Entries Tagged 'Privacy' ↓

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and MetroPCS are all able to gather loads of information about their smartphone customers. Recent news about CarrierIQ shows that, on occasion, some carriers are also willing to. They can gather up their customers’ locations; their phone call, email, and text message recipients and contents; and the Web sites they looked at and what they typed on them. That is a thick dossier. Thick dossiers are tempting to nosy, vindictive, and greedy people, not to mention blockheads with badges.

Want to take back some privacy, but still enjoy the power of a high-end smartphone? Consider buying the smartphone with cash, at the full retail price. Then, consider paying for the service anonymously, with cash, on a pay-as-you-go plan. Continue reading →

“The following information was submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office at 15:45 on 1/26/12.”

Device Classes 4 and 5

I am a privacy advocate, computer hobbyist, writer, and mother of three teenage daughters. On my smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers, I install software that keeps my identity and my location (IP address) private, encrypts my communications, and encrypts the data on my devices. I think that these measures are fundamental to defending my dignity and autonomy. I install the same software on my daughters’ devices. I teach my daughters that many profit-seeking people and a few unscrupulous people might otherwise use information about them in ways that could harm them or make them unhappy. The solution is not to throw up our hands and declare that “Privacy is dead!” Instead, we take responsibility to make the devices that we own protect us.

I want to take these measures legally. Continue reading →

by Rhona Mahony. Google revealed last week that network intruders have read email messages in the Google accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Someone–still unknown–is determined to spy on Chinese dissidents. Other someones are determined to identify undercover police officers, ferret out employees who secretly inform the police about their company’s crimes, and stalk their own wives who have left home to escape battering. Hundreds of volunteers are now running an Internet service for people who need to protect their privacy. The service is called Tor, the Onion Router. Anyone can provide Tor, for free. Anyone can use Tor to protect his privacy, for free.

Bill McGonigle, of Lebanon, New Hampshire, decided to become a Tor volunteer when he learned that people in Iran were protesting the results of their June Presidential election. They were using the Internet to organize their meetings. The Iranian government was trying to censor their messages to one another. “I have a soft-spot for people trying to gain liberty for themselves,” he wrote in an email, “especially against tyrannical regimes. It became known that they were using Tor to get around the censorship, so at that point I put up a relay….The people I’d like to help are those living under violence-based oppression, most commonly orchestrated by dangerous and corrupt individuals posing as legitimate governments. I’d like to see an end to oppression wherever it exists.”

Get Tor

To become a volunteer, download this software.
To use Tor to protect your own privacy, download this software Continue reading →