Five Easy Steps To Online Privacy

So your privacy sucks...

If you've used social media for more than a few years now, you've already leaked far too much personal information. Throw in the usage of Google's suite of products, from Gmail to Google Maps, and the bad news is that there's a stranger out there who knows more about you than does your best friend.

The good news is that it's easy to fix.

Let's cut to the chase. Here are the five EASIEST things you can do which will have the biggest impact.

Also, download here a handy PDF chart summary.

1. VPN

A 'VPN' is actually a really old piece of tech. It stands for 'Virtual Private Network'. It sounds complicated, but it isn't. Everything you do on the Internet is just your device (e.g. laptop, iphone) asking for data from some server. The way it works comes from a naive time when hippies designed computers. Imagine asking for data and it coming back to you in transparent envelopes. Anyone can peer inside. A VPN is like using opaque envelopes.

But wait! "That's wrong!" So say hundreds of clickbaity videos these days. "You don't need a VPN! We've got HTTPS... bla bla bla.." Allegedly, websites fixed the problem for you. Gone are the old hippy days and transparent envelopes...

You do need a VPN.

There's one extremely important part of your data exchange on the Internet which remains open to anyone nosy: your IP Address. Just like your house needs a street address to get stuff delivered, so your device needs an Internet address. That's the IP Address. It's not private at all. Imagine walking around with your home-address on the front of your t-shirt. It's creepy to advertize that to anyone walking past! Unfortunately, that's what you're doing. When you google-search something, Google's servers see where you live. (Yes, your IP address is tied to a physical location.)

A VPN hides your IP address. It's like putting a t-shirt over the top of your t-shirt with a fake home-address. VPNs can literally save lives!

Choose a VPN with a 'no logs' policy, and also one which offers custom DNS. Why 'custom DNS'? Read on...

2. DNS

VPNs are a necessity, but they're not enough.

Above I said that 'there's one extremely important part of your data exchange on the Internet which remains open to anyone nosy'. Not quite right. There's two.

DNS is the service that changes names like 'youtube.com' to a number like 183.6.3.20. That number is the IP address. We need to use this 'resolution' of names to numbers because computers use numbers on the Internet. That's the way it works. Numbers are more precise.

Why is this a problem? Think about the following list of names. They are what the DNS server sees in the space of a one hour, late-night session:

We can infer a lot from this! We can infer that this is a bachelor aged between 40 and 60, for example. (Not autobiographical, by the way!) Other inferences are obvious, I won't make them.

To be clear, DNS knows nothing apart from the website names. That's still the most important thing for advertizers. Data brokers will pay good coin for it. Is there any chance your ISP, which holds your DNS server, will sell your DNS data?

Luckily, there are DNS servers pledged to protect your privacy. They don't keep any of the website names. You need to use one of these privacy-protecting DNS servers. The best is Quad9 based in Switzerland. If you can find your DNS settings, you just enter 9 for each number ('9.9.9.9'). Simple! There are tutorials online; and for a more in depth discussion, this video by privacy expert Naomi Brockwell is excellent.¹

3. Degoogle Your Life

Google burst on the scene in 2001, when the Internet was a 'Wild West' of thousands of small tech companies. That's why the bastards snuck up on us. We added more and more Google products to our lives. By about 2012, one couldn't function on the Internet without Google. That's when the word began to get out that they were the worst company for spying on customers.

Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps, Google Docs, YouTube... what luddite would try to live without them?

You have a stark choice. Degoogle your life or have Big Brother watching you.

Fortunately, there are good alternatives for every Google product.

Start with Gmail. Set up a new e-mail with a provider which respects your privacy, like Proton Mail or Tuta Mail. Just set your Gmail to forward to your new mail account. It's easy. Find a tutorial online.

Google Search? Outmoded. A.I. is better. Kill two birds with one stone and use Brave Browser which has built-in A.I. search.

Google Docs? Use Mega. If you must use Google Docs to collaborate with someone, create a new Google account just for this task.

YouTube? First of all, sign out. In future, watch videos with Brave Browser. Better still, Brave Browser in 'remember-nothing mode' [Shift+CMD+N] or [Shift+WIN+N].

For every piece of Google tech, just fire up your new Brave Browser and search up 'privacy respecting alternative to...'

4. Cash

Good ol' cash!

Money is probably the most overlooked way that people get tracked. Your credit card purchases are like footprints on the beach. Many companies track you, including ones with which you've never dealt. They don't even hide the fact. Look up Visa's 'global privacy notice'. Apple Pay and Google Pay are just extra layers of surveillance on the same credit card infrastructure.

Cash completely thwarts them. Get in the habit of paying for things in person with cash. Once you get that $50 bill from the ATM, the government and banks don't know whether you've kept it, spent it in the supermarket, or used it to pay for your child's guitar lesson.²

What if you make 90% of your purchases online? Use gift cards. Amazon, eBay, Target, Costco... wherever you shop online, there'll be a gift card for it. Buy the gift card with cash in a real store, obviously. If you're ready to take the next step, buy gift cards online with cryptocurrency. See here for some tips for beginning with crypto.

5. Socials = Close Friends Only

I have never used social media, so I'm lucky, but I'm also a hermit, so you need a more practical way of using social media without completely doxing yourself on the Dark Web.

It's not so bad. The main thing is that you must stop sharing your stuff with the general public.

Social media platforms have a privacy setting which means 'close friends only'. The exact words might differ a bit from Instagram to TikTok and others, but the notion is the same. When you post something, only your friends can see it.

When you think about it, that's a much more normal way to behave.

While you're at it, go through all your so-called 'friends' and unfriend anyone whom you don't trust 100%. It might seem harsh, but it's just part of good digital hygiene. Those days are over. Having lots of online friends is about as cool as Disney-era Star Wars.

Bonus: DeleteMe

This is a one-off action. The other thing you should consider is resetting your online footprints with something like Delete Me or Privacy Hawk. These companies find all the places where your name, age, e-mail address, shopping habits, etc., are shared, and removed them. (I am not affiliated in any way with these services, and have never used them myself, even though I absolutely encourage their use.)