Reclaiming Privacy - I
Reclaiming Privacy or; How I learned to start worrying and love freedom
If you grew up in a desi household, or a household with parents that snoop, you’re probably going - “Privacy? What’s that?"
Privacy is a fundamental human right. But that doesn’t mean much with everyone from the government to Zuccy to your parents spying on you. It’s pretty “normal” actually. I still remember the NSA leaks like it was yesterday. The conversation died pretty quick. It’s almost funny. From the biggest thing in the world, it became a joke. My friends and I still joke about Zuccy listening in on our conversations. That’s how normal it is. It’s messed up, but it’s a coping mechanism I guess? I digress. Anyway, let’s jump into this sorta-comprehensive-yet-beginner-friendly guide to privacy!
First off, I’d like to dedicate a larger portion of this writeup to cover aspects I don’t see talked about more often. Snooping by people you know. Might be family, your spouse, anyone. Doesn’t matter, snooping is NOT okay. That said, let’s go!
Note : IF YOU THINK YOUR PHONE IS COMPROMISED, FACTORY RESET IT. If you have enough evidence (or even a gut feeling you can’t shake off. You might be wrong about it, but I’d rather have a false negative than live with the paranoia). And if you can, I’d highly suggest you factory reset and start from scratch, doubly so if your parents/partner/someone else set it up for you. Go to step 2 directly if you’ve reset your phone.
**Step 1 **
A) This is to vet your phone and devices and see what we’re dealing with. Look for apps that sound suspicious. Not just the apps you can see, but even the ones you can’t/are hidden.
-> On devices with iOS 14 and above, do this How to See an Alphabetical List of All Your iPhone Apps (howtogeek.com)
-> On android, go to settings and look for “Apps”. This might be different or might be under some category, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find it. Android isn’t homogenous and different companies use different versions of Android.
-> On Windows, go to Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and Features. This should give you a full rundown of the apps you have. NOTE: there is an “Apps and Features” setting in the Windows Settings, but despite the better looking GUI, it usually doesn’t display all the apps. Programs and features shows apps that this misses.
B) Check the account connected to the device. THIS IS CRUCIAL. If this fails, every precaution you take can be renderred useless. Check the account associated with the device. If possible, log out of that account and log in to your own. If dealing with an overly controlling family, make up an excuse. Say it’s for university/school/job or something. You can still protect yourself if it’s logged in via their account, but it’s so much easier when everything is under your controll.
C) Check if your device is syncing your folders and pictures to the cloud. Especially if logged in via someone else’s account.
For example, on Windows, check if there’s any app that syncs folders to the cloud. Check what account is logged in, the email used, etc. If it’s logged in via a different email than yours, change it. Log out and log in with your own email. If that’s not possible, there are chances that some of your folders are getting synced to OneDrive. You can go to OneDrive and disable this / control which folders are getting synced.
On Apple, check iCloud.
On Android, check the Google account connected. Check the Google Drive, check the Photos app. Make sure nothing is syncing. If turning it off can get you into trouble, then just be wary and make sure to at least choose which folders sync.
Google Drive can sync folders from your devices too. How do we know if Drive is doing that on your computer?
D) Check startup apps. These are apps that load by default as soon as you power on your device. On Windows, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc. This launches the task manager. Go to tab that says “Startup”. You should have a list of all programs that run when you boot up. The lesser the apps on it, the faster it’ll boot up. Some of these are vital but most aren’t. Look for suspicious apps. Disable them. If unsure, search the app up and then take a call.
E) Revoke permissions. This is super important. Super duper important. Revoke permission from all apps. On Android, go to Settings -> Apps -> Permissions. On iOS, go to Setting -> Privacy. On Windows, go to Settings -> Privacy but do note that these contains only few apps. Other apps, especially ones that aren’t downloaded from the Microsoft Store, might not appear. For MacOS, open up the Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab
F) Check apps like FindMyPhone that are built-in. These can be used to track your location, etc. Disable these.
Step 2
A) Install a good antivirus software. On Windows, if it’s well updated, the default program Windows Defender is good enough. But if you want extra safety, download another antivirus. No McAfee. Avast is so and so. Kaspersky is the best as of 30/01/2022. MalwareBytes is good too, but their all time protection might not be the best. Use it as a secondary option in tandem with another AV program.
B) Install a better browser. Screw Chrome. Tor is probably one of the best, but it can be hard to use and slow. Your next best bet is Firefox. You can also use Chromium (which is the engine that most browsers are based on; Vivaldi, Edge, Chrome, etc). DuckDuckGo browser is great too, if you want something that deletes your cache and doesn’t save details.
C) INSTALL A GOOD CONTENT BLOCKER. I can’t stress this enough. I wince every time I see a browser without a good content blocker. This will protect you from adware and other malware. It’ll also help stop trackers. And guess what? They block ads too. uBlock Origin is the best one out there. Just make sure to install the legitimate version. uBlock on GitHub . The link has links to the official and legitimate version of uBlock as well as the full source code. (YAY, GO FLOSS!)
pre-D) Check your email on Have I Been Pwned. Chances are some of your accounts are compromised. Change the password on those accounts ASAP. No matter how careful you are, sometimes companies fuck up and your passwords end up leaked.
D) Login to your account and check the active sessions. Logout of the ones you don’t recognize. Or maybe logout of everything and reset your password. Your password should be lengthy, difficult to guess, yada yada. You don’t have to change your password regularly, in fact it’s advisable not to. ENABLE 2FA. Here’s a good video on why, courtesy of one of my favourite YouTubers.
E) Use an applock. There are apps that not just lock apps but hide them too. Some skins of Android natively allow hiding and locking apps. Also, download a launcher and hide them apps. I highly recommend Nova Launcher. You can theme it, hide apps, and make it hard for people to find apps you don’t want them to find.
F) Use web apps over native apps whenever possible.
G) GET. A. PASSWORD. MANAGER. RIGHT. NOW! It’ll help you keep track of all your passwords. Instead of remembering a bazillion passwords, you can just remember two passwords - Your Password Manager and your email. KeePass and Bitwarden are the best in the market. The free version work really well and you know what? They’re open source! (YAY, GO FLOSS)
ALSO. Password managers are encrypted and can store notes. NOTE DOWN ALL EMERGENCY DETAILS. If you use BitWarden, you can access it from any browser. This way you’ll have emergency contacts and other important details with you right away.
P.S - You should download backup codes for your email and store in a safe location. This is useful when you can’t remember your password or you don’t have a secondary device to authenticate your login. Here’s a link for Google - Sign in with backup codes - Computer - Google Account Help
If there’s anything else you’d like to know, send me a message and I’ll cover it in the next part where I’ll talk about portable apps, booting an OS from a pendrive, encryption, deGoogling, and other things.
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