Americans’ fears that the government was monitoring their every click online were proven to be somewhat true during the revelation of the National Security Agency’s PRISM program. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to safely browse the interwebs.
In fact, safe Internet browsing was the topic of discussion during a Google Hangout webinar Tuesday entitled “Government Snooping: How to Protect Yourself Online.” The hangout was hosted by Evan Feinberg, the president of the non-profit organization Generation Opportunity and Eric Boehm, a civil liberties reporter at Watchdog.org.
“I think it’s pretty clear that some of the things the NSA have done have been illegal, violating the actual law, and then beyond that I think most young people and most people across America agree that they’ve overstepped the bounds of the United States Constitution,” Feinberg said during the webinar.
While obviously anything posted on any social media site is available forever, for better or worse, there are ways to protect your Internet searches from the curious eyes of others. Below are seven ways you can protect yourself online courtesy of Boehm.
1. Smash everything and run!
“If you really want to be free from U.S. surveillance, the best thing you can do is get off this webinar right now, break your computer, move out of the country, smash your phone, cut up your credit cards, never be on the grid again,” Boehm said. “That’s not a realistic option for me, it’s not a realistic option for most people our age, I don’t think.”
2. Firefox up your browser.
Yes, Google Chrome seems to be the browser of choice lately, but according to Boehm, Firefox is actually more secure. The Mozilla browser is an open-source program, meaning that its source code is made available to the public for use or for modification. Boehm also believes that Firefox also has better privacy options.
3. Hang up that Skype call.
While one of the most popular long distance relationship tools used to have a secure encrypted option, Boehm said that “there’s now reason to believe that Skype was actually involved with the NSA, they were one of these companies like Google or Facebook that were willingly turning over information.”
4. Put the lid back on the cookie jar.
Boehm said the best advice out there is to “delete all of your cache, delete your cookies.” Tutorials on deleting cyber cookies are available online, including through Electronic Frontier Foundation.
5. How off-the-record is off-the-record?
Apparently “the jury is still out” on how secure instant messaging really is. “Google offers an off-the-record chat, but again, the same thing, there’s reason to think that that’s not as strictly off-the-record as Google would want you to believe,” Boehm said.
6. ‘Tor’ the government off your track!
Tor is a free program which reroutes IP addresses all over the world. Basically, you “make your own computer” when you sign up for Tor. In turn, it will reroute everything you do randomly through a network of other computers, ending up with multiple IP addresses on anything that you are doing online. But there is a downside to Tor – Boehm said the rerouting program does run a little slower.
7. You’ve got mail!
Use a secure email provider to protect your mail. While Lavabit, the email service NSA leaker Edward Snowden apparently used, has been shut down, there are others out there, such as RiseUp, which work as well.
“The tricky thing about email is that there are two ends to that connection,” Boehm said. Without knowing what service the recipients of your emails are using, it’s difficult to ensure just how secure they really are.
For more on Feinberg and Boehm’s thoughts on civil liberties in the U.S., watch the full Google Hangout session below.
