The internet has become part of us. We can’t live without it, and it comes with its own dopamine and addictions. well as making us vulnerable to so many attacks.
For once I admitted that if you have nothing to hide why to worry about privacy until I understood that everyone has some information that is confidential and when gotten into the hands of the wrong people we are doomed.
Maybe still you think you don’t possess any confidential information. below are some common data which is confidential to almost anyone we possess it :
- Credit card Details
- Bank details
- Account Login Details
- Personal data like Full name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth and the likes
if yet still you are not convinced that personal details are part of confidential information then I guess you ought to research impersonation on the internet.
Edward Joseph Snowden once said “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
It’s about time we start to protect ourselves to avoid becoming victims of online scams, data stealing and unnecessary surveillance from organizations. This era of technology has brought us more good than harm but it also comes with some mess. Big companies like facebook sell our online Data, Google tracks our in time location with google map, and many other companies do similar project making the internet no more safe for us.
so should we stop using the internet? definitely NO so then use these tips below to stay safe and remember as long as there is no other alternative to the current internets it better to put in measures to stay safe rather than stop using it.
Table of Contents
Internet Browsers
Usually, we use browsers to aid in our day to day surfing of the internet, due to its major role. the best browsers can help us stay safe.
Tor is one of the best anonymous communication opensource software it helps to surf the internet anonymously, Yeah this browser has set of tools which makes you surf the internet without leaving fingerprint or metadata for third parties.
Tor is a Desktop Application. Smartphone users don’t feel left out Tor has recently launch smartphone versions catering for both Ios and android as well as Linux operating systems, so surfing the internet safely is assured and not limited to any platform as it used to be.
Search Engine
Google is tracking you!, YES they track all your movement, your searches as well as the site you visit. Youtube does the same and now with the new HTML 5 standard, almost all the online marketers track your location and many other pieces of information before they accept an order. this seems to be good to them but are we willing to provide these details to them? not knowing the kind of persons managing it. Whether they are trustworthy or not and as well not forgetting they do sell our personal data to other companies as well as Government agencies.
So choosing a search engine matters a lot. these are the places we resort to when we are making researches about our next action or plan. and if they know what you will be doing next what’s the guarantee that you are safe?. Remember knowing your enemy’s plans is a plus in the combat. And as we waging war not knowing who our next enemy is we need to be careful about choosing Search engines. below are some best search engines who don’t track any data about you :
Using these search engines will help to protect others from eavesdropping on your browsing and search data.
Encryption
Encrypt all your communication before transmitting them through the internet. By now I know you thinking about a whole lot of complex encryption algorithms and cryptographic methods or programming your own algorithm. Yes, it’s essential but what about us who have no prior knowledge about that. don’t worry converting your files to archive (thus .zip .tar .gz ) and the likes using a password is best and the simplest you can do.
when we talk about encryption the ultimate goal is to avoid third parties from accessing the information and only the receiver to decrypt or understand the messages. so adding the files to archives with a password and communicating the password to the user or the receiver through another medium is the best. Usually a word of mouth at a face to face meeting is the best. Also, there are many email encryption software of which you can explore below are some few:
- HPE Securemail.
- Trend Micro.
- Send 2.0.
- Data Motion.
- Proofpoint.
research much into them and start using them they are easy to use with little or no technical requirements
Authentications
Nowadays, all our day to day activities such as transaction, educational transcripts, chat, and many others are hosted online. And we identify ourselves as the right person to have access to those content before we are given access.
How do these systems recognize that we are the right people to be granted access to and deny access to those who don’t deserve it. This brought about passwords, two-factor authentication, fingerprint and many other algorithms focusing on uniquely identifying us.
But as far as these algorithms can help we can make it less trustworthy. to stay safe adapt to the tips below:
Tips on Creating rememberable Password
- Always use a strong password: Make your password long. A mixture and alphanumeric and symbols and try as much as possible to avoid patterns. Yes, it also comes with the problem of difficult to remember and as well reproduce. Use these tips below to help you remember a strong password:
- write a whole sentence and use it as your password. that sounds pretty crazy right, but it’s awesome. Example “The Worst Day is My Birthday”. with this you have been able to increase the length making it difficult to brute force.
- improving upon that, change some characters to symbols and numbers. Example: “Th3 W0rst Day is My Birthday”. with this little change you will be able to remember this password but it will be very difficult for a third party to just create or guess.
- you can also improve on this by removing the spaces and using capitalization or camel casing. Example: ” Th3W0rstDayIsMyBirthday” and with this, it’s much better than using those first names and birthdates.
- Avoid sharing your password with friends it really deadly you don’t know when they will rise against you.
- Always change your password frequently.
- Avoid using the same password on many different systems.
all in all, be vigilant and stay safe whether using the longest password or not.
Tips on using public Wifi
Public wifi has become one of the many point hackers and other Pentesters steal most data from us. how ? the wifi we connect broadcast all the activities we perform to all the connected devices before we receive what we searched or surfed. without getting more theoretical just understand, that’s how it works. due to this issue attackers can know what others on the same wifi are surfing. they can devise man in the middle attacks, Address Resolution Protocol poisoning (ARP poisoning). to stay safe always use a VPN when connected to public wifi this helps and protects against some of these attacks. if possible desist from accessing sensitive accounts on public wifis.
