How do You Protect Your Online Privacy?

P asks: "In the light of the recent discussions about on-line privacy: What can one do to protect his/her on-line privacy, while still having a enjoyable web experience? For example, are you using PGP for all your emails and Zfone for all your VOIP traffic? Or are there better ways of protecting oneself? Share your tips and tricks."

Forget it

[Gothmolly]

seriously, if "They" want your data, They will go through your trash, subpoena your pay records and phone records, and tap your phone line. "They" will know more about you than you can imagine, regardless of whether you use encrypted VoIP or not.

Want to feel safe on line? Write your Congressman, tell your friends about IP and privacy issues, affect a cultural change. As long as 51% of your friends are willing to trade freedom (theirs and yours) for security (mostly theirs), you're fscked.

tor

[compro01]

well, personally, if i'm doing something that i don't want traced, i'll fire up tor (http://tor.eff.org/ [eff.org])tor

i currently don't really worry about my email security (if someone wants to read my aunt's cookie recipes, thats fine by me). if i happened to be doing something important, i'd likely use some form of encryption, likely PGP or maybe something stronger.

The ULTIMATE Solution

[ImaNihilist]

Lie. Lie about everything. Writing an email to your friend? Lie about it. Lie about everything that happened to you. Lie about who you are. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Signing up for some new service? Lie. Lie about your name, age, race, sex, address, credit card, whatever. Actually need to recieve the package? Send it to your neighbor and pick it up at the FedEx office with a fake ID that goes with your fake personality. Sometimes if you lie enough to a girl, you even get to sleep with her. Then, if you get herpes you can just lie to everyone else and say you don't have it! IT'S THE SAME THING IF YOU USE WINDOWS AND GET A VIRUS!! HOORAH! The lies will set you free.

I don't

[carlmenezes]

I just simply do not enter valid information. If they wanted valid information, there are enough ways of getting it. The more information a site asks for, the more I make sure that the responses I give are false. If a site only wants say, my date of birth, I might give my real date. If it wants my postal address, telephone number, yada yada without just cause...I will give them wrong info. Its my way of discouraging the use of such techniques. Maybe if enough people do it, then the next time they upgrade their site they will ask only for information that they absolutely need to have instead of every little detail.

Re:Forget it

[Bios_Hakr]

Politicians don't care. And maybe they shouldn't. There are bigger fish to fry right now.

I understand that in an online community, privacy is a big issue. Just like condoms in schools are a big issue with soccer moms. However, in the overall scheme of things, there are a lot of areas that need to be fixed.

If you really want to make a change, start demanding term limits on the Senate and House.

Demand a Constitutional ammendment limiting the ammount of money a single person is able to contribute to a political party. $500 sounds like a good number.

Demand that lobyists be forced to open their books on all expendatures. Make every cent that the AARP, NRA, NAACP, etc be accounted for and displayed on the web.

Demand that politicians be forced to committ to promises during their campaign. Failure to make serious headway towards campaign promises should be grounds for Impeachment.

Demand that the DoD and other government agencies reduce their budgets while maintaining manpower to accomplish their missions. Do we really need to spend $200m on the F-22 when the $40m F-16 and F-18 is still good? Sure, the F-22 is nice, but would you rather be defended by a single F-22 or 5 F-16s? Do you really think a pilot in an F-22 could take out 5 F-16s?

Privacy is *not* the problem; it's the symptom. When you start asking why our privacy is at risk, you'll eventually come to the core problem. Govenrment corruption and power grabs are the real problem.

Here it is take it!

[B5_geek]

John Smith
1234 Anystreet
Anytown, CA
90210
[phone]

DOB: 1/1/1900
email: [e-mail]
Mothers maiden name: mommy

Easy to remember on any site I visit.
the moral of the story, NEVER give out true information to ANY online site.
You make exceptions on an as-needed basis.
(eg. bank, 1 or 2 trustworthy sites to shop from.)

The flaw in only using GPG for "important" stuff:

[KWTm]

i currently don't really worry about my email security (if someone wants to read my aunt's cookie recipes, thats fine by me). if i happened to be doing something important, i'd likely use some form of encryption
 

This reminds me of a joke that takes place in a courtroom:

Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in New York?
Defendant: I refuse to answer that question!
Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in Chicago?
Defendant: I refuse to answer that question!
Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in Atlanta?
Defendant: What!? Atlanta?? I never saw her in Atlanta!

Moral of the story: if you don't pay attention to your email security except when you really need to, then when you do pay attention, someone else would also know to pay attention!

If someone wants to read my aunt's cookie recipes, that is not fine by me. Eat my {/dev/random}-XOR'd dust.

Another approach that works 100% of the time

[AudioEfex]

...Just don't put shit on the Internet you want to keep secret. You never enter it in, it never gets out. AE