OK, here are some quick notes about things you should do to get a basic level of privacy:
- Signal. This is a smart phone application that let’s you encrypt your calls and text messages. Its on IOS and Android and super easy. If you are a geek, then you can also try ChatSecure, the same idea, but uses an open source library called OTR and routes through the TOR network. Whew. Of course I don’t have anyone who I can actually chat with.
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Hard disk encryption. Turn on FileVault on your Mac, BitKeeper (I think on Windows) or Ubuntu disk protection (you need to reinstall though for that).
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Password Manager. KeePassX is free open source, but I like 1Password even though it is closed source because it works well with browsers.
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Two Factor authentication. This is a pain to setup, but it makes it very hard to crack since the attacker needs your cell phone. Google, Amazon and Dropbox all have it.
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Tor Browser. A complete pain to use and slow, but it is safer.
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Ad Blockers. Mainly so folks can’t track you.
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VPNs. PrivateInternetAccess works well for me.
Then there are some experimental ideas:
- Qubes. It uses Xen to be a security oriented hypervisor