How to keep your private information out of the hands of others

[Phaedrus 209521]

For those who want to get really into this stuff, there's a useful infographic here and a good white paper here.

 

h/t @ggreenwald, who has more than a passing interest in this stuff :)

[touchwould2 727]

Thanks for this gentlemen. I use many of the items you've mentioned, but your detailed info is very helpful.

[backrubman 64800]

You could also just use Tails.

 

Yes you certainly could but then you can`t use your system for any other real work while you are doing your semi-anonymous (safe) surfing as you end up booting your system from this LiveCD or USB and living in that environment.

 

I`m also not a fan of Tor as people do create evil exit nodes just to capture the unencrypted traffic in the clear (including your CERB login and password) as it crosses the wire :)

 

Welll, actually I am a fan of Tor but believe it inappropriate for this kind of purpose as it is more likely any clear text or MD5 hashed passwords (like your CERB credentials) would be compromised exiting the Tor network (more likely on Tor someone is watching) and while I agree Tor is anonymous you don`t stay anonymous when you use it to log in somewhere via a monitored exit node. The NSA has admitted to operating several Tor exit nodes (for just the purpose of monitoring all traffic exiting Tor through their nodes).

[cinelli 22184]

As noted above, overwriting old files is the only way to get rid of them.

Deleting doesn't really get rid of anything. Data recovery software will read stuff you thought you had deleted.

Avast ( I think) has an upgrade that overwrites your temp internet files. When you log off all the stuff you looked at really is gone because it gets written over. There are lots of other progrrams that do it too.

And regularly reformat your drive. That should clean up all the junk and tracks you have on there. In fact police recently charged someone with obstruction for reformatting their drive. They argued he was deliberately destroying evidence. I don't know how that case turned out, whether they were really stupid enough to think that reformatting is so unusual or if they were following their usual tactic of hitting someone with dozens of charges for the same thing. I guess a non-computer savvy judge might have believed it.

Put all your pics/music on a thumb drive and save it that way. Nobody needs a terabyte drive!

[Phaedrus 209521]

Yes you certainly could but then you can`t use your system for any other real work while you are doing your semi-anonymous (safe) surfing as you end up booting your system from this LiveCD or USB and living in that environment.

 

True. I guess it depends how worried you are about these things and how much inconvenience you're prepared to put up with.

 

The NSA has admitted to operating several Tor exit nodes (for just the purpose of monitoring all traffic exiting Tor through their nodes).

 

One of the many interesting things to come out of Edward Snowden's leaked documents was that the NSA really, really hates Tor. They intercept and store all the Tor traffic they can with a view to decoding it later. And since then, I've started using it for a lot of stuff... mostly because I really like the idea of the NSA spending time and resources to work out that a random guy in Ottawa is reading CBC news. Just doing my bit to make the haystack bigger... :)

[Guest S*rca****sid]

There is only one way to keep your info private. Never store it on a computer, go off the "grid". If you have to write it down, then lock it up.

The media likes to cause panics with every report of a new app or new End-user License Agreement change.

But it is a fact that with every decision we make, it is being noted by a system we belong to. Example: each time we check our cellphones, make a purchase, drive our cars, take public transport, fill taxes, go to the doctor, ..etc.

Let's not freak out every time we feel Big Brother is intruding in on our private lives. No one forces us, we let them. Think about all those cards in your wallet and/or purse. Credit cards, reward cards, membership card, privilege cards, insurance, benefits and standard government issued cards.

Whenever I have to deal with my bank or cell phone company, I always think to myself, here I am talking to a total stranger who is looking at my account with all my info. Who know what they could do with it?

That's what life is like in the 21st century.