ESSENTIAL DIGITAL PRIVACY SKILLS
Up your personal security game with Nathan Taylor’s guide to the 10 key digital privacy skills you need to know in 2018.
Up your personal security game with Nathan Taylor’s guide to the 10 key digital privacy skills you need to know in 2018.
Maintaining your privacy and security online is not really that hard, but it’s a task far too many people fail it. So here are our top ten tips to get you started.
1 USE A VPN ON YOUR PHONE AND PC
When it comes to personal privacy, VPNs are good for what ails ya. They have the effect of both protecting your identity from the sites that you visit and preventing anyone in between from reading the contents of your data or knowing who you’re communicating with. It stops snooping from governments, ISPs, network providers and websites. The only party that knows what you’re doing online when you’re connected to a VPN is the VPN provider, and most of those deliberately don’t keep logs.
It’s not just for your PC either. Your mobile phone can use a VPN as well. It’s especially relevant when you connect your device to public Wi-Fi networks. When you share a Wi-Fi network with strangers (in a hotel or cafe, for example), it’s easy for someone else connected to the same network to intercept your traffic. A VPN prevents them from reading your data as it is sent over the airwaves.
2 KNOW WHAT YOUR BROWSER’S PRIVACY MODE DOES AND DOES NOT DO
Private modes (incognito mode in Chrome) were a great addition to browsers, but you should be aware of what they can and cannot do.
What they will do is delete any cookies and other data you download during the private browsing session. No history will be recorded, and your autofill forms won’t be updated. Certain plugins will be disabled. Essentially there will be no trace on your local computer that you visited the site.
What they don’t do is stop people from listening in on your communications or prevent the website you’re visiting from knowing your IP address or browser details. It doesn’t make you anonymous online — for that you need the services of a VPN, a proxy or Tor.
3 USE DISPOSABLE EMAIL ACCOUNTS
Every site on the internet now wants to know your email address — demands to know it if you want access — and there are plenty of those that you never, ever want to give your real email address to.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to have a few ‘ burner’ email addresses up your sleeve. Go to a free web email provider and create a few accounts that you never intend to use for actual communications. Then, when you come across a site that wants your email address, you can give it one of these, sparing your real email address the torture of being added to spam and malware distribution lists.
4 OPT OUT
As the saying goes, if something is free then it’s not the product; you are. Whenever you’re offered something that you didn’t specifically ask for free, just say no. No to “special offers,” “free security software,” “free trials,” or anything else that people try to foist on you. None of it is ever good.
We actually have a number of programs we like that can help you out with rejecting crud. One of our favourite is Unchecky ( unchecky.com), which automatically deselects “special offers” during program installs. Many suites and security tools also have PUP (potentially unwanted program) removers built in, to clear the junk off your system.
5 MANAGE YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS
Following a long history of privacy scandals, most of the major social media and internet services companies now provide the option to skip out on large portions of their data gathering apparatus. They don’t actually want you to turn up your privacy settings, so they often make the process as arcane as possible, but the fact is that you have
“For every social media account you have, take the time to check the privacy settings. As a rule of thumb, turn everything to “off. ” ”
a lot of tools now to opt out of their record keeping systems.
For every social media account you have, take the time to check the privacy settings. As a rule of thumb, turn everything to ‘off’. It will probably save you a lot of grief in the future.
6 DON’T GIVE UP YOUR LOCATION OR PRIVATE DETAILS
This one seems too obvious to even list here, yet too many people still fail this basic test of internet privacy. Don’t give out any personal details to anyone unless you’re 110% sure they’re legit. Yes, that’s 10% more than 100%. Don’t let them to know your location; reject notifications; and don’t give out your real email address, where you went to school or your mother’s maiden name. Don’t tell them your birthday or partners name. Nothing. Tell them nothing.
7 USE STRONG PASSWORDS (AND A PASSWORD MANAGER TO REMEMBER THEM)
Most passwords are very easy to crack. Criminals use what are called dictionary attacks to crack passwords — they simply try every word in the dictionary and some common phrases and tricks.
This is why you need good passwords — and adding a ‘1’ to the end of a dictionary word or replacing a few letters with numbers (like “f00tb4ll”) doesn’t cut it. They’re on to those tricks. You also need a unique password for each site — if they crack your Twitter account there’s a 100% chance that they’ll immediately try Google, Microsoft, Facebook and every other social media account with the same password.
Of course, nobody can remember good passwords, so it’s essential you use a password manager like LastPass to keep track of them for you. It means you only have to remember one good password, and the manager can take care of the rest.
8 WATCH WHAT YOU DOWNLOAD, AND TEACH YOUR KIDS
Only download software from the developer’s site or certain trusted online marketplaces like Google Play or iTunes. Never download executable software from BitTorrent or pirate sites. That’s where malware is born.
This is an important lesson you need to teach your kids and family as well. Kids in particular are inclined to download whatever without thinking of the consequences, which is why the average kid’s computer is a nest of viruses and unwanted programs. (One good way to fix this, by the way, is to use User accounts in Windows rather than Admin accounts for your kids. This prevents them from installing software without permission.)
9 KNOW YOUR SCAMS
Staying abreast of the state of the art in online scams is a pretty key skill for staying safe online. Scammers can be quite sophisticated, and the best defence against them is to know what to look for.
We can highly recommend the government’s Scamwatch site ( www. scamwatch.gov.au), which has up-todate details on the latest tricks doing the rounds. Check in once a month or so just to see what’s happening.
10 USE ENCRYPTED MESSAGING
If you don’t want anybody listening in on your private communications, you need to use a communications tool that has end-toend encryption. End-to-end encryption is not nearly as complicated as it used to be, and it’s actually built right into a large number of popular messaging tools now. Even Skype has it as an option (though it’s not on by default).
The most secure solutions are the ones built for security, however. Signal and Telegram are messaging tools that are deliberately and specifically built for security — not even the software makers can tell who you’re talking to or what you’re saying.