so I was reading thru your posts abt wickr and i feel really stupid because i don't understand any of it :( how do i start web browsing safely?
omg. omg, bless you, anon. do you know how great it is to get questions like this.
so for those of you who are not yet up to date on the saga of There Are A Bunch Of People Spying On You And It’s Not Cool: there are a bunch of people spying on you! it’s not cool. (nearly everyone is already caught up on this, but it never hurts to have a refresher.)
some of the people spying on you include:
the gov’t of the united states and the uk (and, to a lesser extent, canada, new zealand, and australia, and to a much lesser extent other allies of the us). for example— the nsa analyzes your texts and facebook chats, reads your emails to friends and family, monitors your bank transactions and web browsing activity (source) in the name of Fighting the War on Terror. the dea tracks license plates so they know where you’re driving and your phone calls in & out of the country (source and source) in the name of Fighting the War on Drugs.
various corporations (google, facebook, apple, microsoft, advertising companies and data brokers you’ve never heard of.) there are third-party trackers on almost every website you visit (for example, on tumblr, there are third-party trackers from codexis radar, dynamic logic, google analytics, research now, and scorecard research beacon.) these trackers put cookies on your computer so they can see what websites you visit and collect information about you so they can send you ads/jack up prices on various websites depending on how rich you are. (staples has done this.) they also hand over your data to the government (see above).
hackers and criminals who wanna steal your credit card info/use your computer as part of a botnet for ddos attacks and other superfun stuff/just fuck with you.
it is a Dangerous Internet Out There, folks.
but it is not hopeless! it is at its core a political fight like any other political fight, and it’s one that can be won. (sopa and pipa went down in flames; the battle for net neutrality looks good so far, crossed fingers. mass surveillance can have its ass kicked like anything else.)
and there are people right now (like the electronic frontier foundation and the aclu) working on changing laws, getting existing laws enforced, and arguing laws in court so that this kind of surveillance is less possible. there are journalists and leakers like glenn greenwald, jeremy scahill, and edward snowden working on getting all this known and publicized! there are hackers and activists like jacob appelbaum doing… whatever it is jacob appelbaum does, i dunno, he seems to have a good time.
and while they fight various battles to protect you, you can do plenty of things to protect yourself. for example:
download privacy badger and ghostery, extensions for your browser that block third-party trackers.
download https everywhere, another extension that secures your browsing and keeps you safe from hackers when you, for example, put your credit card info into amazon.
use spideroak, an online storage system, instead of dropbox; dropbox doesn’t protect the privacy of your files the way spideroak does.
use startpage, a search engine, instead of google; it gives you exactly the same results as google would, but it doesn’t share your data like google does.
download tor, a web browser that allows you to browse privately and hides where your signal’s coming from.
use the instant messaging apps wickr and cryptocat, which are encrypted. (have now downloaded wickr myself! can confirm: absurdly user-friendly. do the thing.)
if you can, learn how to use pgp as email encryption. i am SUPER HAPPY TO TEACH YOU and it’s not difficult but it’s got several steps to it and this post has gotten long enough as it is
the eff also has a really, really good list of more tips and tricks.
you’re not ignorant for not knowing about this stuff! most people don’t have the proper education on how to cover their asses on the internet. but it’s really, really, really important to do if you want to work in activism, journalism, law or anything legal, or if you’re just someone who doesn’t want to be spied on by mouthbreathers who pass around your naked photos.
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
