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You’ve probably heard the news already, but if you haven’t then know that the House quietly voted to undo rules that keep internet service providers — the companies like Comcast, Verizon and Charter that you pay for online access — from selling your personal information.
What websites you visit, your location, everything they can get from you now is theirs to sell to the highest bidder.
Yay freedom!
Anyway, there’s not a lot you can do but every little helps. These are just five simple things the average Joe can do to protect at least some of that privacy.
1)Start Using Firefox
It’s the best browser anyway.
Here’s a link with some of the ad ons and set up to improve your privacy.
https://vikingvpn.com/cybersecurity-wiki/browser-security/guide-hardening-mozilla-firefox-for-privacy-and-security
2)Stop using Google
Yes, it can be done. Use Duck Duck Go instead as your main search engine. To be honest I still use Google when DDG isn’t giving me good results but not using google is probably the biggest step toward privacy. DDG basically uses Google, but it does it for you while remaining anonymous.
3)Stop using Whatsapp
Since it got sold to Facebook you know what to expect. Shameless abuse of your privacy. Telegram is pretty much the same thing and just as simple to use, but you get to keep your privacy.
4)Stop using Facebook
I’ll be honest. I don’t use it, and those of you that do probably see I hardly keep up with it. My blog posts are automatically reposted on Facebook but I just don’t know how to use 99% of it. The thing is, even if you do like and use Facebook, its as creepy as a company can be, with no regards whatsoever for your privacy of course. At the very least, try not posting vital information like your address, birthday, when you go on holydays or when you make big financial decisions. All of this isnt just about privacy, its about physical safety.
5)Cover the camera of your laptop
My wife first started doing this years ago. I thought she was a complete lunatic. “I don’t know who’s watching” she said. “baby, no one’s watching you” I said back then. Oh, I was so naïve its even cute now that I think about it. Yes, they do spy on you, they use facial recognition technology on you to get your biometric data and God only knows what else, how you react to different data, different products or ads? Disable your camera and microphone when not in use, or as Mark Zuckerberg does and FBI Director James Comey advices people to do, put some tape on it.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”.
3 comments:
There's a new browser coming on line Called BRAVE. I think it will be a good choice for those who are concerned about their privacy. Check it out.
https://brave.com/
I would suggest abandoning Microsoft's Windows and moving over to Linux if at all possible. I would especially avoid Windows 10 as it has the ability to spy on the computer user's activities and report to Microsoft. Windows 8 may have this capability as well. With Linux, you will know that no one can access the camera on the laptop. This is the main advantage of open source software over proprietary software. It is very difficult to sneak a back door in if the source code to the software is available. However, you need to be aware of one thing. Intel and AMD are building back doors into the computer's motherboard itself. This back door works independently of the computer. It doesn't matter if the computer is on or off. As long as the computer has power and access to an internet connection, the back door can be used to install software onto the computer without the computer's owner even being aware of it. These back doors are built into the quad core computers and generally not the dual core computers. Some of the early i3 and i5 Intel quad cores, it was possible to disable or partially disable the back door. The later Intel generations it is not possible to disable the back door at all. AMD started building in this type of a back door into the computer motherboard sometime after Intel did. So fewer AMD computers are affected by this. In addition to camera hijackings, the computer's microphone can be hijacked as well. This can allow someone to remotely listen in on your conversations. This type of a hijack works pretty much on all computers with a built in microphone.
Use SIGNAL for messaging.
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