Online privacy is quickly becoming a hot topic on many news sites. I talk about your online privacy, and also how the Tor Browser can help.
Is my online privacy being invaded? And can Tor and me protect it?
We have been hearing a lot recently about marketing companies, street cameras, and even the NSA invading our privacy. In this article we are going to go over what information is actually being collected on you, whether you should be concerned, and what you can do about it.
There are a lot of subtle aspects to this topic, and I want to help you understand what is going on in the online world and what you can do about it. If you know you would like to increase your online privacy and security, I'll provide a link to download the Tor Browser here at the top. It is also provided at the bottom of the article, which also gives more context on how to use it.
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1. What are they monitoring and why?
Let's skip the scare tactics used by most news organizations. I'm going to break down into three primary groups, because each wants different things: companies, the government, and hackers.
Companies: Put bluntly, marketers do not care who you are on an individual level. At the end of the day they are trying to get you to buy their product, and seeing if the cost of convincing you is less than the profit of the product. Generally you are categorized into some type of demographic combination like [gender]-[has looked at car prices in the last week?]-[lives in a country with one of our stores?]. They are working on trying to analyze tens of millions of users, and very rarely get caught up in you as an individual.
The government: The NSA has made a lot of headlines recently, along with PRISM and a lot of other scary buzzwords. The bulk of these intrusions are actually into companies getting access to their data. This includes e-mail, purchasing information, and a variety of other trails you leave.
The boring reality though, is that these are mostly robots scanning e-mails for dangerous looking words or locations. For the average person, this means your private information will never be touched by a human being since that costs a fair amount of resources. But if you are interested, I recommend reading more from the Electonic Frontier Foundation, who are a public advocacy group that work to defend privacy rights online.
Please note I am talking mostly about the EU & the American government here. The story changes quite dramatically if you are in a country where free speech is more limited. The differences between various countries internationally is well beyond the scope of this article. But if you are unsure, always err on the safe side of respecting local norms and laws.
Hackers: These are individuals or groups who try to obtain your personal information to exploit your identity. These make headlines all the time, and sometimes are done on a very a large scale. At the end of the day though, most of the time the primary target is your credit card.
It used to be enough to make sure you never purchased from non-reputable sellers and were smart with how you used your credit card online. Today though, there are many tricks that can be done locally. A common one is trying to snoop on your computer's direct communication, which can be done if you are using a public wifi (like at Starbucks).
Do you need to protect yourself: A definite maybe
In the above section I went over various threats. But at the end of the day, how worried should you be? The answer is very situational. In general you shouldn't be heavily concerned with marketers, or the government. But hackers are a very real threat today, and sometimes it doesn't hurt to have some piece of mind. Here are some general situations I think you should consider using Tor or another anonymity services:
- Using public wifi - As I mentioned above, there is a constant battle to keep your online browsing secure. At home these are generally sufficient, but in public places it's very hard to make sure your information is safe. I would recommend taking extra security precautions when on a public connection.
- When staying in a hotel - Just like using public wifi, connections in hotels are also vulnerable.
- When traveling abroad - If you are unsure of the customs where you are, you may not be aware that some material is considered banned. In that scenario, it doesn't hurt to be safe. One of Tor's original goals was to help people behind government firewall acess foreign content, and continues to be active on that front. Of course, we definitely do not recommend pressing your luck.
- You like your privacy - The extra steps you can take using Tor Browser are fairly easy, but do add a small inconvenience starting the browser. That said, it's not a bad policy in general to always be protective of your privacy and can easily be worth the trade-off.
How do I use Tor?
The easiest way to use Tor is via the Tor Browser. We offer it for download (this link is the same as the download box above and below). Alternatively, you can visit the Tor Project page directly here
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After installing the Tor Project, simply run the browser and it will automatically connect to the Tor network (can take up to 30 seconds). Please keep in mind this will only cover websites visited in the browser Window. If you are looking for a more complete solution, that will include things like instant messaging and other local programs, I recommend you look into the main Tor project here.
I hope this was informative, and you feel a little more comfortable online (or at least understand how to move towards feeling more comfortable online). Remember, Tor Browser is it no way a complete solution by itself, and that you should always respect local laws. But, it is a way to help wrestle back some control over your personal information!
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