Keeping Big Brother Out: A VERY Brief Guide to Privacy Online

The Principles

1. Once something is online, it is eternal! This goes for all email, tweets, blog posts, forum posts, comments, etc
2. Encrypt everything you want private, if its not encrypted assume others read it and know it came from you! Again this goes for all email, tweets, blog posts and comments, forum posts and comments, anything everywhere.
3. Encoding is not Encryption! So if you have a “secret message” that only you and your buddy know how to read its encoding, not encryption. For it to be true encryption it has to be a method of making it “secret” that even if someone knows the method, they still can’t read it.

The Practices

1. Never log into a website where the URL doesn’t start with HTTPS; If you get to a website that asks for credentials (i.e. username and password) make sure it has the https in the address bar of your browser. If it doesn’t add it in, sometimes this works…but most often it doesn’t. If it doesn’t you have two things to do:
   1. Contact the webmaster / administrator of the site and tell him to add SSL support for the login page; Many will respond with a “NO, we’re good enough” or “Sorry, we don’t have the budget for it”…don’t accept it pressure them (or their bosses more likely) to give them the budget for it
   2. Assume that your login information (remember these are called credentials) will be stolen…i.e. don’t use the same username/password as other sites.
2. Encrypt ALL messages that you don’t intend to be read by EVERYONE. Use PGP, a Digital Certificate, or some other form of RELIABLE Cryptography That’s all for now, please ask questions or give comments…thanks