{"id":478022,"date":"2022-07-26T16:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T13:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T16:00:30","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T13:00:30","slug":"what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"#What You Can and Can\u2019t Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2e06dab7562\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2e06dab7562\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/#%E2%80%9CWhat_You_Can_and_Cant_Do_About_It%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;What You Can and Can\u2019t Do About It&#8221;<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-2' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/#Yes_a_Myth\" >Yes, a Myth<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/#Breaking_the_Privacy_Illusion\" >Breaking the Privacy Illusion<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/#What_Can_You_Even_Do\" >What Can You Even Do?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/#Whats_the_Point_Threat_Modeling_101\" >What\u2019s the Point? Threat Modeling 101<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CWhat_You_Can_and_Cant_Do_About_It%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;What You Can and Can\u2019t Do About It&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"type:primaryImage size-full wp-image-820204\" data-pagespeed-no-defer=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/shutterstock_1115578520.jpg?width=1198&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"A surveillance camera picking a person out of the crowd.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"type:primaryImage imagecredit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-illustration\/giant-surveillance-camera-spies-man-no-1115578520\">Wit Olszewski\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We all want to recover (and maintain) our online privacy. There are lots of features and industries built around fighting for privacy, from private-browsing modes and tracker blockers to private VPNs. But online privacy is a myth\u2014and offline privacy might be one, too.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Yes_a_Myth\"><\/span>Yes, a Myth<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Myths are stories (or narratives) that are often foundational to a society\u2019s beliefs. The myth of online privacy is like that: Privacy feels foundational in our society. To the extent we accept we don\u2019t have privacy online, it feels like something we\u2019ve lost\u2014something that we can perhaps recover with the right software tweaks, behaviors, or perhaps regulations.<\/p>\n<p>When you think about it, the myth of online privacy is even beneficial to those industries that benefit from the lack of it. We all might agree that there\u2019s no privacy online, but leave us to a search engine, and we\u2019ll search an endless list of everything that comes into our minds, including potentially sensitive topics like medical questions. <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/police-google-reverse-keyword-searches-rcna35749\">Police even dig through those search histories to look for criminals<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Breaking_the_Privacy_Illusion\"><\/span>Breaking the Privacy Illusion<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>We may all agree that online privacy isn\u2019t something we have. But do you realize how little privacy you actually have?<\/p>\n<p>First of all, when you go online, your internet service provider\u2014whether that\u2019s a home internet connection or a cellular data connection\u2014can see all the websites you\u2019re accessing. In the USA, they can even sell your browsing data. Your mobile carrier may even be tracking and selling your <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a> usage activity.<\/p>\n<p>When you visit a website, it can see your IP address and use that to track you across visits. But it likely loads a lot of tracking scripts, too. Those tracker networks can track your activity across multiple websites. That\u2019s one reason you see shopping ads chase you across the web after you look up a particular product. Even if you\u2019re clearing cookies, there are a lot of ways to fingerprint your web browser.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe cloud\u201d is just someone else\u2019s computer. If you upload your files to the cloud without using end-to-end encryption\u2014something most services don\u2019t offer\u2014your files can be viewed and accessed by the company that owns the cloud service. The same goes for messages and emails, which <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>ly aren\u2019t encrypted either.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, you might know all that\u2014but did you know that advertisers can tie your in-store purchases and visits back to ads you see? For example, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/google-ads\/answer\/9994849?hl=en\">Google has a product that does this<\/a>, and one of the data sources it uses is the nebulous \u201ctransaction data uploaded by the advertiser or aggregated and anonymized data from third parties.\u201d Your <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90490923\/credit-card-companies-are-tracking-shoppers-like-never-before-inside-the-next-phase-of-surveillance-capitalism\">credit card usage is being used to track you<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n<p>Did you know that <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>\u2019s advertising tools are so granular that you can target ads so narrowly that you can <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2021\/10\/15\/researchers-show-facebooks-ad-tools-can-target-a-single-user\/\">show them to only one individual<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Government surveillance is a given: Edward Snowden famously drew attention to massive warrantless government surveillance of internet and phone data. The <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/XKeyscore\">NSA\u2019s XKeyScore software<\/a>\u00a0reportedly allows real-time search and access to the massive amount of data being logged about online activity.<\/p>\n<p>The online world isn\u2019t something completely separate from the real, physical world, of course. The USA is full of <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/pages\/automated-license-plate-readers-alpr\">automatic license plate readers<\/a>, and many of them are now <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/roadshow\/news\/license-plate-tracking-for-police-set-to-go-nationwide\/\">linked together in a big network<\/a>. Even if you get off the computer and go for a drive, your movements are being tracked and logged. Amazon may be <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2022\/07\/amazon-finally-admits-giving-cops-ring-doorbell-data-without-user-consent\/?tag=hotoge-20\">handing videos from your Ring doorbell camera<\/a> over to the authorities without your explicit consent. <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/new-records-detail-dhs-purchase-and-use-of-vast-quantities-of-cell-phone-location-data\">Your cell phone location data is being used to track you<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_Can_You_Even_Do\"><\/span>What Can You Even Do?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>An article like this one could go on and on with examples. Do a little digging, and you can find many more examples. The amount of data being collected, crunched, and analyzed about us at all times is tough to conceptualize.<\/p>\n<p>There are no perfect fixes. Private browsing will stop your browser from remembering your history and give you a fresh set of temporary cookies, but your IP address is still out there. You can avoid using Facebook, but Facebook has a shadow profile on you anyway. You can use a VPN, but you\u2019re going to sign into something eventually\u2014which will tie your identity to your browsing in the VPN\u2014and you\u2019re placing your trust in a VPN that hopefully doesn\u2019t keep logs.<\/p>\n<p>So what can you do? Well, you can still make a dent in it. If you\u2019re currently broadcasting your life as a 24\/7 live stream, turning off the camera means less data is out there.<\/p>\n<p>You can use a VPN along with private browsing mode to disguise your browsing\u2014but don\u2019t just rely on a VPN alone, and understand that you\u2019re trusting the VPN. You could use Tor\u2014though there have been vulnerabilities in Tor, too. You can use more private, encrypted services\u2014for example, chatting on Signal instead of plain-old SMS messages. You can keep your sensitive files more private, storing them locally or securely encrypting them before uploading them to online storage.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, you can go further: Using cash, for example, and putting together facial accessories that will stop facial recognition cameras.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Whats_the_Point_Threat_Modeling_101\"><\/span>What\u2019s the Point? Threat Modeling 101<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>But as you\u2019re sitting there using Tor on a computer running <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/tails.boum.org\/\">Tails<\/a> trying to figure out how to go off the grid without actually going off the grid, you might want to ask yourself: What\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n<p>No, we don\u2019t mean give up\u2014we mean consider what you\u2019re actually defending against.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You might not care if Facebook realizes you\u2019re interested in seeing the latest movie. But you might want to fire up that VPN and private browsing mode when you\u2019re searching for information about a medical issue.<\/li>\n<li>You might be fine with storing photos of your vacation unencrypted in the cloud, but you might want to keep sensitive financial documents more secure.<\/li>\n<li>You might be fine chatting with your plumber over SMS, but you might want to have a private conversation with your spouse on Signal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s all about your threat model\u2014what are you actually trying to defend against? Once you know what you care about keeping private, you can take steps to keep that individual sensitive thing private rather than be overwhelmed with all the data collection going on all the time.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, that\u2019s not a recipe for \u201conline privacy.\u201d There\u2019s no easy way to flip a privacy switch and regain a mythical state of privacy. But there are things you can do to better shield specific things and keep them more private.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n setTimeout(function(){\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s) } (window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n   fbq('init', '335401813750447');\n   fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  },3000);\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/819686\/online-privacy-is-a-myth-what-you-can-and-cant-do-about-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;What You Can and Can\u2019t Do About It&#8221; Wit Olszewski\/Shutterstock.com We all want to recover (and maintain) our online privacy. There are lots of features and industries built around fighting for privacy, from private-browsing modes and tracker blockers to private VPNs. But online privacy is a myth\u2014and offline privacy might be one, too. Yes, a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":478023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/shutterstock_1115578520.jpg?height=200p&trim=2,2,2,2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}