A Beginners Guide To Increasing Cyber Security
If I were to tell you that for the last 6 months my associates and I have been monitoring you and your girlfriends location, calls, text, emails, social media post and every other form of online traffic you’d rightly assume that I’m some sort of creepy stalker who might be intent on raping and murdering the both of you. You would feel weird and afraid because we have access to a ton of personal information that was meant only for your eyes and can be leveraged against you. We might even ruin try to ruin your relationship.
You could consider buying a weapon to protect yourself, but that wouldn’t matter because I know when you sleep, when you eat, where you work and who you hang out with. I can strike when you least expect it and there is nothing you can do about it. Like most people your digitally illiterate and don’t know how to debug your computers and phones.
Oh, but I forgot to mention we’re just an ad agency and/or social media company. And boom, just like that online stalking is suddenly completely socially acceptable. Even though nothing has changed online surveillance becomes a lot less scary when its being done by a corporation because we forget that corporations are nothing more than a group of people.
In regards to corporate surveillance we don’t even know who has access to what types of information. How high up in Google or Facebook do I have to be to say “I need to see Marys browsing history” and can get all of Marys information to ruin her life? Your probably fine with your government and your corporations collecting your data because you trust them. But what happens when hackers, spies and terrorist break in? Well they can start using that information against you in a number of different ways.
Every time you click a mouse you’re giving someone valuable information that can be used to manipulate, blackmail or incarcerate you. And the only way to protect yourself is to increase your online privacy. There are a lot of misconceptions about what privacy is, most people hate privacy advocates because they dislike nerds (who are smarter than them) and their favored news stations and politicians told them to forget about privacy in the name of increasing safety.
Privacy and information security are synonymous. If my information is totally secure it is only available to me, thus it is private. I’m an app developer that emphasizes building secure applications. Because I need to protect myself and my clients interest I need a high level of information security and privacy. In these series of post I’ll teach you the hows and whys of increasing your privacy/cyber security.
The Browser
My browser of choice is FireFox, its open source which means no nasty corporations are using it to manipulate your emotions with targeted advertising. FireFox, like Chrome and other browsers also comes with the option to open “incognitio” windows which are tabs that don’t record what you’re searching for.
For all intensive purposes incognitio windows aren’t anonymous, yes they won’t store query history on your browser but there is still a record of what you search for on your LAN (local network). Personally speaking I never really use incognitio windows, but it is a cool feature.
Lets start by optimizing FireFox’s settings for digital security. Open the settings tab and click on Security and Privacy. When you see enhanced tracking protect click “Strict” and save your settings. This will prevent advertisers from eerily keeping cookies on your devices for months and years at a time.
Scroll down and click “always” where it says send websites do not track request. If you scroll down you’ll see a section that says history, personally I use the history feature but you might feel differently about it. Lastly lets scroll down to the security section and block dangerous downloads and content, this feature could save your PC from downloading ransom ware and other pesky viruses. I can’t think of a reason not to enable it.
Congrats you’re a couple steps closer to becoming immune to Social Media and Online Ad Agencies. Lets add some free and easy to use to our newly configured FireFox browser.
Hello EFF !
The EFF or Electronic Freedom Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps keep online communication free, thanks guys! At the civil level they help journalist, human rights activist etc. from being imprisoned by totalitarian regimes, which unfortunately for us make up a majority of governments on the planet. They’ve also written the Surveillance and Self Defense Guide which lets be honest is probably more comprehensive than this guide.
The nerds at the EFF maintain a bunch of extensions that can help increase your digital security. Lets start with Privacy Badger. Why they chose a Badger is beyond me, but this piece of software will stop online trackers and advertisers from targeting you. If you’re sick of seeing dumb ads or find it creepy that google needs to stalk you to make money you can download Privacy Badger here.
My next favorite tool from the EFF is HTTPS Everywhere. Basically this tool just ensures that you’re encrypting your web request by forcing HTTPS rather than HTTP. Most of the information we transmit over the internet is sensitive and should be encrypted. If you don’t encrypt your web request, stop living in the 90s and upgrade your security!
You can also try out the Cover Your Tracks tool which is basically a test for browser security. These tools are easy to download, require zero configuration and can greatly enhance your digital security. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for my next post where I’ll be diving into more complex topics. Be sure to checkout my Coding Tutorials and Podcast !
