How to livestream without doxxing yourself?

Questions
1

Hey! :waving_hand:t2: and happy new year :confetti_ball::tada:

I’d like to get some opinions on how to start streaming without exposing myself too much.

I am very much fine being a public figure, meanwhile I do not want some SWAT to knock at my door every evening or stalk my family

is my kind of threat model. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I know that the easiest by far is to have the famous floating head that @jordan uses but since I bought some camera gear already, so I’ll continue using it. :blush:

I know there are plenty of common mistakes that people can do while live streaming, but let’s say that I am aware of the social parts and can manage the soft skills one too.
I’m rather interested into a discussion about other topics and potential things that I might not have thought about.
I’ll probably update this initial post as we go to add things to it.
Idea would be to maybe transform it into a guide if complete enough for people to maybe be a less scared about doing the same as me. :+1:t2:

1. Few bullet points of things I’d like to achieve:

  • streaming on YouTube + Twitch + something self-hosted (either Owncast or maybe Peertube?[1])
  • so mostly protecting myself against targeted attacks from a personal POV[2]
    • I meanwhile consider that a random employee from YT/Twitch should also not be able to just query me in a database and find where I am streaming from given my static IP :cross_mark:

I’m currently reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide for a few things that might be related to me, but overall here are the domains that I came up with and that I should be working towards I think.

2. Computers

I do not want to stream from my personal computer, it’s just too easy to have stuff leaking so that’s why I’ll have the following to properly split both.

I still need to figure out how I will need to transfer files/credentials back and forth sometimes like SSH keys but I’ll do progressively I guess[3]. :face_savoring_food:

The “gaming” PC will be running various Linux distros alongside a Mac Studio, both wired to the same switch. I also want to limit the amount of software as much as possible, everything should be running on simple hardware with as few failing points as possible (hence mic is also directly wired to the Mac).

computers
computers5155×4328 1.26 MB

I’ll be multi streaming from OBS Studio itself, no need to go through a service of any sort: I have enough bandwidth + horse power + can figure out the adequate bitrate + protocol. :+1:t2:

I also heard of OBS Studio for when changing scenes etc, I might not really need it because I’ll have a few extra monitoring screens + automations but eh, who knows. :man_shrugging:t2:
Btw, I plan on streaming my entire screen and not just programs. I am very much fine doing that compromise, I mean I don’t really have a choice because the HDMI feed will be coming from another PC + I don’t really benefit from hiding it anyway. The “gaming” PC will be consider as no-man’s land anyway…

3. Networking

The idea is to have a VPN on my OpenWRT router with a kill switch + private DNS filtering, still needs to be done tho.

Currently, my MacOS is running a VPN client like a pleb. :joy:
I also do have Little Snitch but this setup looks a bit overkill to me.

I’ll use my GOS Pixel as a 2nd camera from time to time connected to my WiFi.

No redundancy of any sort tho, if my Internet or electricity goes down, it will just end the stream. Not a huge problem and quite unlikely to happen given my current experience.
I rather have it shutdown gracefully than leak stuff out. Also I don’t want to explode a mobile data plan by accident. :joy:

I’ll also setup some VLANs at some point, to fully isolate both machines while keeping it functional.

4. Common sense

  • I will be careful regarding any reflective surface, especially since I do wear glasses while working.
  • Room is closed from outside world, no laser through a window, external sounds or things that would make my location specific, especially since I do have a dynamic mic[4].
  • “Gaming” PC will not be connected to anything personal, and for the few moments when I need to edit an env file or alike, I’ll switch to a scene with muted audio + no video signal just so that I can type a password or alike. I’ll try to use passkeys as much as possible anyway.
  • I’m still not sure if I should run some LLMs (like Cursor) on the Gaming or Streaming machine tho[5], I mean I don’t plan on using a lot of AI overall. :thinking:
  • Nobody appears on camera besides me and maybe some cute cats. :grinning_cat_with_smiling_eyes::cat:
  • I’m still not sure if I should use some platforms directly or go through a frontend tho, for example for Reddit[6]. For the rest of apps, I’ll stick to Brave + other “healthy” software that I use on a daily basis already without going too hardcore on Tor etc. :+1:t2:

5. Software part

  • Of course, all locations services will be disabled on both computers.
  • I will need to self-host a few tools on my homelab, like vdo.ninja and a few other things but having some local IP should be fine. Even showing a MAC address is probably not a big deal if it’s a non-mobile device?
  • I don’t want to have a lot of fishy stuff running, hence I’ll limit as much as possible while still making the stream accessible to the biggest crowd possible by merging chats from YT, fediverse etc…thanks to social_stream, from the same author as above. :index_pointing_up:t2:
  • I am still not sure where should I host the Owncast instance, on my LAN or outside on a VPS, any recommendations?
  • I’m not a Discord, WhatsApp etc…kind of person, so that removes an entire subset of attack vectors and potential mistakes already.
  • I plan of playing some games too on Bazzite, they will be solo ones and with no DRM because from GOG.com. Not sure if there are any gotchas from Nvidia drivers but I hope that they don’t phone home anyhow[7].

6. More miscellaneous stuff

  • I guess I won’t be able to use GrayJay (or other frontends of that sort) while streaming, daddy YT won’t like that :joy:
  • same goes for the music, not sure if I could just link some copyrighted stuff from the Mac machine, not planning to be monetized + don’t really care if the track is muted[8] but I still would like to share some cool backgrounds sounds. I would like to maybe have something else than 24/7 LoFi girl tho. :sweat_smile:
    I know that some paid and free options exist, I’m not sure I want to pay for that just yet but I can also always just split the livestream from the VOD so that the music is not recorded for the video afterwards. Or I can listen to it all by myself but then I’ll be vibing out of nowhere. :laughing:

I guess…that’s pretty much all?
I’ll probably have more ideas coming down but that’s a good starter point. Feel free to challenge that setup and maybe bring my attention to things I maybe haven’t considered. :sparkling_heart: :folded_hands:t2:

  1. I can manage the tech part without too much issue ↩︎

  2. I’m doing the other part of protecting myself against mass surveillance on a daily basis already ↩︎

  3. I can always floppy…or maybe Suncthing between the 2 local machines, maybe samba with strict permissions? ↩︎

  4. I might carry an omnidirectional at some point tho.. ↩︎

  5. supply chain attack is a possibility especially given the fact that I do use JavaScript :joy: and do not plan to run Qubes or anything too hardcore while streaming for various reasons ↩︎

  6. reasoning for that, is that I don’t want/can’t login to some of those platforms and I also don’t mind not leaving extra footprints than needed ↩︎

  7. I doubt given how bad those are to begin with :skull: ↩︎

  8. àla Twitch ↩︎

3 Likes
Will you suggest using VPN for live streamers?
Chutes.ai security/privacy questions
What are your 2026 privacy and security resolutions?
What Will the EU Do Next?｜This Week in Privacy #34 (Jan 3, 2026)
Chutes.ai security/privacy questions
2

Does Youtube or Twich know your real name in 2026?

3

Google/YouTube definitely knows me given my public speaking at some of their tech conferences yes. :joy:
But that’s fine, I do have a brand new account for the streaming part and I do not mind sharing my face there, that’s not a problem: I mostly want to hide my location as much as possible. :+1:t2:

Twitch doesn’t know me at all and I also have a burner account.
But again, it will still have my entire face on it with the webcam on. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I know, it’s kind of: I want to stream on your platform but I don’t want you to know from where is a hard game to win on my end.
At least, protecting myself from a random creep that is not a YT/Twitch employee would be a good first step. Just thought of killing 2 poor birds here. :rock:

1 Like