Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Danny O'Brien writes for the EFF that as the NSA's spying has spread, more and more ordinary people want to know how they can defend themselves from surveillance online. 'The bad news is: if you're being personally targeted by a powerful intelligence agency like the NSA, it's very, very difficult to defend yourself,' writes O'Brien. 'The good news, if you can call it that, is that much of what the NSA is doing is mass surveillance on everybody. With a few small steps, you can make that kind of surveillance a lot more difficult and expensive, both against you individually, and more generally against everyone.' Here's ten steps you can take to make your own devices secure: Use end-to-end encryption; Encrypt as much communications as you can; Encrypt your hard drive; Use Strong passwords; Use Tor; Turn on two-factor (or two-step) authentication; Don't click on attachments; Keep software updated and use anti-virus software; Keep extra secret information extra secure with Truecrypt; and Teach others what you've learned. 'Ask [your friends] to sign up to Stop Watching Us and other campaigns against bulk spying. Run a Tor node; or hold a cryptoparty. They need to stop watching us; and we need to start making it much harder for them to get away with it.'"

Re:Do you think you are special?

[auric_dude]

If using Moilla Firefox then add the lightbeam aka collusion addon https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/lightbeam/ [mozilla.org] then visit a few sites just to get an idea of how special the avertising companies think you are. This will work better if you disable Noscript, Requestpolicy, Httpeverywhere and whatever else you use to keed your surfing safish. Security services may not have the time to monitor your movements across the web but plenty of commercial companies do have the time, the kit and yet pay you nothing for thed ata they collect and I expect sell on to others.

Re:Speaking of SSL

[maxwell demon]

The authentication token goes over the net for each access (or how else is Slashdot to know whether you are the logged-in person?)

Re:Sock puppet, begone!

[shdowhawk]

I disagree completely

I'm a dual citizen .. i'm being looked at. I have a degree in computers and I talk to foreigners ... i'm being looked at. I speak 3 languages ... i'm being looked at. I rarely use any social media - far less than most people hmm.. suspicious ... i'm being looked at. I'm on a site talking about using tor ... i'm being looked at. I used to live in a different country ... i'm being looked at. I have made a political comment about not liking a specific candidate, either over the phone or internet in the last 5 years ... i'm being looked at. I have a higher than normal IQ (above 100) - and i love chemistry ... i'm being looked at. I'm an atheist ... i'm being looked at. I've been tagged in a photo on facebook that was taken on a mobile device and therefor has all the EXIF location data on it letting people know that i was more than 200 miles from where I live... i'm being looked at. I've update my passport in the last 5 years ... i'm being looked at.

Now, once you get over the notion that this is the 1950's and that everyone is in a manila folder with a black and white picture - and that someone is sitting around trying to LITERALLY watch you full time - you can come to understand that the entire country IS being "watched" daily, via electronics, and is being monitored the same way that google (and other search engines) monitor websites. They use spider like software, and every time something "triggers" in their system, your profile gets updated. Think of it like a point system, the more points you have, the more likely you are going to get checked up on. Using the information from Okian Warrior above, you realize that the 1 in 250 chance is scarier than you think. Also, add in that not all 350 million people in the country are being monitored. Take out children under 13 (too low risk), take out old folks who literally can't move, or are senile, or folks in the hospital for long term care (even if only for a week), and that number of people that an analyst needs to check up on drops significantly.

Google is able to index 23+ billion pages (according to some random statistics i found). If google is able to do that the hard way (crawling pages, finding href links, indexing them, hitting all THOSE links), then i'm sure the NSA can do it far easier. Why? Because, according to the surveillance leaks, they already have access to the nicely indexed databases from many/most companies.

Sad thing is ... i'm not even going into tin foil hat mode yet ...

Re:Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillanc

[theronb]

Umm, are you thinking of J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI for decades?