Internet Surveillance
During your regular internet browsing session, there are anywhere between two to three thousand third-party softwares trying to grab your data or attack your device with malware. You are being tracked by companies, even if you have never signed up for their services, which include Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and others that spend millions of dollars annually to keep broken/outdated privacy laws intact. Facebook, for example, was found using $2.8 million towards trying to influence the White House and Congress through “Online Advertising” in 2017. The problem isn’t just that your every click and keystroke is closely monitored, but they are also stored, copied, and sold thousands of times around the culprit world. Along with this, you are being profiled with biases and algorithms which you have no control over.
If you are not worried about your online privacy, you can look no further than China to see the reality of the internet without privacy. The Chinese government closely cooperates with tech giants, including Google, to build tools that track everybody’s online activities. The government then uses this data to give people social credit/ranking and scores them accordingly. These people then have no control over their social credit, which can limit them from getting loans and mortgages, ban them from traveling and shopping, and limit their engagement in social activities. There’s only a short amount of time before these dystopian systems are implemented into the Western world. After all, these softwares are developed by Western corporations. But before this happens, you can learn how to be anonymous on the web today and protect your identity.
How do you protect yourself?
Many may think that using a VPN, commonly known as Virtual Private Network, is enough to solve this issue, but this is simply wrong. The problem with Virtual Private Networks is that your VPN provider knows the same information about you that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) does. VPNs only change your IP address and make it difficult for your ISP to control your activity. Your IP(Internet Protocol) address can be used to source your location, but your IP address is only one of the many thousands of data points a modern tracker can use. For example, most websites use Google Analytics and many VPN provider websites are using it as well. This means that even if you log off your Google account, you are still being tracked, and overtime, you’ll generate enough comprehensive data to reveal your original identity. VPNs are only useful to bypass geo-censorship, but they don’t give you any anonymity whatsoever. Most of these services require online payments that lead to your bank account, so there goes your anonymity out the window. In modern surveillance, it is the metadata that’s most valuable. Metadata is information about who you talk to; when, where, how often and for how long you talk;, and what device and software you use. The NSA, for example, uses modern trackers developed by companies, such as AT&T, which don’t even need your IP address to identify and track you.
To achieve true online anonymity, you need to invest your time into changing from company-owned operating systems, like Windows and Mac and into free-sourced/publicly funded systems like Linux and Ubuntu. These free-sourced operating systems don’t have key-loggers nor do they sell your internet activity to third-party. When it comes to which browser to use, I would recommend using Tor. Tor is a free-sourced, non-profit browser whose only purpose is to provide anonymous and encrypted communications. It does this by sending your communication around three or more network relays run by volunteers all over the world. As it passes through one of these relays, the data is encrypted. This prevents someone from watching your internet activity and from learning about what sites you visit. It also prevents websites you are visiting from learning your location. Not to mention, Tor was developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and is commonly used by the NSA (Nation Security Agency) and other Government Agencies to help facilitate their operations, so you know you’ll stay anonymous while browsing the internet on Tor. As for internet browsers on mobile devices, I would recommend using DuckDuckGo along with Firefox. Both are open-source, providing great security from culprit spying. It is important to take precautions about your internet activity in order to protect your private information from unwanted personnel. It is important to learn online anonymity in order to secure your future.