How to Restore Your Privacy from Government and Big Tech Spyware

Unless you are an analytics expert, the scale of government and Big Tech spying is difficult to comprehend. Even if you use an anonymous ‘burner phone’, the NSA can determine who you are by tracking the movements of your phone¹. Where a phone travels uniquely identifies a person, much like finger prints.

Of course, you haven’t done anything wrong, so why would they track you, right? WRONG! Big Tech and Big Brother track everything they possibly can, including everywhere you’ve ever been or communicated with. With so much data collected, you may think it is futile to avoid surveillance.

That is both foolish and naïve. Governments and Big Tech continue to work together to control information that is available, most of which should be readily accessible. Look no further than how Big Tech censors Covid information on behalf of the US Government². Worse than censorship, they track all social media posts, especially those with dissenting opinions³. Combine that with Cancel Culture and the world is a hazardous place for anybody with even a slightly dissenting opinion⁴.

What can you do?

As far as the CIA and the NSA are concerned, there isn’t much that you can do to avoid their reach. However, Big Tech is a different story. Big Tech collects so much of your information that they likely know more about your habits than your spouse⁵. That is the bad news. The good news is that you can block most of their data collection. How much depends upon how far you’re willing to go.

Immediately Dump your Old Browser

Whether you primarily use a smart phone or PC, the majority of the content that you consume is likely through an internet browser. And the information that you browse reveals a lot about your tastes and preferences. If you use the default browser on your device, you should dump it immediately. Like right now but come back when you’re done 😉 Not only do the tech firms track all of your movement around the web, they sell this information to 3rd parties. Worse, it is completely legal since you authorized the data collection by agreeing to their terms and conditions.

Ten years ago making the switch would have been possible but somewhat difficult. Today, however, there is a rich market of completely FREE and completely private browsers. Besides a lack of knowledge, why wouldn’t you use one of the great alternative browsers like Brave, FireFox, Tor, or Epic? I use Brave on my PC and smart phone, but recommend you research the one that is right for you.

Search in Peace

The next step on your journey is your search engine. Chances are you use Google. In fact, if you didn’t skip this section, there is a 86% chance that you use Google⁶. Even though their market share has gone down over the past decade, Google is far and away the dominate search engine over rivals Bing and Yahoo. Google is so good at monetizing information obtained via their search engine that they employ over 100,000 people without charging for their services⁷.

Switching search engines is easy. However, unlike browsers, alternative search engine aren’t as mature. Duck Duck Go is probably is the most popular. The whole company is built around privacy. But privacy is only one feature of a search engine. Google is king because their results are so actionable and relevant. You may find alternative search engines lacking in that regard. But don’t use that as excuse. Instead, find a search engine that you can live with and use Google or Bing whenever you can’t find something specific.

I’ve used alternative search engines for over a decade and have found that I almost never need to use Google these days. My personal favorite is a little known product called Gibiru. Under the hood, it uses Google, so the results are second to none. But instead of volunteering all of my information, Gibiru uses a proxy server that hides your identity. Further, the results are NOT censored so that sensitive searches return meaningful results, unlike standard Google searches. I’ll leave it to your imagination for when that may be beneficial.

Email

Short of never using email, it is much harder to have truly private email. This is mostly due to the fact that two parties are involved: the sender and the receiver. So even if your email is completely private, sending to an email address that isn’t may compromise your private. Of course, the same is true if people send emails from one of the spying tech giants. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do short of convincing them switch email providers.

And switching email providers can be exceptionally time consuming. It has taken me months to get off my old Yahoo and Gmail addresses. The hardest part has been changing my email address with the hundreds of online companies that I do business with. During the transition period, I’ve setup email forwarding, so I haven’t missed anything. In Gmail this is trivial, but in Yahoo you have to pay for their premium service, which is a total joke and rip off. Needless to say, I recommend dumping Yahoo as quickly as you can.

The other major hurdle is that most private email is not free. If this is a deal beaker for you, I recommend reconsidering. You have so much personal information in email that paying a small monthly fee should be easy for you to justify. I guarantee that anybody whose had their private emails subpoenaed would happily pay for private email services⁸. Even if you aren’t involved in legal gray areas, you could be canceled for nothing more than an insensitive comment or joke⁹.

Like always, do your own research. By far, the most popular service is ProtonMail. They are known for their unassailable privacy and offer a range of prices, include free, basic email. I love how easily they handle domains and aliases. But whoever you use, you should drop your gmail, yahoo, apple, verizon, hotmail accounts now.

Nothing is Safe if Your Network Spies on You

Sadly, the nature of networking limits your privacy. Just think about it. In order to send data across numerous internet switches around the globe, your network packets have to identify the sender and receiver. Otherwise, there would be no way for the data to traverse the network. This means that literally any network switch that handles your data can spy on you.

It isn’t quite that cut and dry because of the sheer traffic involved. But one place where spying is almost assured is your ISP. My what? Your Internet Service Provider. These companies, like Verizon, ATT, Comcast and Charter, rely on spying revenue to maximize profits¹⁰.

You can use privacy browsers, like Tor, to get around this. However, not all internet traffic goes through your web browser. Therefore, the only safe solution is to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). When a VPN is used, all of your internet traffic is encrypted between your device and the internet. This completely circumvents spying from your ISP. It also throws off location services, so that destination web servers don’t know your physical location.

You may think getting a VPN is a little excessive or unnecessary, and I can’t say that I blame you. However, what good is every other measure if your ISP spies on literally everything you do online?

There are literally hundreds of VPN providers out there. I recommend using one from a trusted company, like ProtonVPN, with servers in a country that respects privacy (e.g. Switzerland or Panama).

The World for my Phone

It is difficult for anybody over 60 to fully comprehend how attached most youngster are to their phones. Like the myriad of spying issues, the phone is just as bad, maybe worse. Unfortunately, your only options are to not use a phone or dump your favor product. Neither Android or iPhone are any good for privacy.

Replacing your device can be difficult since most alternative devices use altered Android phones, which limits your choice of devices. These private phones use a customized version of Android OS (open-source) but without all the spyware. I wish I could make a recommendation but I haven’t made the switch yet, mostly because I don’t use my phone for much of anything. When my iPhone dies, you can be sure I will find a private alternative.

Your Computer Doesn’t Work For You

Just because you own your computer doesn’t mean the software it contains works for you. In fact, both Apple and Microsoft extensively spy on their users, just like smart phone¹¹. Thankfully, there is an operating system that is completely private: Linux. I’ve been using Linux for over two decades, and let me tell you, it has come a long way. These days, the popular distributions are incredible smooth and, in my opinion, easier to use than Windows or Mac. My personal favorite is Ubuntu, but really, you can’t go wrong with any of the major Linux distros.

Social Media isn’t What You Think

Social media platforms exist to collect as much information about you as possible¹². If you’re concerned with privacy, then the only solution is to avoid using them, all of them. For most people, however, that isn’t an option.

So, if you insist on using social media, then you should avoid sharing too much information. For platforms like Twitter or Instagram, use an anonymous profile that has no personally identifiable information. On all platforms, never post photos of yourself or your loved ones. With websites like PimEyes and Google Face Search, photos are indexed and saved in enormous databases that can be easily searched by anybody in the world. Creepy, right? So just don’t do it or live with the fact that you’ve traded all of your electronic privacy for free cat videos!

Finally, pretend that politics doesn’t exist. Yeah, that one can be hard, but really you have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Anything outside of acceptable, mainstream opinion puts you on government watch lists, which can only be used to hurt you¹³. And, never, ever, ever post threats or attempt to organize violence. This should be so obvious, but not everybody thinks before they post.

Conclusion

This blog post is a short list of the ways in which your privacy is compromised. Big Tech uses your data to make historically large profits and will turn over your most private information to the government, when required. But there are various, simple, and inexpensive steps that you can take to protect yourself. If Big Tech doesn’t have your data in the first place, then it can’t never be used against you.

Think of these precautions as a minimal starting point. These sensible precautions should cover most information for most people. However, if I’ve missed something obvious, please leave a comment below.

Concordia

In the book, Concordia, There Must be a Better Way, a team of dedicated pioneers establishes a new nation. Much like the original intentions of the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th amendments, the new nation passes sweeping privacy laws that prevent all forms of electronic data collection without express written consent. The right to privacy, especially from self-incrimination, is too import to leave in the hands of bureaucratic that profit off of collecting your information.

What would you do if you had the opportunity to start from scratch? How would you balance freedom, liberty, and justice, while assuring that investors are rewarded for taking a risk on your enterprise.

To found out what happens, buy the book now on Amazon. It is an exciting novel that challenges your assumptions and entertains you in the process.

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