First of all, I just want to say I am not an expert and this post does not have everything in detail. I just want to wake you up and make you concerned and aware of the internet you are using every day.
The word “Privacy” implies “a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people”. Therefore, online privacy means you are not observed by anyone or your data is safe.
But, what is data?
Why is it so important to keep it safe?
Let’s look into it.
Simply, data are tiny bits of information that are collected through observation. For a quick and relevant example, when you interact with a cat video on Facebook, Facebook observes that and takes a note that you like cat videos. More on this topic later. Also, your name, your phone number, any ID number of yours is data linked to you.
Now, the importance to keep it safe. There are several reasons to do that.
With your personal information, someone could be impersonating you online and then he might have done cybercrime like tax fraud and then you have to bear the responsibility.
So, avoid putting any personal information on a doubtful website and put the only required information when necessary. Never disclose anything on a phone call or an email requesting your data or requesting you to click on any link.
Also, it is very important to protect your financial information Avoid being robbed, protect your employability, maintain your business’s reputation, protect your freedom of thought and protect yourself from threats that don’t exist yet.
But there is another important reason.
You are being tracked no matter whatever you do on the internet. At one moment you are searching for a smartphone to buy and then you see an advertisement for that exact one on another blog. How is that possible? Because someone can see what you are doing on the internet.
Now take the facebook point. Let’s say you were at the beach with your colleagues on summer vacation. You took photos and then sent a friend on some popular messenger.
Now perhaps they (by they I mean the company) can not see how you and your colleagues look in that photo because of let’s say end to end encryption, but there are some things they can get from that. This includes ‘when’ and ‘where’ the photo was taken and the company can make a valuable point that you like to go to the beach in the summer with colleagues.
Now, this company have an ad agency. Some travel company gave them money to post ads for some resort at the beach in summer. Now like you, the company has hundreds and thousands of profiles noted as summer beach guy (lol). So, can you guess who they will show the ads to? The chance of buying travel tickets significantly increases when you know the person you are showing the ad likes it.
Similarly, let’s say you support one political party. So, when you see a video about something good about your liking party, you react with love or like it and when you see something good about the opposite party or parties you react angrily or dislike it. And now the company knows which party you like. Now maybe a party which you don’t like comes to power and gives the company some liquid to make some changes. So, the company starts showing good videos about the ruling party to you and other people who doesn’t like the party to make the change. And eventually, they might succeed too.
These companies know everything you like and dislike, they take note of each and every interactions you make on the internet. You need to be concerned.
Now there are some things you can do to stay safe to some extent.
Use a virtual private network (VPN). But, don’t use free ones. They just take your data and sell that to others. Use paid ones if you can because “If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.” This also applies to google free services. They let you use their services free and takes your data as a fee. Or at least use 1.1.1.1 from Cloudflare. You can download the app for all platforms. It’s great.
Also, try using password managers and use different complex hard to crack passwords for different accounts. I personally use Dashlane.
Try using a better internet browser and search engine. Chrome is not a good browser from a privacy angle. Try using Brave or Firefox browser, they are good and available for all platforms. And try dukckduckgo as the search engine. These combinations are the safest possible things you can use now.
I might add some things later. Stay safe on the internet. Bye.
suparnom 