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My high school senior project was to study and protect my privacy. My goal for this article is to save anyone else with the same ambition time. Hopefully anyone reading it may benefit. -maug
For a nicer format and more links, read this article on my webpage.
http://davidwigre.webs.com/apps/blog/show/3334747-privacy
The goal of this article is to point out where you can protect your privacy. This article is an outline/guide to where your personal information is stored and to where your privacy may be breached. Often I will say something vague like “Firefox can be heavily modified”, assuming that you will be able to figure out how to modify it yourself in order to suit your needs. Feedback is appreciated. That said, on with the show.
Spam is usually sent to large audiences, but at the same time it is directed at individuals. (You're a male? Try our muscle boosters for free!) In order to do this, the spammers need to know a little about you so that they know how to target you. Spammers can buy or collect information such as a person's home addresses, email accounts, personal interests, website generated information, etc. Once the data has been sent it will never be yours again, and the data is only a couple steps away from being mined for useful information about you. Here's the first lesson: if you can do something anonymously, do it anonymously. Start with email, it will take 5 minutes to set up a Yahoo! account. Use this for everything other than people you know, and you will receive no more spam! There is also a good chance you can opt-out of any spam snail-mail too. Look for the places where you opt-in to giving information you don't want used. One example is the grocery store. You don't need to have a real address, name, or phone number for your club card.
The internet is not a safe place for your data. There is no need for the internet to know that much about you. You will need to understand and be able to use advanced Google operators to get started with protecting your privacy. These operators will give you the vocabulary you need to ask Google for references to you, like an email or web account. An example could be searching: your name +@ which could yield an email.
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
http://searchenginez.com/findpeople.html
Online privacy policies are not always upheld. The good thing about online information is that it can usually be faked. Firefox can be heavily modified as well in order to suit your needs. If you're on Windows, then yes there are a gajillion registry hacks out there, but go for changes you can actually see.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/yeoldetoolkit
There are also a lot of open source and security enhanced alternatives when it comes to internet-oriented software.
http://www.osalt.com/
http://epic.org/privacy/tools.html
When it comes to your personal computer, I think that the biggest thing is removing clutter. The point in slimming down is that your data becomes more manageable. It's up to you to decide what you need. For instance, you might ask “Do I really need a Microsoft product for internet use?” The need for privacy is not due to the question of whether or not Microsoft has been irresponsible with their customer's data or that they do dirty deeds for money. It's just that I have no need to trust Windows to do anything other than play games and media. If you are serious about privacy then it will be well worth your time to look into open source alternatives, especially Linux live cd's.
Sometimes you may not own the data you want to be private. Sometimes there is simply too much information to assume that it's all being used against you. In these casses you must clearly define: the data, its need for privacy and how it can be misused, and the resources of the person searching for it. For example, medical records. Mine say that I'm in perfect health. It's no secret. If you saw me walking by you would probably say something like “Damn! Now that is one fine specimen of a man.” On the other hand, the medical records of other people can have the potential to be horribly misused. The first step in protecting them is to find out what is in them. If the only place there is any mention of a condition or disease is in your medical records, keep it that way! Jobs, custody, or personal rights may someday be at stake.
Go to www.intelius.com, and look at the preview of their services. For a price, this company will give you information with they have compiled from many different databases (db). It's pretty easy to understand how someone could compile db like phone books, but some of this data gets personal. Some of the material can only be viewed by the individual, someone with a private investigators license, or a paying customer.
Links
Please note that this is one of those times when Wikipedia is not a valid reference. It should be obvious, but it is easily edited by governments and large corporations.
Sites and links from the article
http://www.intelius.com
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
http://searchenginez.com/findpeople.html
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/yeoldetoolkit
http://epic.org/privacy/tools.html
Sites worth reading through or at least visiting
http://www.epic.org
http://www.keepyoursecrets.com/
http://www.nsawatch.org/highlights.html
http://www.getmyfbifile.com/
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ (Declassifying in 10 years is fast, but deleted sometimes seems more likely)
http://davidwigre.webs.com/apps/blog/show/3334747-privacy
The goal of this article is to point out where you can protect your privacy. This article is an outline/guide to where your personal information is stored and to where your privacy may be breached. Often I will say something vague like “Firefox can be heavily modified”, assuming that you will be able to figure out how to modify it yourself in order to suit your needs. Feedback is appreciated. That said, on with the show.
Spam is usually sent to large audiences, but at the same time it is directed at individuals. (You're a male? Try our muscle boosters for free!) In order to do this, the spammers need to know a little about you so that they know how to target you. Spammers can buy or collect information such as a person's home addresses, email accounts, personal interests, website generated information, etc. Once the data has been sent it will never be yours again, and the data is only a couple steps away from being mined for useful information about you. Here's the first lesson: if you can do something anonymously, do it anonymously. Start with email, it will take 5 minutes to set up a Yahoo! account. Use this for everything other than people you know, and you will receive no more spam! There is also a good chance you can opt-out of any spam snail-mail too. Look for the places where you opt-in to giving information you don't want used. One example is the grocery store. You don't need to have a real address, name, or phone number for your club card.
The internet is not a safe place for your data. There is no need for the internet to know that much about you. You will need to understand and be able to use advanced Google operators to get started with protecting your privacy. These operators will give you the vocabulary you need to ask Google for references to you, like an email or web account. An example could be searching: your name +@ which could yield an email.
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
http://searchenginez.com/findpeople.html
Online privacy policies are not always upheld. The good thing about online information is that it can usually be faked. Firefox can be heavily modified as well in order to suit your needs. If you're on Windows, then yes there are a gajillion registry hacks out there, but go for changes you can actually see.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/yeoldetoolkit
There are also a lot of open source and security enhanced alternatives when it comes to internet-oriented software.
http://www.osalt.com/
http://epic.org/privacy/tools.html
When it comes to your personal computer, I think that the biggest thing is removing clutter. The point in slimming down is that your data becomes more manageable. It's up to you to decide what you need. For instance, you might ask “Do I really need a Microsoft product for internet use?” The need for privacy is not due to the question of whether or not Microsoft has been irresponsible with their customer's data or that they do dirty deeds for money. It's just that I have no need to trust Windows to do anything other than play games and media. If you are serious about privacy then it will be well worth your time to look into open source alternatives, especially Linux live cd's.
Sometimes you may not own the data you want to be private. Sometimes there is simply too much information to assume that it's all being used against you. In these casses you must clearly define: the data, its need for privacy and how it can be misused, and the resources of the person searching for it. For example, medical records. Mine say that I'm in perfect health. It's no secret. If you saw me walking by you would probably say something like “Damn! Now that is one fine specimen of a man.” On the other hand, the medical records of other people can have the potential to be horribly misused. The first step in protecting them is to find out what is in them. If the only place there is any mention of a condition or disease is in your medical records, keep it that way! Jobs, custody, or personal rights may someday be at stake.
Go to www.intelius.com, and look at the preview of their services. For a price, this company will give you information with they have compiled from many different databases (db). It's pretty easy to understand how someone could compile db like phone books, but some of this data gets personal. Some of the material can only be viewed by the individual, someone with a private investigators license, or a paying customer.
Links
Please note that this is one of those times when Wikipedia is not a valid reference. It should be obvious, but it is easily edited by governments and large corporations.
Sites and links from the article
http://www.intelius.com
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
http://searchenginez.com/findpeople.html
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/yeoldetoolkit
http://epic.org/privacy/tools.html
Sites worth reading through or at least visiting
http://www.epic.org
http://www.keepyoursecrets.com/
http://www.nsawatch.org/highlights.html
http://www.getmyfbifile.com/
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ (Declassifying in 10 years is fast, but deleted sometimes seems more likely)
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