Happy May, and happy ‘Privacy Awareness Month,’ rather than Week. Or better, yet, hopefully, you’ve had a happy Privacy Awareness Month! And since it’s the end of the month, here’s one last article to keep you aware! If you’re unaware — user confidentiality and data collection are on the rise and are consistently being sold behind the scenes of the internet. Here’s a brief introduction to what has been going on:

Recently, after Trump signed approval for the bill following Senate Joint Resolution 34 (H. Res. 230) privacy just got weirder, but you’ve probably noticed no difference. To put this into retrospect for you, it’s a HUGE change, and it’s been reported by almost every possible web news portal in attempts to go down with a not-so-silent bang. Such reports from: Wired, TechCrunch, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Reuters, Bloomberg, Business Insiders, NPR, MSNBC, Fox News, Washington Times, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Register, Yahoo, VPN Answers, MacRumors, and the list just keeps going! There was even an online petition put in place at Change.org. Internet privacy is publicly shifting into a dark corner that isn’t so free anymore. Also, TechCrunch has an excellent informative article ‘Everything you need to know about Congress’ decision to expose your data to internet providers’ that goes more into great depth.

Although this isn’t any new business, it’s becoming more and more of a recently trending topic, and it’s a subject for everyone to consider who believes in self-privacy. It takes very little effort (if done correctly) to protect yourself, and it takes a lot more effort to fix what has already been damaged, if even fixable, at all. A simple, practical fundamental principle: “protecting your personal information is the best way to prevent identity theft.”

So, moving forward: what is it? And, are you the hopping seed that’s being tracked?

The US government (along with other governments and companies) tracks sessions through cookies and APIs (application programming interface) which eventually leads back to sessions and cookies from individuals who use the internet (even privately). A typical example; if you have ever seen a Facebook “like” button or share icon on any website, then Facebook is tracking you already on that website, and it doesn’t matter whether you have a Facebook account. Shadow accounts already exist for the great convenience of tracking anyone everywhere! Shadow accounts are simply invisible accounts for individuals without Facebook accounts. From these pages, metadata (more info here and here directly from the NSA) which then can be extracted and sessions can be created for more direct tracking. The users device and IP address acts as a ‘middle man’ making all the necessary profile connections from any platform or device. Going further with the tracking through emails (from contacts) to phone contacts, mobile and social network photos (face recognition), GPS (also coming from photos), and through other applications (3rd parties) including APIs such as WhatsApp and Skype which all track back to your original and active email(s) that creates an identity whose existence you are completely unaware about. And Facebook is only one of the many. I won’t name drop, but if you’re interested in knowing more then feel free to use Google :-) as a starting point (or for a faster approach start going through the links provided below).

Keep in mind that the government truly doesn’t care about “you” as an individual unless you’re a direct threat to them or their nation. So first, ask yourself “what is the data that you’re transferring?” and secondly, “what are you doing with your information (which is data)?” And as a side note: ‘transferring’ is used as a loose term here as ‘transforming’ could easily be a synonym for this process. Since the individual is only converting their actual physical life (what can be referenced as analog) into a digital mean (what is now online) which is simply the process of converting and transferring information. The best part: it’s total legally! However, most people will agree it’s unethical and comes down to a matter of morals.

So, can an individual protect themselves?

Straight answer: “to a limit” a very subjective and loose limit. Your data is collected either way, but you can, however, find ways to protect your identity from your data mining collections, publicly and by-laws of sharing to 3rd parties. If you’re curious about which methods are being used and which data collections are being gathered, then all the links below should be a very helpful start.

Keep in mind for every service that you activate and for every service that you connect to another platform; your data becomes more accurate. Use the internet at your own risk, and that’s the cost of privacy. I’ve always said in the past “You can go against the waves OR just ride waves.” This statement still holds, and frankly, I believe it will always hold. However, if you can ride the waves, why not use safety gear? Wouldn’t that make your surfing a more enjoyable experience? A safer experience? Like with anything, there are no exceptions.

Disclaimer: I am in no way attempting to force or manipulate individuals, but rather simply educate while leaving an elaborate argument of information that is already existing from original sources online.

In-depth / further readings:

Captivating and interested in protecting your privacy? Then the lists below are for you!

Good News portals:

Recommended VPN providers:

Additional VPN providers:

Too overwhelming? VPN Provider comparison chart (HUGE & informative):

www.thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart

Free by browser (Chrome & Firefox):

Block invisible trackers:

Show Facebook Computer Vision Tags:

github.com/ageitgey/show-facebook-computer-vision-tags

Classic Favorite (most passwords weren’t leaked publicly):

Has my email been hacked?

Email Databases (get anyone’s email in seconds):

Mobile Databases:

Geolocation IP Database Providers:

The Famous Whois Lookup (domains or IPs):

Network Scanners:

Additional references:

And this is just the beginning.