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Category Archives: Internet privacy

Sousveillance?

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Source: Stephanie Mann, age 6, via Wikipedia Periodically I check out the web site of David Brin, a science fiction writer and futurist, to see what’s on his mind. Brin is the author of the brilliant and classic Startide Rising (1983), which won both the Nebula and Hugo awards the year it was published. But, […]

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VPN security on all your devices

Saturday, February 2, 2013

I have been using VPN encryption on my iMac since October 2011. It has worked great. The company that I signed up with — Private Tunnel — now has apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android, along with the Windows and Macintosh versions. I’ve written about VPN (virtual private networks) many times in the past […]

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Narc'ed out by gmail

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Click on the image above for a high-res version The media today are focusing on the downfall of David Petraeus, the former CIA director. The Atlantic has a piece on how the FBI snooped on Petraeus and his mistress. It was from identifying information in the header of Google email. All email has a header. […]

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Julian Assange

Sunday, August 19, 2012

“Facebook is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented.” — Julian Assange Regular readers of this blog know that one of my constant refrains is that Americans are now the most propagandized people in the world. Whenever I say this, I also say that I’m not just throwing a rhetorical grenade. I […]

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How your privacy is bought and sold

Friday, December 2, 2011

Thanks to a WikiLeaks document dump, we now know more than ever about how private corporations are spying on all of us (unless you’re off the grid) and selling the data to whoever will pay for it, including, of course, governments. If you use a cell phone or a computer, you are being monitored. One […]

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Disk encryption

Sunday, November 20, 2011

I’ve written number of articles in the past about ways to protect your privacy on the Internet. I’d like to add a another layer that should be found on the well-defended computer: disk encryption. Disk encryption is easy. Whether you’re running Windows or a Macintosh, you probably want to do it with TrueCrypt, which is […]

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Resisting Internet snooping

Friday, October 21, 2011

My cellular antenna, pointed at a Verizon tower for Internet service. Apple found my WIFI and its exact location, even though it’s in the boonies, in the darkness of my attic. The dark side of the Internet is that it is a big machine increasingly optimized for the invasion of privacy. For example, my WIFI […]

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Decorporatizing your life

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” One of the many puzzling things about today’s political environment is why so many of the people who distrust government think that corporations can do no wrong. My view is that out-of-control, anti-democracy corporations are far more dangerous than government. Mind you, I don’t want to totally demonize corporations the way some […]

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Gone to Chrome

Sunday, February 20, 2011

I am constantly experimenting with Web browsers and better ways to prevent corporate snooping on the Web. This has led me — for now at least — to stop using Apple’s Safari browser and switch to Google’s Chrome browser. For one, manual cookie management in Safari (or any browser) is just too tedious. To make […]

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The New Yorker on Internet security

Monday, November 1, 2010

Anyone interested in Internet security and Internet snooping will want to read Seymour Hersh’s article in the Nov. 1 New Yorker: “The Online Threat: Should we be worried about a cyber war?” The article contains a lot of interesting background on where the government, the military, and private corporations stand on the question of Internet […]

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