it readily accessible to anyone. So, if you’re still OK to write it, by all means, do it. Hopefully, that could be the first of an exciting new series too… I hope I’ll be able to write a little more about that soon, but don’t wait for me ;)
PS: if you any question or whatever feel free to send me a PM, or to reach me right here if you prefer we discuss it publicly for anyone to participate.
I’ll check that, thx. And thx for the offer! A tuto could certainly interest people, but I wonder if we should publish it here? I mean, it’s very technical and not really about journaling even if it can be used for it… Would you happen to have a blog, or maybe know another Lemmy community more dedicated to tech stuff like that? If so we could post a link to there (and I for sure would gladly read it) ;)
