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Salutations, internet people.
after lamenting the problems of digital space, i took a (somewhat successful) break and have returned with a thirst for blood. the blood of corporations to be precise, but what else is new. That's not what i want to talk about. i want to talk about you and what you dont know, but should, but probably dont want to.
what i mean is that the internet is practically complete security theatre these days. do you know how easy it is to find someone's ip address? entire indexes of username-password combinations of websites using nothing but google? do you even realize how much of your data is being bought, sold, and processed constantly?
okay that's a lot of scary hypothetical questions. and they should scare you. but here's the good/bad news: it's easy to find the answer.
the problem is once you open that box, you can't close it. You can't unlearn. that's why i call cybersecurity and it's related fields cognitiohazards (a term i lifted wholesale from the SCP foundation, meaning information that hurts you).
but you're here. you sought out a social media platform without trackers, ads, or an algorithm. so you're curious, arent you? about the reality of the situation, about what you're missing: a raw, unsold internet.
Internet safety is important, whether thats from malicious actors or corporations. So, here's a bit of a crash course introduction to being more paranoid on the internet:
1. Chrome is the worst thing ever, apparently.
and so are most google owned services. They scrape, sell, and store unfathomable amounts of your data. so, step one: stop using chrome.
There are a lot of alternative browsers to chrome, but honestly most of them suck too. The lesser of the three evils (the evils being chrome, opera, and firefox) is firefox. Yes, they still track, monitor, and otherwise abuse your data and personal information, but with add-ons and config adjustments, it's LEAGUES better than chrome. Here is a convenient guide to get started, but you should do your own research as well.
2. Be careful about what you put on the internet, period.
THE ONLY ANONYMOUS DATA IS NO DATA AT ALL. Full stop. Unless you do a lot of your own personal testing and research with every single internet service you use, there is no guarantee that anything on the internet is private, ever. even if they say it is, a lot of them lie. So, what does this mean in practice?
- if you're going to do something... let's say legally questionable, make sure it cannot be traced to you. Go to great lengths. IP spoofing, VPNs, aliases, the whole nine yards. For some internet crime (like piracy), the punishment for first time (or even 2nd or 3rd time) offenses is a slap on the wrist. others are felonies. Do you research, know what risks you're taking, plan accordingly. I AM NOT ADVOCATING TO COMMIT CRIMES. im simply saying to leave no trace.
- if a piece of information getting traced back to you means serious real-life consequences (i.e, nude pictures, getting your sexuality or gender outted, etc.) do. not. post. about. it. Anywhere. Unless you can ensure the accounts/posts cannot be tied back to you. That means having secondary email addresses, usernames, etc. that are completely and totally unrelated to your main ones. that means different passwords too.
- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT PUT SENSITIVE INFORMATION ON ANY CLOUD STORAGE. Unless it is your own privately hosted server that is encrypted. that means, dont put your medical history or some shit on google drive. cmon now.
in fact, using cloud storage at all isnt ideal, but usually inconsequential. if you're going to do it, just make sure it's secure.
3. it's not paranoia if they're actually out to get you.
Alright that's a bit dramatic, but you get the sentiment. You should be skeptical of everything, double check everything, do not take anyone (i.e corporations or services) at their word. Always always always do your own research. I'm not saying you need to read through the entirety of every site's privacy policy or TOS (though it wouldn't hurt), but you should do some cursory searching about the reputations of companies/sites before using their services/making an account/etc.
"hey internet stranger, this seems like a lot of work and overkill"
Is it? See for yourself. Here's a challenge for you: choose a user on this website and, using only the information in their profile, find their facebook account. Can't find theirs? I bet you can find their parents/family members. Guess what else you can find through facebook? Birth dates, high schools, job locations, home towns, entire family trees.
Now, think for a moment about the security questions for most websites. What are they?
"What street did you live on in your home town?"
"What is your mother's maiden name?"
"What's the name of your favorite pet?"
All that info can be found on facebook. JUST facebook.
Now, think about the security questions for your google account. Think about all the information about you associated with your google account.
whether you tried the challenge or just continued reading, how do you feel? Still feel like this is just paranoia?
I'd like to clarify, im not trying to fearmonger here. I just want you all to practice internet safety and to be responsible with your data and how you interact with the internet.
Here's a list of more resources about internet privacy and what you can do:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/wiki/index/ - Wiki for r/Privacy
- https://cybersecurityguide.org/resources/internet-safety/ - college student's guide to internet safety
- https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ - A neocities site with extensive articles about the privacy of browsers, emails, etc. (This is on the more hardcore side of things, most of this stuff i wouldnt go through the trouble of doing unless i was doing something illegal. which i would not do, of course)
- https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/ - r/deGoogle, a subreddit dedicated to removing google from your life. (i recommend at least trimming it where you can)
- Crash Course's videos on Cybersecurity and Hacking are great for getting a basic understanding of this stuff and why it's important
- https://restoreprivacy.com/firefox-privacy/ - previously linked guide for improving Firefox's privacy
Go nuts. Be safe. Do more research.
Comments
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Lapis 𓆩♡𓆪
thank you for posting this! very informative with straight forward facts. a lot more people need to see this.
its sad that most people will never take this stuff seriously because its too inconvenient. but i dont blame anyone for that! its the massive corporations that have made everything simple and "streamlined", just to keep us trapped in their ecosystems so we can generate more cash for them. wanna de-google, de-microsoft, de-apple, or anything like that? the amount of work you'll need to do is gonna be so inconvenient, most will just go crawling back to the big corpos. its sickening how we're being taken advantage of this way
but honestly staying safe on the internet is even more important so im glad u touched on that too. i hope this blog post can convince someone to think more about their own internet safety lol
you're absolutely right, this stuff being so difficult is definitely strategic on corp's parts. I had the privilege of being raised by very technologically literate people and a lot of this had been instilled in me growing up.
i think i might post some more stuff about internet safety/literacy here, as well as on my neocities site
by 𝐇𝐉; ; Report