Semikkah7

Internet Privacy

After years of using the Internet, it has become increasingly more important to consider privacy of data. While there are many services that are “free”, it is because companies are making money off of us and our data. Free email may be scanned, on servers and used for targeted advertising. Internet browsing history, searches, etc may be used to target ads. Even instant messaging can be searched on the servers and used to gain information from us.

When we were offered the ability to “login” to our browser, like Chrome, it was “sold” to us as a feature so that our bookmarks could be synced across multiple computers, our phone, and our tablet. But it also allows Google to track our every move of what we are searching for.

As some additional background I’d encourage you to watch “The Social Dilemma” and “The Great Hack” on Netflix. If you like to read, then Permanent Record by Edward Snowden would be a good place for more information.

With all that said, what should we do to take steps to protect ourselves. I’d like to start by suggesting a few things for starters:

Email – There are a number of free email services like gmail, yahoo, etc. However, they all suffer from the privacy issues I mentioned above. You can get free secure email from Protonmail. Protonmail is encrypted on the servers located in Switzerland so even the company can not read your email that is stored on their server. With a free account you get enough emails to be able to send and receive to meet most needs. However, for under $50 per year you can get a paid account with more storage and emails per day as well as the ability to register your own domain name to have a more personal/professional appearance online. Email between Protonmail users is encrypted end to end. When sending to a user that is not on Protonmail you can still encrypt the message and then provide them a password (on the phone or by text) so they can decrypt it.

Messaging – Facebook Messenger is probably the de facto tool for sending instance messages to people. However these messages are stored in clear text at Facebook where they can search and target advertise to you. Text messages are sent in clear text over the cellular network where you service provider and the recipients service provider can eaves drop on your messages. Instead of either of these approaches, Signal offers end to end encrypted messaging. On your phone (Android or iOS) the app replaces your default text messaging app. But when sending messages to other Signal users the messages are encrypted end to end. In addition there is a desktop application for Windows so you can send Signal messages without being logged into social media.

Internet Search – Google has become synonymous with “Internet Search”. But using Google, especially with Chrome, tags everything you search for to you. Tracked by Google and saved forever. Instead, you can use Duck Duck Go where the data is not saved nor tracked. In fact you can set Duck Duck Go as your default home page on your browser. It works just like Google for searching without the tracking and history. On your phone you can get the Duck Duck Go browser and/or use Duck Duck Go as your default home page and search engine.

Web Browsing – instead of Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Edge, use Mozilla Firefox. For even more security you can use a Firefox derivative called “the TOR Browser“. TOR standards for The Onion Routing which actually triple encrypts your data and bounces it around TOR servers distributed across the world to hide your source IP from the destination server. This provide anonymous web surfing. Your results can seem a little weird though because sometimes it will seem as if you accessed a page from France or Africa. But to be anonymous may be worth it. If not, then I recommend Firefox.