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So this is my frist post. Beeing a longtime lurker, but just registered. So this hopefully is my first valuable post here in this forum 
I don't need to tell you that the goverment is spying on you. Facebook, Google & Co are tracking you everywhere. Your location, browsing history, searches and even your emails. Now this should be about how to protect yourself best against it.
All the programms I recommend here are for (mostly) for free/open source and I have no positions on them.
Social Media
Now this is a hard one. Everyone has some social media account. Facebook, Twitter, Instagramm are just a few to name. If you want to keep in contact with your friends it's a huge problem: You can't change to a better site like "diaspora" because your friends aren't there. So first you should consider to as as less as possible on those medias.
So what does the government probably know about you just because of your activities there?
Your name, birth date, what you look like, present/past location (every time you log in it saves your location), schools you graduated from, where you lived, your interests, your friends, family members.
Pretty much huh? Perhaps you would like to keep some of those infos for you...
Browsing
The internet is everywhere. We use it everyday. So perhaps starting with secure and anonymously browsing is a good start. It is probably impossible to hide everything from the government (at least I think that) but you can make it as hard as possible for the NSA or any other agency to tracking you. There are 3 ways to hide you a little.
Proxy: With a proxy server you might hide your actual IP, but how do you know the proxy you use isn't soon in the hands of the government and they just read all the infos from there instead directly from you? So it makes it a little harder but not that much.
VPN: VPN connections are very usefull. They keep you save when surfing at hotspots. But they cost a little per month, so its not for everyone. I liked HotspotShield. You might wanna try this if you want to use VPN for 5$/month.
TOR: now here comes the best stuff I'm aware of. The Tor Project hides your location, yor identity and your IP. It's for free to download here. If you want to know how it works they pretty much explain everything here.
But Tor cannot do is it cannot encrypt Internet traffic between the Tor network and its final destination and it slowes your traffic pretty much. So you might just download the Tor Plugin for Firefox.
To make sure that you encrypt your username & passwort when you log into your online bank make sure you use HTTPS istead of HTTP. You might force your browser to do so when you install the HTTPS Everywhere Plugin.
Smartphone
Sometimes you surf on your mobile device. So to have the same effect like having Tor you just install Orbot and Orweb if you have Android. Orbot encrypts your traffic and Orweb is a costomized browser to work with Orbot.
For Iphones and Ipad (I don't own one so i don't know how it works) check out Onion Browser, which connects with the Tor network but it costs 0.99$. But hey is your privacy worth less than 1$?
Seachengine
Google is a b**h. They earn they money with collecting your seaches and using those infos for customized ads. And even worse they share the infos frequently with the government. But there is a good alternative. DuckDuckgo. They have the same results and even better they don't put you in a bubble. For infos about filter bubbles here is a good speech.
They even have a app for android and Iphone. Just search for it in the markets.
Tracking
Sadly google is even tracking you when you are not active seaching on google itself. If a website has Google Analytics, a like button, twitter button, they track you over that. So you should try to block them. Good browser plugins are BetterPivacy and DoNotTrackMe for the Torbrowser. NoScript is even better because it blocks all the javacript on the websites. This is how the creators explain why you should use it:
Email
Now comes the fun part. Most people don't know that they even read your emails. Having a Gmail account or Hotmail (Outlook) is just a nice to have but for your privacy its useless.
Offshore Email Hosting
To make sure your emails are as save as possible you need your own web domain. No .com/.org/.net/.us/.uk or anything like that. Norway or Austria or switzerland are run by national-level but non-us agencies with no US government jurisdiction.
When you have your own domain you should set up your email on a offshore server outside of your native country and outside of the US and UK. There are some cheap offerin for this solution like NeoMailBox. They have servers in switzerland and offer secure email with built in encryption starting at 4$ per month.
A little more expensive but more userfriendly is Silent Circle. Here you even have your own @silentmail.com email adress. But be aware that the offshore severs might be taken over by the local government anytime. So quote Henry Kissinger:
Sometimes the bad boys the hackers get access to your account. To find everything you ever emailed... smart kid.
Try to get rid of them as fast as possible. Having a endless long list is like having a hughe paperwork infront of you.
Encrypt Your Emails
Having encrypted emails is the solution against hackers having access to your emails. They just see "alsdflkasdf". The non plus ultra is probably Pretty Good Privacy (funny name duh). It's free cousin Gnu Privacy Guard is nice too.
Just to mention how good this services are: The inventor Phil Zimmerman has been charged for violating the Arms Export Control Act.
So how do you use them? You install a email client. I prefer Mozilla Thunderbird. And there you install the GnuPGP plugin with the Enigmail add-on of course together with your offshore email account.
Encrypt mobile Email
Android: Up to this day there are not that many userfriendly Apps there. APG works exellent with the K-9 Mail app. Perhaps there is someone in here who sees his life opportunity to make some money here
iOS: Try out iPGMail ($1.99).
More Topics later if needed:
Chat & Text Messages
Voice calls
Stored Data(HDD & Cloud)
Payments
Any other suggestions are welcomed!
ps Grammar will come later (I'm a non native speaker so please be kind)
And remember: Privacy is a right not a privilege!
I don't need to tell you that the goverment is spying on you. Facebook, Google & Co are tracking you everywhere. Your location, browsing history, searches and even your emails. Now this should be about how to protect yourself best against it.
All the programms I recommend here are for (mostly) for free/open source and I have no positions on them.
Social Media
Now this is a hard one. Everyone has some social media account. Facebook, Twitter, Instagramm are just a few to name. If you want to keep in contact with your friends it's a huge problem: You can't change to a better site like "diaspora" because your friends aren't there. So first you should consider to as as less as possible on those medias.
So what does the government probably know about you just because of your activities there?
Your name, birth date, what you look like, present/past location (every time you log in it saves your location), schools you graduated from, where you lived, your interests, your friends, family members.
Pretty much huh? Perhaps you would like to keep some of those infos for you...
Browsing
The internet is everywhere. We use it everyday. So perhaps starting with secure and anonymously browsing is a good start. It is probably impossible to hide everything from the government (at least I think that) but you can make it as hard as possible for the NSA or any other agency to tracking you. There are 3 ways to hide you a little.
Proxy: With a proxy server you might hide your actual IP, but how do you know the proxy you use isn't soon in the hands of the government and they just read all the infos from there instead directly from you? So it makes it a little harder but not that much.
VPN: VPN connections are very usefull. They keep you save when surfing at hotspots. But they cost a little per month, so its not for everyone. I liked HotspotShield. You might wanna try this if you want to use VPN for 5$/month.
TOR: now here comes the best stuff I'm aware of. The Tor Project hides your location, yor identity and your IP. It's for free to download here. If you want to know how it works they pretty much explain everything here.
But Tor cannot do is it cannot encrypt Internet traffic between the Tor network and its final destination and it slowes your traffic pretty much. So you might just download the Tor Plugin for Firefox.
To make sure that you encrypt your username & passwort when you log into your online bank make sure you use HTTPS istead of HTTP. You might force your browser to do so when you install the HTTPS Everywhere Plugin.
Smartphone
Sometimes you surf on your mobile device. So to have the same effect like having Tor you just install Orbot and Orweb if you have Android. Orbot encrypts your traffic and Orweb is a costomized browser to work with Orbot.
For Iphones and Ipad (I don't own one so i don't know how it works) check out Onion Browser, which connects with the Tor network but it costs 0.99$. But hey is your privacy worth less than 1$?
Seachengine
Google is a b**h. They earn they money with collecting your seaches and using those infos for customized ads. And even worse they share the infos frequently with the government. But there is a good alternative. DuckDuckgo. They have the same results and even better they don't put you in a bubble. For infos about filter bubbles here is a good speech.
They even have a app for android and Iphone. Just search for it in the markets.
Tracking
Sadly google is even tracking you when you are not active seaching on google itself. If a website has Google Analytics, a like button, twitter button, they track you over that. So you should try to block them. Good browser plugins are BetterPivacy and DoNotTrackMe for the Torbrowser. NoScript is even better because it blocks all the javacript on the websites. This is how the creators explain why you should use it:
Now comes the fun part. Most people don't know that they even read your emails. Having a Gmail account or Hotmail (Outlook) is just a nice to have but for your privacy its useless.
Offshore Email Hosting
To make sure your emails are as save as possible you need your own web domain. No .com/.org/.net/.us/.uk or anything like that. Norway or Austria or switzerland are run by national-level but non-us agencies with no US government jurisdiction.
When you have your own domain you should set up your email on a offshore server outside of your native country and outside of the US and UK. There are some cheap offerin for this solution like NeoMailBox. They have servers in switzerland and offer secure email with built in encryption starting at 4$ per month.
A little more expensive but more userfriendly is Silent Circle. Here you even have your own @silentmail.com email adress. But be aware that the offshore severs might be taken over by the local government anytime. So quote Henry Kissinger:
Saving Your Emails
Sometimes the bad boys the hackers get access to your account. To find everything you ever emailed... smart kid.
Try to get rid of them as fast as possible. Having a endless long list is like having a hughe paperwork infront of you.
Encrypt Your Emails
Having encrypted emails is the solution against hackers having access to your emails. They just see "alsdflkasdf". The non plus ultra is probably Pretty Good Privacy (funny name duh). It's free cousin Gnu Privacy Guard is nice too.
Just to mention how good this services are: The inventor Phil Zimmerman has been charged for violating the Arms Export Control Act.
So how do you use them? You install a email client. I prefer Mozilla Thunderbird. And there you install the GnuPGP plugin with the Enigmail add-on of course together with your offshore email account.
Encrypt mobile Email
Android: Up to this day there are not that many userfriendly Apps there. APG works exellent with the K-9 Mail app. Perhaps there is someone in here who sees his life opportunity to make some money here
iOS: Try out iPGMail ($1.99).
More Topics later if needed:
Chat & Text Messages
Voice calls
Stored Data(HDD & Cloud)
Payments
Any other suggestions are welcomed!
ps Grammar will come later (I'm a non native speaker so please be kind)
And remember: Privacy is a right not a privilege!
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