The paranoid's survival guide: Protect your privacy on social, mobile and more

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2488498/data-privacy/the-paranoid-s-survival-guide-part-2-protect-your-privacy-on-social-mobile-and-more.html

The paranoid's survival guide, part 2: Protect your privacy on social, mobile and more

Is privacy dead? Not by a long shot. While you can't control everything that's out there about you, there's quite a bit you can do to reduce your data footprint -- or at least avoid adding to it. For this series, Computerworld asked nine privacy experts for tips and tricks they use for keeping their own personal data profiles on the down low.

Whether your goal is avoiding tracking by marketers, ensuring your personal safety or protecting yourself from government surveillance, there are steps you can take to minimize your exposure both online and off, these professionals say.

Part 1 of this series covered how to maintain your online privacy and surf the Web without leaving a data trail. Here, in part 2, we offer advice on how to approach social media, messaging and some general rules you should follow when using mobile apps. Part 3 covers how to minimize your offline data footprint, and where to go to opt out. (For more tips, also see our "60-minute security makeover: Prevent your own epic hack.")

3 ways to shape up your social media

Don't sign up for a new service using Facebook or another social networking account

When a website tells you it's easier to register for its service using your Facebook account, what they really mean is that it's easier for them to pull all available information about you from that site and use it to build a profile on you, says Rob Shavell, co-founder and CEO at privacy software vendor Abine. Always choose the "sign up with email" option, and don't use the same email address you use for Facebook or other social media accounts.

Lock down those social network privacy settings

Review and set the privacy settings for every online service you use, and revisit those policies regularly to update them, as the services tend to change their policies frequently, says Jules Polonetsky, executive director of the Future of Privacy Forum. "Make sure you lock down the settings in every social media profile, and test it to see what others can see about you," he suggests.

Think before you post

On social networks nothing is truly private. "Be aware when you post with whom you are sharing," says Sid Stamm, senior engineering manager for security and privacy at Mozilla. What you post can be used against you, either now or in the future -- by snooping government agencies, political operatives, potential employers or online marketers that want to serve up interest-based advertising.

Even when you delete a post it's likely to persist. Your "friends" can copy/paste anything visible to them into other sites or email messages. And with Twitter your posts are part of the public data feed that's routinely captured by data brokers and others interested in analyzing that data. "The act of deleting just means removing the visibility on Twitter," says Robert Hansen, a security researcher and director of product management at the website-security vendor WhiteHat Security. But every data broker or other organization that has consumed your Twitter feed between the time you posted and the time you deleted the message still has the data.

Don't post photos of your kids, your interests or when you'll be going on vacation, he adds. "If it's something I even briefly pause about, I don't put it on social networks. Treat everything in social networks as adversarial, and then you don't have to worry about it."

Online job sites and online dating sites are the two areas where people give up way too much information about themselves, says Casey Oppenheim, co-CEO at anti-tracking software vendor Disconnect. "Your name, address, where you went to school -- all of that information about you can be used to answer challenge questions," he says. Online dating sites may use questionnaires to collect extensive psychological and demographic data in an effort to build very detailed profiles that may be retained even after you close your account.

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Manage your messaging

Secure your email

Be sure to enable HTTPS encryption for all email communications in transit. As for email data in your inbox, a hosted private email service that you pay for, from a company such as Rackspace, offers more privacy than does a free, public Webmail service such as Gmail, while hosting your own email server on premises offers the most privacy of all.

There are many exploits out there for compromising Webmail services, says Hansen. What's more, the content of email hosted on free Webmail services may be used to allow advertisers to send interest-based advertising. Also, government agencies can access your data on Webmail or hosted email systems at any time by simply presenting a subpoena -- and the provider may be prohibited from telling you about it. With an internally hosted server, a search warrant would be required, and you would be aware of the action.

Use a privacy-oriented email service

Popular Webmail services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail offer a free account in exchange for collecting data about you and analyzing your email activity for marketing purposes. If that bothers you, consider a free service not supported by advertising, such as Zoho Mail, or use an email account provided by your ISP.

For even greater protection, use a secure email service that's dedicated to protecting your privacy, such as Riseup or MyKolab. Services like MyKolab, which hosts your email data offshore and out of reach of the Patriot Act, may make your data less prone to U.S. government snooping.

Use a self-destructing text/chat service

Instant messaging/texting services that encrypt your communications and don't retain your chat history have gained critical mass among young people, and for good reason, says Polonestky. "No one records [verbal] chit-chat, but when I have that conversation online it's somehow part of the national archives. It shouldn't be. It's the kind of communication that should work as a shout out and be fleeting," he says.

Polonestky uses Frankly Chat, which he calls "Snapchat for adults," but says other popular services including Snapchat itself or Whisper also work well. Whisper is an anonymous social network, and Snapchat allows users to set time limits for how long their posts will appear.

Oppenheim recommends Silent Text and TextSecure. The downside of these services is that the person you want to message must have the same app installed and running before you can connect. So, depending on which service your friends use, you might need to keep more than one app running.

Mobile protections

Limit tracking on your mobile phone

Mobile phones offer more limited options for minimizing your online footprint, says Justin Brookman, director, consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Your carrier knows your location, the calls you make, the sites you visit, the texts you've sent and received and the apps you use. Unless you turn off your phone, your carrier will always know where you are, he says. And while you can't opt of out all data collection, your carrier may offer options that let you limit how it uses and shares that data.

Password-protect your smartphones, tablets and other personal computing devices, and configure the "find me" feature or app for mobile devices. "The first thing to do is to make sure that if you ever lost the device you can get it back and lock it down. This is half security, half privacy," says Chris Babel, CEO at security vendor Truste.

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Use a password manager and two-factor authentication

Password managers not only keep track of your online user names and passwords and generate strong passwords, Babel says, but most also have an auto-fill feature that protects your account credentials from key logger malware that may be watching you. (It's especially important to use a strong password for your email account, since it contains a trove of personal information about you, and most online accounts use your email address to allow you to reset forgotten passwords.)

If you already use a password manager -- either on your desktop as a standalone app or in your browser -- check to see if it has a mobile component. Many do.

For additional protection, consider a password manager such as LastPass that supports two-factor authentication. Even if someone guesses your master password they still won't be able to get at your password database without physical access to your device.

Don't share your location information

"You can control who you give location permission to on most mobile devices, but you can't control" with which other apps are given that data. "So choose carefully," says Brookman. Social media updates that include location data also tell people where you are -- and where you aren't. Do you really want everyone on Twitter, or all of your Facebook friends -- and friends of friends -- to know? "Don't turn on location services unless you really need it," says Oppenheim. And turn it off when you're done.

Turn off your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to avoid retail tracking

Today you walk into a store and the retailer doesn't know much about you. "But stores are installing listening devices to detect mobile phones with Wi-Fi turned on that are actively looking for access points," says Brookman. Before long, it won't just be your mobile carrier and mobile apps that know where you are at all times. Retailers and other businesses want to use the combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals emanating from your smartphone to track you when you enter a store or other place of business.

"When I walk into the mall they will know I've entered because my device is pinging Wi-Fi. And with Bluetooth they can track me within 30 to 50 feet. They know where I'm walking," says Babel. When your phone queries the store's wireless router to search for connectivity option, the business captures the unique MAC address associated with your phone's Wi-Fi hardware. If you then make a purchase, your MAC address can be combined with other information the store has to identify you. Some consumers might want to announce themselves, Babel says, because they're hoping to receive special offers on their smartphones. But if you're paranoid, says Brookman, turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth solves the problem.

If you can't be bothered to toggle those services off every time you leave your home or office, anti-virus software vendor AVG recently rolled out a service called PrivacyFix that automatically turns off your mobile Wi-Fi if the network you're passing by isn't on your whitelist. Mobile apps like Tasker for Android can be configured to use a technique called "geofencing" to turn off Wi-Fi when you leave your home or office and turn it back on when you return.

Soon you may have another option: The Future of Privacy Forum is in the process of creating a service called Do Not Track My Mac -- to be hosted at smartstoreprivacy.org -- that will let users opt out of tracking by retailers that want to capture your smartphone's Ethernet MAC address.

The companies agree not to capture your name or link your information to your MAC address unless you opt in, says Polonetsky. However, they can still track your MAC address anonymously unless you opt out. The data is used for general analysis purposes, such as to determine the average wait time in cashier lines, for example, or to study how traffic moves through the store. So far, 10 companies have signed on, Polonetsky says.

Next: How to minimize your offline data footprint, and where to go to opt out.

This article, The paranoid's online survival guide, part 2: How to protect your personal data, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

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David L. Hudson Jr. « First Amendment Center

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/author/davidhudson

First Amendment Center

David L. Hudson Jr.

David L. Hudson Jr. is an expert in First Amendment issues who writes for firstamendmentcenter.org and for other publications. Hudson teaches law and was a scholar at the First Amendment Center. He is the author or co-author of more than 30 books, including several on the U.S. Supreme Court, the Constitution and student rights.

He is a First Amendment contributing editor for the American Bar Association's Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases. Hudson graduated from Duke University in 1990 and obtained a law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1994. He teaches First Amendment classes at Nashville School of Law and Vanderbilt University Law School. He also has taught at Middle Tennessee State University.

Hudson also is interviewed frequently about First Amendment issues. He has spoken to The Baltimore Sun, NewsRadio 1020 KDKA in Pittsburgh, the Student Press Law Center and the Rutherford Institute.

Some of his books include: Let the Students Speak!: A History of the Fight for Free Expression in American Schools, (2011), The Handy Supreme Court Answer Book (2007), The Rehnquist Court: Understanding Its Impact and Legacy (2006), Open Government: An American Tradition Faces National Security, Privacy and Other Challenges (2005), The Rights of Students (2004), the First Amendment Center's The Silencing of Student Voices: Preserving Free Speech in America's Schools (2003), The Bill of Rights: The First Ten Amendments of the Constitution (2002) and The Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection Under the Law (2002).

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Banned Books Week celebrates fight for intellectual freedom | First Amendment Center

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/banned-books-week-celebrates-fight-for-intellectual-freedom

Banned Books Week celebrates fight for intellectual freedom

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Librarians, teachers and booksellers across the country will celebrate the right to read during the 28th annual Banned Books Week Sept. 26-30. Each year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores make efforts to educate Americans about the ongoing fight against censorship in schools and libraries nationwide.

The event began after the American Library Association displayed banned books in cages at the 1982 American Booksellers Association trade show, generating great interest among the public and press and prompting ALA to develop a yearly educational event dedicated to combating book censorship.

That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that students' First Amendment rights were "directly and sharply implicated" when a book is removed from a school library. In Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School Dist. v. Pico (1982), the Court decided that "local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books."

Tracking book challenges
The ALA counts challenges to books nationwide. In 2008 it recorded 517 challenges, up from 420 in 2007. Most challenges are unsuccessful.

The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom also compiles a list of the top 10 most frequently challenged books in schools and public libraries each year. For the past three years, the most challenged book in the United States has been And Tango Makes Three, an award-winning children's book based on a true story about two male penguins raising a baby penguin.
"If there has been any change in the last decade or so," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the intellectual-freedom office, "it's the rising number of challenges to books that have gay scenes or gay-positive scenes in them, like the book And Tango Makes Three."

The ALA's 10 Most Challenged Books of 2008 and the reasons for the challenges:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group.
   
2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman. Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, violence.
   
3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R; G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle. Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.
   
4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz. Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, violence.
   
5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya. Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, violence.
   
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group.
   
7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar. Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.
   
8. Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen. Reasons: homosexuality, unsuited to age group.
   
9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.
   
10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper. Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group.

According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the top three reasons for challenging materials from 2001 to 2008 involved sexual explicitness, offensive language and unsuitability for an age group. Other reasons include racist material, violence, anti-family attitudes, religious viewpoints or homosexuality. (See ALA chart for a percentage breakdown of reasons for book challenges and other statistics.)

The Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles book-censorship reports in its bimonthly Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom and yearly Banned Books Resource Guide. The ALA does not claim that its challenged-books list is comprehensive, as the organization estimates that for every reported challenge, four or five remain unreported. The ALA says it tries to track any threat to remove a book from library shelves or restrict access to it, no matter whether the challenge resulted in a ban or the book remained available. Its detailed reports follow up on whether challenges became bans. The office also tracks challenges to books being taught in curricula, Caldwell-Stone said.

For example, she said, a citizens' group in Howell, Mich., filed a challenge to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye with the school district because the novel was assigned in the advanced-placement English curriculum.

The 2009 compilation will be released next March or April and will include book challenges and bans from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2009.

Efforts to ban classics
According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the targets of ban attempts over the years.

Caldwell-Stone said such censorship of classic novels was symptomatic of the fact that "all good literature challenges society." The classics that remain at the top of ALA's challenge list are "books that always challenge the status quo. Books like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath still hold a mirror up to our society and some don't like what they see," she said.

Challenges to To Kill a Mockingbird particularly hit close to home for Caldwell-Stone. As an advanced reader at age 8, Caldwell-Stone picked up her mother's paperback edition of Harper Lee's novel. "Even as a child it spoke to me about the need for treating every human being as a human being … . I can't see how reading this novel would ever cause harm to an individual, and it just astounds me that challenges are brought to this book based on a belief that it reflects racial prejudice when in fact it's one of the great anti-racist pleas in our literature that we have today in America."

Parents top list of challengers
The Office for Intellectual Freedom says parents challenge books and other materials more often than any other group. From 2001 to 2008, 51% of challenges were made by parents, 10% by patrons and 8% by school and public-library administrators. Other challengers include teachers, "pressure groups," clergy and government.

Terri Burke, executive director of the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has also been active against book censorship, said that although parents make up the largest group of book challengers, they may actually be part of the solution.

"The more attention we draw to this, the more engaged other parents will become, and the more they will involve themselves … . We want a chorus of parents running through the streets saying 'Put it back on the shelf!'"

The ALA shares Burke's view. The Library Bill of Rights, adopted by the ALA in 1948, clearly states that "librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents — and only parents — have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children — and only their children — to library resources."

As a general library policy concerning patrons' right to the written word, the Library Bill of Rights emphasizes the power of information in a free society. Article 3 reads, "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment." As the ALA's Web site states, "Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment."

The ALA views attempts to suppress certain library materials as symptomatic of a misunderstanding of the library's institutional role and the rights of all library users. "The censor's concern about library materials is based upon a view of the library as an important social institution. But the censor may fail to see that the library fulfills its obligations to the community it serves by providing materials presenting all points of view and that is not the function of the library to screen materials according to arbitrary standards of acceptability," the Web site states.

Special report from Texas
The Texas ACLU publishes a "Free People Read Freely" report on banned and challenged books in Texas public schools. "It was just natural that the ACLU ought to get involved on something so very basic to the constitutions," Burke said.

Each year, the ACLU branch sends open-records requests to the more than 1,200 school districts in Texas, asking each about book challenges and the schools' responses to them. This year, 889 districts responded, a number that Burke called "really quite good."

According to this year's report, most Texas public schools do not have a reconsideration policy for books that are banned. Although 61% of districts responding say book challenges are reviewed by a committee of teachers, librarians, administrators and often students and parents, 55% of districts said the decision to ban or not to ban a book, once made, was "final and forever."

Censorship damages children's education, Burke said. "When you think about the history of banned and challenged books in this country — (John) Steinbeck, Maurice Sendak, Judy Blume, Ray Bradbury, Cormac McCarthy, and the books Go Ask Alice, Bless Me, Ultima … when you think … that there are young people growing up in this state that might miss the opportunity to read Bless Me, Ultima or Go Ask Alice or a Cormac McCarthy book … you have to be very concerned about the education of our children," she said.

"Reading isn't even highly valued [in the school systems] anymore to begin with," Burke said, citing an emphasis on testing in Texas over the last 15 years that has prompted many teachers to "teach to the test."

"Then you take literature off the shelves of a school library where a curious kiddo might take those books off the shelves and find the motivation to do great things," Burke said, "and here we are … cheating our kids out of those opportunities."

Fear of pre-emptive censorship
Challenges to controversial books, many fear, may lead to pre-emptive censorship — directly at odds with the American principle of the free exchange of ideas.

"Attempts to censor can lead to voluntary restriction of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy; in these cases, material may not be published at all or may not be purchased by a bookstore, library, or school district," said Robert P. Doyle, editor of the Banned Books Resource Guide and recipient of the 2009 Freedom to Read Foundation Roll of Honor Award.

In compiling its report this year, the Texas ACLU found that at least one school district, Stephenville, banned two entire series of teenage vampire novels — P.C. Cast's House of Night series (six books) and Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series (five books). A couple of the books in both series have yet to be published.

In August, Yale University Press decided not to publish 12 controversial Danish drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in a book about the violent controversy that erupted when the cartoons originally appeared in 2005. The book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, will be published in November with none of the illustrations featuring the prophet.

To keep the mirrors of our society in print and on the shelves, Banned Books Week continues the fight for intellectual freedom, annually reminding Americans not to take the right to read for granted.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association, American Booksellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of American Publishers, National Association of College Stores, and is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

Displays and events at bookstores and libraries around the country can be seen at www.bannedbooksweek.org.

Allie Diffendal is a senior majoring in political science and American studies at Vanderbilt University.

Tags: banned book, book censorship, library, library censorship

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My account has been hacked | Twitter Help Center

https://support.twitter.com/articles/185703

My account has been hacked

If you think you've been hacked and you're unable to log in with your username and password, please take the following two steps:

1. Request a password reset.

Reset your password by requesting an email from the password reset form. Try entering both your username and email address, and be sure to check for the reset email at the address associated with your Twitter account.

If you're able to log in after the password reset, please re-secure your account by following the steps listed here.

2. Contact Support if you still require assistance.

If you still can't log in, contact us by submitting a Support request. Please choose "Hacked account" from the list of options. Be sure to use the email address you associated with the hacked Twitter account; we'll then send additional information and instructions to that email address. Include both your username and the date you last had access to your account.

If you've lost access to the actual email account associated with your Twitter account, please see this help page.

Still need help? Contact Support.

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My account has been compromised | Twitter Help Center

https://support.twitter.com/articles/31796

My account has been compromised

If your account has been compromised but you're still able to log in, this page will help you secure your account and stop unwanted behaviors. If you can't log in to your account, please see this troubleshooting article.

Has my account been compromised?

Have you:

• Noticed unexpected Tweets by your account
• Seen unintended Direct Messages sent from your account
• Observed other account behaviors you didn't make or approve (like following, unfollowing, or blocking)
• Received a notification from us stating that your account may be compromised
• Received a notification from us stating that your account information has changed, and you didn't change it
• Noticed your password is no longer working and you are being prompted to reset it

If you've answered yes to any of the above, please take the following steps:

1. Change your password

Please change your password immediately from the Password tab in settings or click on request a password reset from the logged out page. Please select a strong password you haven't used before. If you can't log in to your account, please see this troubleshooting page.

Note: Changing an account's password does not automatically log the account out of Twitter for iOS or Twitter for Android applications. In order to log the account out of these apps, sign in online and visit Apps in your settings. From there you can revoke access for the application, and the next time the app is launched, a prompt will request that the new password be entered.

2. Make sure your email address is secure

Make sure that the email address attached to your account is secure and that you are the only one with access to it. You can change your email address from your Twitter app (iOS or Android) or by logging in on twitter.com and visiting the Account settings tab. Visit this article for instructions, and see this article for additional security tips.

3. Revoke connections to third-party applications

While logged in, visit Apps in your settings. Revoke access for any third-party application that you don't recognize.

Note: If you use the teams feature in TweetDeck, we strongly recommend you check the members list to remove any users you don't recognize. You can learn more about teams here.

4. Update your password in your trusted third-party applications

If a trusted external application uses your Twitter password, be sure to update your password in that application. Otherwise, you may be temporarily locked out of your account due to failed login attempts.

Your account should now be secure, and you shouldn't see the unexpected account behaviors moving forward. If you're still experiencing issues, please file a Support request for assistance.

Protect your account with simple precautions!

If your account has been compromised, take these additional precautions:

• Delete any unwanted Tweets that were posted while your account was compromised.
• Scan your computers for viruses and malware, especially if unauthorized account behaviors continue to be posted after you've changed the password.
• Install security patches for your operating system and applications.
• Always use a strong, new password you don't use elsewhere and would be difficult to guess.
• Consider using login verification. Instead of relying on just a password, login verification introduces a second check to make sure that you and only you can access your Twitter account.
• Visit our Safe Tweeting help page for more information on avoiding hacks and phishing.

How do accounts become compromised? (Did somebody hack me?)

Accounts may become compromised if you've entrusted your username and password to a malicious third-party application or website, if your Twitter account is vulnerable due to a weak password, if viruses or malware on your computer are collecting passwords, or if you're on a compromised network.

Unexpected updates don't always mean that your account was hacked. Occasionally, a third-party application can have a bug that causes unexpected behavior. If you see strange behavior, changing your password and/or revoking connections will stop it, as the application will no longer have access to your account.

It's best to take action as soon as possible if updates are appearing in your account that you did not post or approve. You can find more information about account security on the Safe Tweeting help page.

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