SPI: 1.18.22
Welcome to the result of my positivity practice, where I spend 10 minutes per day thinking about what I’m enjoying, and finding value in. Today’s theme is privacy - something that is incredibly important, even for we normal people. Here’s why: at some point, you’re likely to say or do something that’s upsetting to someone. That’s part of having opinions, and is fundamental to growth as a human and a species. There are many instances of normal people having been hacked by their own, or a foreign government, by hacker-for-hire groups, or even by corporations. Anything that you don’t want to be available for everyone to read should be conducted on private messaging services that are end to end encrypted. That includes appointments, vacation plans, trade/business secrets, etc.
A Song:
I adore hand pans, and songs by Daniel Waples are incredible examples of why. I hope this mellows out your day.
A Picture:
I took this picture at our local river access in Missoula just a few days ago. If you look really hard, there are at least 30 bald eagles sitting in the trees.
Some Inspiration:
Here’s the core of what you should be doing for digital privacy:
Evaluate your exposure vectors and shore up your computer and phone. There are a lot of good blogs and articles about digital security. These are some of the most simple though, and I strongly recommend that you read through the first, as well as the one for your preferred mobile OS.
Start Here - https://onlineprivacy101.info/
Privacy for iPhones - https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/iphone-privacy-tips/
Privacy for Android - https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/privacy-tips-for-android-phone/
Find out if your info has been leaked/sold. Online attacks happen all the time, and you’ve almost certainly been a part of one or more. This site will let you know if your email is included in any leaks, and can proactively alert you when it happens. Please sign up. Please use unique passwords for each service if possible (password managers make this possible).
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Signal Private Messaging - Whatsapp, iMessage (particularly if you backup to iCloud), Telegram, Snapchat, and Android messages are all extremely “leaky.” That is, they have lots of opportunities for attackers to extract meta-data and even the messages themselves. Everything that’s at all sensitive should be conducted on Signal. Signal is free (though donations are happily accepted), and they publish their source code so any security vulnerabilities can be discovered by the community and fixed. It’s end-to-end encrypted, which means that your messages never live on Signal’s servers. This is the gold standard of private messaging, and it’s got a great user interface, so you’re not sacrificing anything.
https://signal.org/
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