Farewell online privacy

What happened?

Trump happened.

just get a VPN?

You can’t just tell people to ‘get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)’. Buying a VPN is like buying a house. It’s very very important. Having no VPN or having a ‘wrong’ one can seriously damage your life. Especially for Americans because their privacy laws are garbage. I am going to try explain why you should get a VPN but bare with me, I am from Germany and my English is far from perfect. 

Let’s start with a simple test.
Click this link here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/
It will tell your IP adres, your ISP (internet service provider), and your location. The location might not be very accurate, but then again, it’s just a simple website. Imagine what the government can do!

So basically, everyone can find out where you live. But there is more danger. Your ISP. Your ISP logs your every move online and they are required to keep it in case the government wants access to it (or if a 3rd party wants to buy your data (yikes). They have everything. What websites you visit. How long you stay on a website. What you download. Your search terms. European laws are more subtle on this but if you are from the US you are #@*#&, especially because Trump doesn’t support the open internet. It’s scary but maybe in the future you can’t get a job because the recruiter knows your searched on ‘how to deal with depression’ or anythings else that’s supposed to be private because it’s your f*cking right. Or you get a $100k fine because you pirated a movie 15 years ago. You need a VPN. You’re dumb for not using one. but what does a VPN do?

A VPN encrypts all your data so if it were be intercepted no one can ‘crack the code’ and damage your privacy. 

Usually being online goes like this (simplified): Your computer —-> ISP (—–> keeps data —–> sells it)

But with a VPN it goes like: Your computer —–> VPN (encrypts data)—–> ISP (ISP can’t see shit)

Furthermore, a VPN hides your IP address and location by giving you another IP address located in Spain for example (you can often choose from a list and change as many times as you want).  

Now that you know why you should get a VPN and what is does it is important to educate yourself because people often choose the wrong VPN. VPN providers are also businesses and have to obey the law. If you choose a VPN provider located in the US then you are throwing your money away because the laws in the US shits on your privacy. If the US gov wants the provider to give all their logs they have to obey.  The ISP  still can’t see what you are doing online and sell your data but the US gov can interfere with your VPN provider so NEVER CHOOSE A PROVIDER LOCATED IN THE US. 

I just wanted to make that very clear so my followers don’t buy false security.

There is still more danger! 
Who says your VPN provider isn’t selling your data? You need to check their logging policy. Do they keep logs? If yes, what for? For how long do they keep them? Tip: Choose a provider who doesn’t keep logs

More about law 
The US is part of the Five Eyes program (the worst):  

The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence (source)

There is also a Nine Eyes (bit better) and Fourteen Eyes Program (better). 
You don’t want a VPN provider who is located in one the Five Eyes countries. 
If you had to choose go for a provider located in a country that’s part of the Fourteen Eyes Program or even better, go for a country that isn’t part of any program! 

I know this is a shitty explanation and please pardon my english but now it’s time to do your own research. Take your privacy seriously. Maybe WWIII breaks out and you get killed for liking the ‘wrong’ FB-page.  

Go to this website: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/

Make sure that your future VPN provider both has green boxes for Privacy Jurisdiction and Privacy Logging. 

I recommend ovpn.se and trust.zone. ovpn is located in Sweden so they are part of the 14 Eyes Program and they keep minimal logs. Their business ethics, however, are alright. 

Trustzone is located in the Seychelles. No country can interfere and their privacy jurisdiction is the best you can get. The US want your data but needs to get it from Trustzone? The Seychelles will simply give them the finger and wave them goodbye. However, this makes this provider very appealing for people who torrent and criminals because they keep no logs (and that is how it shoud be) Also,  there are almost no marketing efforts so this provider is one the cheapest)

Also, often providers such as ExpressVPN are being called ‘The Best’ on websites about VPNs but know that this is just marketing which also makes those provider more expensive (and they too shit on your privacy)

This must be the worst article you have ever read but please, please take your privacy very seriously.

EDIT: I got many people asking me which provider I use. For those who want to know, I use Trust Zone. They offer a free 3-day trial with no strings attached. But still do your own research! 

I am also with Trustzone but I think you forgot to explain one of it’s most important features. It protects you when you are using someone else’s Wi-Fi.
If you are at Starbucks and you use their Wi-Fi your privacy is at risk. Anyone with ill intentions could steal your information. Especially if you are using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. With a VPN your data gets encrypted so no one can steal it. 

Wait, what’s going, on? Did trump destroy internet privacy with a bill or something? Where’s the news? Oh wait, why am I getting visions of Alex Jones and selling water purifiers?

He hasn’t yet but he says he wants to. And if he is serious about it it would be really easy to do. Since all our data is already recorded, as the person above explained.

Trump wants more surveillance of Muslim Americans. This in a country where internet privacy is already close to non-existent. 

Trust.Zone has a free trial. Use it. 

btw this post only has 11k notes? That’s quite disappointing for something this important. 

Don’t reblog this post to save a life.
Reblog this to protect an entire family!

Signal boost!

Man, there is a fair bit wrong with the earth-ruins post… though the big picture is mostly correct. I don’t really have the energy today to correct it :-/

But in general, yes, it is a good idea to at least look into VPN options and know which way you want to go if needed. And get the TOR browser bundle, TOR can be very helpful, and it is free.

Aside from VPNs and TOR, there are plenty of things you can do to increase privacy. Opting out of various tracking where possible, using adblock and noscript, changing your user agent string to something more generic if you are using an unusual browser and/or OS. Use the extension HTTPS Everywhere or similar, so as many of your website visits as possible are encrypted (a good idea even if you are using a VPN as well).

Also the ‘Starbuck WiFi’ problem mentioned above is a sad one… places like that use open wifi, which allows potential attacks from anyone else also on it. The fix would be really simple, just turn on WPA2 PSK, and have a simple, publicly posted password, even just “Starbucks” would do. Even though everyone is using the same password, the actually keys for each encrypted connection to the wifi are different. It’s not perfect, but it makes attacks much much harder.

As for things not specifically Internet related, there are some good ideas. Always use a good password on your home computer, don’t be tempted to not have one even if you are the only person living at your place. It has implications for network security as well, and the courts cannot compel you to give up your password. Ideally you should encrypt your hard drive as well.

That used to be both complicated and a big performance hit, but if you have a fairly new CPU (Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer, or about 2011 and 2012) and an SSD (solid state disk), performance hit will be quite small, and modern Windows at least makes it pretty easy to set up. With SSDs with the OPAL standard, there is even less of a performance issue.

Related to that, always encrypt your phone. This is easier than on PCs even, and more important since they go everywhere and are vulnerable to loss and theft. Again, using a passcode to unlock your phone is important. Do not use the thumbprint or other biometric option to unlock your phone! The courts have foolishly decided that you *can* be compelled to give your thumbprint to unlock, while a passcode is protected under the 5th amendment.

To do some basic privacy measures with your phone, turn off any radios you are not using at the time - wifi, bluetooth, NFC, etc. Of course the phone companies and anyone (read: police) with a Stingray can track with the cell radio. Levels of stopping that are: using airplane mode, turning the phone off, and if you *really* need to be sure of privacy, leave it at home. Of course that limits the usefulness of your phone, so you have to make the call on what level you need/want

Oh, and switch your text messaging to the Signal app. You can also run a version of Signal on your PC. Signal uses Open Whisper Systems encryption protocol, which is among the most secure available. Considering it is extremely easy to use, it is the very best… only stronger communication security would be with methods that are very difficult to set up and use. I use Signal as much as possible (you can get another phone number with Google Voice, and so not have to give out your main number for Signal).

But if you need to use other systems, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (in private mode only) both use Open Whisper Systems encryption, just like Signal. However the exact implementation is different, and likely not quite as secure as Signal itself.

and check out the EFF for more privacy resources https://www.eff.org/issues/privacy