Newbie’s Guide To The Internet Surveillance

It is a sad reality that governments worldwide are pushing to implement mass surveillance systems with minimal backlash. And consumers, for the convenience of using their devices, are increasingly giving up their fundamental rights to online privacy.

Internet surveillance by government organizations is justified to a certain extent since the purpose of their surveillance is collecting data about criminals and terrorist organizations. But government organizations don’t just stop here. With its citizen loyalty point system, the government of China and Russia are proof that digital privacy means nothing to such organizations.

As for ISP’s, they record each and everything about their users’ browsing habits and preferences. Tracking by ISP’s is done by using IP addresses because the IP of any device, when connected to the internet, remains the same, and it allows the device to be identified and located with ease.

In this modern age, we may think that we are free to do anything, but this cannot be further from the truth. Whenever someone connects to the internet, their privacy is at risk. There are ways to tackle all these threats. To keep yourself and your privacy safe and intact.

Guide to newbie’s for internet surveillance:

Digital Privacy

Digital privacy is the protection of your personal information that no one can have access to. Everyone has their privacy level according to the type of information they possess and its severity.

When posting or uploading pictures on social media from an account, all personal information related to that account gets stored on servers of that social media site. Owners of these sites have access to all your information, and they may use your information for nefarious purposes or sell the information to third parties. In such cases, without digital privacy, your information can never be secure or safe.

Encryption

It converts online and offline data into unreadable content so that no one can access or decipher it without a valid key. Encryption can be carried out both offline and online.

Offline encryption: For offline encryption of your data and files, FDE is a sensible choice. FDE is Full Disk Encryption, which can be done at the hardware level to protect your data.

Online Encryption: When you want to protect your online conversations, you should use end-to-end encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Signal.

Put A Cover On Publicly Shared Information

You can control your privacy on your own by being careful of where you share your personal information. Try to reduce your online presence. Don’t share family history, interests, business, and location, or else you might ask for trouble.

Put Up A Line Of Defense

Your passwords are your main line of defense, so you should keep your passwords tricky and complicated. You can use auto password generators to create complicated passwords and use online vaults to secure them. This way, you won’t need to remember all the complicated passwords.

Email safety

When it comes to emails, they can also be a source for disturbing your digital privacy. Always be aware of phishing attacks. Never enter your credentials on attached files or fake and shady web pages. Doing so might result in a hacker getting access to your system, files, and account credentials.

TOR

TOR is the acronym of “The Onion Router.” It is an open-source program that hides your IP address and shuffles your personal information within a huge network of relays. Tor protects your privacy by utilizing a network of hidden servers that keep your information private.

VPN

Lastly, a VPN. Are you wondering what a VPN is? VPN is an acronym for the “virtual private network”. To ensure security and privacy VPN works as a tool that gives encryption to your data and traffic. For instance, no one, the government, hackers, not even your ISP can track your online activity if you are using a VPN. VPN also masks your IP address, making it difficult for search engines to monitor your location and interests.

Benefits of using a VPN:

• Your data is encrypted and remains hidden from prying eyes
• You can connect to a VPN server in the country of your choice
• You can unblock censored websites and have access to them in just one click