Tools – How To Perform Digital Self-defense

Some of the tools from our book will be free (in italics).
Just scroll down to get them.
To get it all you will have to buy the book.
We will update the tools as we go along.

Step 1 – The Basic Ten Things To Do

  • Delete Your Cookies and Erase Your History
  • Use Google’s Privacy Tools and Avoid Too Much Google
  • What Not to Share On Social Networks
  • Use More Browsers
  • Use Pseudonyms for the Private You
  • Basic Facebook Safety
  • Basic Mobile Security
  • Keep Your E-mail Safe
  • Use and Remember Secure Passwords
  • Shop Securely With Your Credit Card

 

Step 2 – The Next Ten Things To Do

  • Use Blocking Tools in Your Browser
  • Use Private Browsing
  • Use Firefox for Porn Surfing
  • Disconnect Social Widgets
  • Advanced Facebook Safety
  • Mobile App Safety
  • Hide Your IP Address With VPN
  • Clean Up Your Reputation
  • Prevent ID Theft
  • Delete Your Files Securely

 

Step 3 – The Next Ten Things To Do

  • Remove Time and Place in your Photos
  • Encrypt E-mail and Facebook
  • Encrypt Browsing
  • Encrypt Chat
  • Encrypt Social Sharing
  • Advanced Mobile Security
  • Keep Your Data and Backup on a Safe Server
  • Very Secure Communication
  • Control All Your Data in One Place
  • Delete Your Facebook Profile

 

All the Rest

  • Encrypt Cloud Storage
  • Use Fingerprint and USB Stick Passwords
  • Check Your Browser’s Fingerprint
  • Want to Kill Yourself on Twitter?
  • Removing Yourself from Youtube
  • Sharing iPad with Kids?
  • That’s Not Cool – Teaching Kids
  • Reusing Passwords?
  • Need Time Off from the Digital World?
  • Prepare For Your Death

Use Pseudonyms for the Private You
Don’t mix the private You with the professional You. Fake it when it comes to the private You, and keep the two identities apart. Your friends, of course, should know your pseudonym. Also when you participate in discussions on their walls.

Using another name than your own runs afoul Facebook’s terms of service which states that you can only use your real name, but disregard that. Your privacy is more important.

Use a common, boring name, and Facebook might not find out and kill the account – because they do if they find out. Don’t take a well-known name – especially not celebrities’ or something like Mickey Mouse. If in doubt, ask a teenager how to set it up, as your own children probably uses a pseudonym to hide some things from you. Save your Facebook content once in awhile, so you have it if they close down your account.

When setting up the pseudonym, you should also give a fake birthday, fake sexual preference and a picture of you with a beard, a hat, sunglasses on or something that can hide you from facial recognition techniques.

Also use a pseudonym when using other social networks asking you for private info such as Pinterest and Path and when dating, watching porn and gaming in general. Twitter and LinkedIn don’t impose a real name policy on you, but as long as you only use it for professional purposes, you should use your own name.

Use Blocking Tools in Your Browser
You can stop websites from tracking you from site to site automatically instead of having to delete cookies and erase your history on a regularly basis. It is not enough to use the advertising industry´s Do-Not-Track measures – not even when it’s a default in the browser – as in Microsoft´s IE 10. DNT just tells the trackers you don´t want to be tracked. You need real blocking tools, which also prevent web bugs, pixels and beacons to broadcast from your computer by installing small programs called extensions or plug-ins.

There is a wide range of tools for blocking tracking code:

  • Do Not Track Plus from Abine is an easy-to-install browser extension. You download it directly from abine.com for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. It shows you in the upper right hand corner of your browser who is trying to track you. You can see which tracking companies the website is sending your data to. “Do Not Track Plus” blocks this traffic and accumulates over time how many cookies have been blocked.
  • Ghostery, which you can download from ghostery.com, gives you a roll call of the ad networks, behavioral data collectors, web publishers and others tracking you. It seems to find more trackers than Do Not Track Plus and lets you selectively unblock those that are necessary to use your usual sites, say for authentication in online banking.

Disconnect Social Widgets
This tool (https://disconnect.me/tools) disables all traffic to and from third-party sites to Google, Twitter and Facebook, preventing the big three from following you around the web. It was developed by a former Google engineer who back then spent most of his time on the question how to track users.

Take Action?

Enough tips and tricks. You want to take action?

Go here for Hear Us Now in the U.S.
For Europe, go here for Europe vs Facebook, here for Privacy International or visit the European Privacy Association.