Putting it all on the table
OUR MOBILE DEVICES CONTAIN A SIZABLE CHUNK OF OUR LIFES NOW, AND THEY LEAK LIKE A SIEVE. It’s your phone, your email reader, your connection to Facebook and Twitter, your camera, and so much more. The average smartphone user uses 25-30 apps, and has many more than that installed. Do you know what they all do, or who they share data with? And what happens if someone else gets your phone?
SURFING THE WEB EXPOSES A LOT OF INFORMATION ABOUT YOU. Even before you get a warning about a site wanting to access location information, or anything protected, your web browser is broadcasting a lot more information than you realize. Getting that under control is a step that anyone can do, regardless of how far down the path you want to go to anonymity, and will not take very much effort at all.
PASSWORDS SUCK, SO DON’T MAKE THEM WORSE. Remember the days when we used the same password for every site? Was it yesterday? It’s time to get serious about managing your access tokens for everything. This isn’t going to be as easy as typing your dog’s name into every password prompt, but it will give you peace of mind.
JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN EVERYONE ISN’T OUT TO GET YOU. Nobody wants to be constantly looking over their shoulder, wondering if their kids are secretly informing on them to some three-letter agency. I’m not going to get into whether or not you should trust people, as I’m more interested here in not trusting computers. Being paranoid means being suspicious, examining systems and actions and getting creative about all the ways they can be used to keep tabs on us.
THE DEFINITION OF SURVEILLANCE IS “CLOSE OBSERVATION”. When you’re working with privacy and security, this is basically the thing you are trying to avoid – someone watching what you are doing. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how to be more anonymous, we need to understand how surveillance works in a digital world.
OVER THE PAST COUPLE WEEKS, THERE IS A RENEWED INTEREST IN PERSONAL PRIVACY AND SECURITY. Regardless of why, you’re suddenly a little more interested in protecting yourself from someone else’s snooping and you find yourself here, on my humble site, looking for a little help. Over the next several posts, I will do my best to give you a crash course in privacy, with as little of that “inside bullshit jargon that nobody understands”.
“DADDY! THERE’S A DUCK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.” Little did I know the effect this simple declaration by my 10 year old before she went to dance class would impact my Saturday. At the end of it I was still in my PJs, soaked from head to toe, covered in dirt, but with a couple happy families. And I had more knowledge of storm drains than anyone really needs.
THIS WILL BE THE GIRLS’ LAST MONTH IN A TRADITIONAL SCHOOL. Starting in May, Marcy and I have decided to homeschool both Bella and Kaylee. It wasn’t the easy choice, and for as many people as we know who homeschool, we always said that would never be us. Never let it be said that learning isn’t a lifelong experience, because we have gathered new facts, done our research, and changed our minds.
WE’RE ABOUT TO MAKE ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE FOR OUR FAMILY. Many who know us know that we have had a contentious relationship with the public school system, and this has been the last time I will try to make it work. We always thought that we should make public school work, because both Marcy and I went to public school and we turned out fine. We always treated private schools as a second choice for when there was a serious problem. It has become clear now that public school is not what it was 25 years ago, and it still...
NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, I WILL EXPLAIN HOW. You may remember that I will be running the Disneyland Dumbo Double Dare to raise money for the Lazarex Cancer Foundation. We’re getting down to the wire on the fundraising, and I still need your help to reach my goal. So let’s up the stakes.
EVERYONE SEEMS TO ASK WHY I DECIDED TO LOSE WEIGHT. To be fair, the question is usually “Why did you make a change now?” Or “Why did you start running?” The answer to the first question is simply that I realized I was embarrassed of the person I had become. It took me longer to find the answer to the second question, even after I started running. I sure am glad I started, though.
