Tag Archives: privacy

Fewer Civil Liberties! Why?

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As always, do your research:

Meet the Senators who recently voted to destroy your civil liberties

There were a few handful of Republicans who voted against it, and they should be commended

By Michael Kriegar –

Yesterday, I published a post warning about an amendment to be put up for a vote in the U.S. Senate that would severely harm the civil liberties of American citizens. I was very disappointed to see an unusually low amount of reads on that particular post, which came in well below average despite being such an important issue.

Well it turns out John McCain’s amendment 4787 came up for a vote earlier today, and it was stopped by one vote. Yes, by one vote.

So what’s at stake? Let’s review an excerpt from yesterday’s post, Republican Senators Use Orlando Shooting to Push for Increased Government Spying Powers:

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information.

The amendment would broaden the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients.

NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user.

Sounds pretty important, but no one seemed to care yesterday. Fortunately, the vote (barely) went the right way, but Mitch McConnell switched his vote to NO at the end just so that he could regroup and push for another vote.

As US News reported:

Privacy-minded senators on Wednesday blocked an amendment that would give the FBI power to take internet records, including browser histories and email metadata, without a court order. But the victory may be fleeting.

Just one vote kept the measure from clearing a 60-vote procedural hurdle, and political arm-twisting may soon result in a second vote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., switched his vote to “no” to allow reconsideration in the near future. That made the final tally 58-38, with four senators not voting.

As such, it’s very important that everyone understand where their Senators stand on this issue. Notably, Mr. fake “libertarian” Ted Cruz, who always pretends to care about civil liberties, voted in favor of giving the FBI more unconstitutional powers. There were a few handful of Republicans who voted against it, and they should be commended. They are:

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Cory Gardner (Colorado)
Rand Paul (Kentucky)
Steve Daines (Montana)
Dean Heller (Nevada)
Mike Lee (Utah)

To find out how your Senator voted, click here, and let them know how you feel.

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

from:     https://www.intellihub.com/meet-the-senators-who-recently-voted-to-destroy-your-civil-liberties/

Perils of Smart Meter Grid

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Smart Meter Companies Admit: We’re Spying On You

Written by: Tara Dodrill

Power companies admit: We're spying on you

Smart meters are spying devices. Not breaking news? Likely not for those of us who have researched the issue for quite a long while, but an admission by those who make the devices is rather shocking.

That is exactly what has happened, as SmartGridNews, a website supported by the high-tech meter industry, acknowledged that smart meters are gathering private information on homeowners.

Smart meters utilize wireless technology and instantly tell power companies how much electricity a home is using, and even can report on the power usage by individual appliances, as Smart Grid News said. Smart meters also can literally control newer household appliances that have the capability to communicate with the device.

“One of the next areas of value comes from taking smart meter data and ‘disaggregating’ it to tell us exactly how customers are using electricity,” reads a new story on the website. “Do external devices already do this? Sure. Just as progress in the smart phone world reduced the need for external devices (cameras, alarm clocks, radios, pedometers, navigation systems, etc.) the ability to get accurate, appliance level feedback, without the need to invest in external hardware, is the next step in the world of smart meters.”

The Stop Smart Meters website states that fire dangers are also a problem associated with smart meters. Fire calls after smart meter installations reportedly include the shorting-out of electronics of all varieties and the burning-out of appliances.

Cyber hacking of smart meters to possibly overload and garner control of significant portions of the power grid is also an often-voiced worry about the smart power initiative. In Connecticut, 30 percent of customers in a pilot program had higher bills after smart meters were installed.

According to the Stop Smart Meters group, the smart grid devices do not always emit less RF (radio frequency) exposure than a cell phone — as some utility companies allegedly state.

“People are becoming increasingly aware of the potential harm done by chronic exposure to RF radiation-emitting devices and are taking steps to change how they use them. Most people are not offered a wired smart meter and you can’t turn it off once it is installed,” the group contends.

Story continues below video

Smart grid opponents have long opposed the gathering of their personal usage information.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus once stated that WiFi-connected devices, such as appliances commonly found inside many homes, will “transform the art of spying.” Petraeus also said that spies will be capable of monitoring Americans without going inside the home or perhaps even acquiring a warrant. He went on to state that remote control radio frequency identification devices, “energy harvesters,” sensor networks, and small embedded severs all connected to an Internet network will be all that is necessary for clandestine intelligence gathering.

The Smart Grid News report said customers surveyed in a recent report supported smart meters.

“Customers were delighted with the initiative as it showed how their new smart meters could work for them,” the website said. “Utility companies wanting to meet their specific conservation targets to drive customer engagement should ensure they are making the most of their smart meter investment. They can now use the power of smart meter data disaggregation to identify the customers who are most likely to help them reach their specific targets and turn them into willing partners in the drive for energy conservation.”

Data disaggregation basically means the automatic collection of personal energy habits of the homes attached to smart meters. The more customers know that is the case, the more they will oppose smart meters.

from:    http://www.offthegridnews.com/privacy/smart-meter-companies-admit-were-spying-on-you/

Protect Your Web Privacy

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Constitutional Judge Begs America to “Wake Up” Over Fed’s Plan to Spy on Your Web Activity
TOPICS:Andrew NapolitanoCivil LibertiesFBISurveillance

June 9, 2016

fbi-spyingBy Matt Agorist

This week, the US senate published a bill that would give the FBI seemingly unlimited power to pry into the “electronic communications” of American citizens. The bill would give the FBI warrantless access to email records as well as a slew of other electronic data.

Its passage could effectively end online privacy.

According to a report in the Intercept:

The provision, tucked into the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act, would explicitly authorize the FBI to obtain “electronic communication transactional records” for individuals or entities — though it doesn’t define what that means. The bill was passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.

In the past, the FBI has considered “electronic communication transactional records” to be a broad category of information — including everything from browsing history, email header information, records of online purchases, IP addresses of contacts, and more.

The single ‘no’ vote against the bill came from Sen. Ron Wyden, who wrote a letter warning Americans that the bill’s provisions “would allow any FBI field office to demand email records without a court order, a major expansion of federal surveillance powers.”

Using the fear mongering tactics of “we need this to keep you safe,” the Fed will likely force this bill to become law.

The bill, if passed, could theoretically allow the FBI to target any individual who visits the FreeThoughtProject.com because of the subversive, yet entirely peaceful nature of the site. That information would then be stored, and a file kept on all people who are perceived rebellious by the State.

If you think the government declaring peaceful liberty-minded individuals as enemies of the state is far-fetched, think again. In 2009, a secret report distributed by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) entitled “The Modern Militia Movement” specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.

Of course, all laws like this one are ostensibly designed to keep you safe from ‘terror;’ however, as we’ve seen in the past — terrorism is but a fraction of the cause for legislation like this.

Taking to the airwaves to voice his concern over the death of the 4th Amendment in relation to Senate Intelligence Authorization Act, Judge Andrew Napolitano unleashed his fury.

Napolitano noted the sheer ominous nature of a bill that would allow the FBI access to a person’s Web history.

He pointed out that the government will, as it always does, argue that this is necessary to keep us safe from terror attacks. But he would note that the argument is a “facade.”

“This law will pass because the Congress doesn’t give a damn about whether it’s unconstitutional!” said Napolitano.

Pointing out that the police state continues to get worse, regardless of which puppet is in the White House, Napolitano bravely said, on FOX News of all places, “It always gets worse, it never gets better. No matter who’s in the White House, and no matter which party controls the Congress.”

“The American people should wake up. This is a major step…….toward a police state,” he said.

At the end of the video, Shepard Smith makes a hard hitting point about why this is able to continue.

People get riled up about the stupidest things and something important like this, you can’t get them to even send an email.

from:    http://www.activistpost.com/2016/06/constitutional-judge-begs-america-to-wake-up-over-feds-plan-to-spy-on-your-web-activity.html

Surveillance, Fear & Self-Censorship

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This is What Government Sponsored Mass Surveillance is Doing to Your Mind

Hacker Surveillance Big BrotherAlex Pietrowski, Staff
Waking Times

Big Brother is watching you and he wants you to believe that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.

This is a lie, of course, and as we move deeper into the era of state sponsored technological surveillance, we see more evidence that the loss of privacy and confidence in inter-personal communications is transforming the individual into a compliant, self-policing ward of the state.

In one of the first empirical scientific studies to provide concrete evidence of the ‘chilling effects’ that government surveillance has on internet users, Oxford University professor Jon Penney looked at Wikipedia search data and traffic patterns before and after the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden regarding widespread NSA surveillance of the internet. The results demonstrated an immediate trend towards self-censorship, as traffic and searches for terms like ‘Al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb,’ and ‘Taliban’ showed nearly instant and mentionable decline.

The changes were statistically significant enough to indicate that many people automatically alter their own behavior upon realizing that a punitive authoritarian organization is monitoring them for legitimate or perceived wrongdoings.

“If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.” – Jon Penney

In 2013, the organization Pen America conducted a survey of writers in the United States showing that many were already self-censoring themselves in an increasingly oppressive atmosphere of government surveillance. The fear of being caught up in a dragnet of legal and financial problems was sufficient enough for many to change their tone and content, even though no direct physical threat existed.

“The results of this survey—the beginning of a broader investigation into the harms of surveillance—substantiate PEN’s concerns: writers are not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.” [Source]

Commenting on the effects of authoritarian governments which heavily surveil their citizens, Pen America also notes that, “historically, from writers and intellectuals in the Soviet Bloc, and contemporaneously from writers, thinkers, and artists in China, Iran, and elsewhere—aggressive surveillance regimes limit discourse and distort the flow of information and ideas.” This is without question the intended aim of such programs.

That study also included data which indicated how people curtail their online behavior and interactions with other people out of fear of being persecuted by the nanny state:

“Smaller percentages of those surveyed described already changing their day-to-day behavior: 28 percent said they had “curtailed or avoided activities on social media,” with another 12 percent saying they had seriously considered doing it; similar percentages said they had steered clear of certain topics in phone calls or email (24 percent had done so; 9 percent had seriously considered it).” [Source]

Furthermore, in a 2015 study by the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) examining how awareness of government surveillance affected people’s use of Google, the world’s most widely used internet search engine, researchers concluded that, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the US government.”

In general, people’s behavior also changes in ways more favorable to an authoritarian government when surveillance both online and in the real world is as ubiquitous as it already is in American society. The state draws power from a compliant, acquiescent, and self-policing public, and when mass surveillance is applied to the citizenry, with the predictable result of creating a more submissive and conformist citizenry.

This idea was effectively brought to life in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984, where the primary surveillance device of the individual was the telescreen, a digital device located in every home that could receive and transmit audio and video, giving individuals zero privacy in their own homes. The beauty of omnipotent surveillance such as this was that the government did not even have to actually be monitoring an individual, because the simple fact that they could be listening and watching was enough to frighten a person into voluntary compliance and self-censorship.

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You have to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” – George Orwell, 1984

This principle is coming to fruition in our modern world in the form of the internet and social media. Couple this with the creation and publication of government watch lists of all flavors, where people can be arbitrarily restricted from travel, or worse, and we are marching headlong into a brave new world where freedom is tightly constricted not by law, but by a creeping ambiguous fear of what may happen to us if we step out of line. We are creating a society where people may have legally protected free speech, but they dare not use it.

“There is a reason governments, corporations, and multiple other entities of authority crave surveillance. It’s precisely because the possibility of being monitored radically changes individual and collective behavior. Specifically, that possibility breeds fear and fosters collective conformity. That’s always been intuitively clear. Now, there is mounting empirical evidence proving it.” – Glen Greenwald

from:    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/04/29/this-is-what-government-sponsored-mass-surveillance-is-doing-to-your-mind/

 

No More Anonymous Browsing

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5 Ways Stores Track Your Every Move

5WaysStoresTrackYourEveryMove_640x359

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Advertisements that pop up on your computer screen are not random. Every time you go online, marketers monitor and track the websites you search, the links you click on and the things you buy. Companies then tailor content and ads specifically correlated to your expressed interests and spending habits. While online, you are being watched, whether you know it or not.

Yet there is a marketing phenomenon afoot that is even more invasive, and it’s happening generally without your knowledge. Here are five ways you’re being surveilled when you shop in the real world, often without even knowing it.

Video monitoring

Think being accosted by salespeople as you enter a store is annoying? Well, some retailers now use video cameras to track customers walking the aisles of their stores. By using video analytics, companies can determine the age and gender of each customer while monitoring exactly what each person touches, looks at and picks up as they peruse the shelves. 

RetailNext, the software that enables these tracking analytics, allows companies to pinpoint high traffic zones in their stores. Heat sensors are used to determine the most highly visited areas of each shop. This gives retailers valuable information as to where to place specific merchandise in order to maximize sales.

Smartphones

Yes, your phone may be “smart,” but when it comes to privacy your mobile device may not be doing you any favors. When you connect to a store’s free Wi-Fi, you are unknowingly allowing them access to track your movements as you shop. You are also giving them free rein to directly market to you.

By using GPS-type coding, companies can tell where you go and where you spend the most time in their stores. This “predictive modeling” information gives retailers important marketing information, like what merchandise you’re interested and in which department you spend the most time.

Store loyalty cards 

Signing up for a store card might sound like a good idea at the checkout counter, but you’re getting more than store discounts by doing so. Grocery store discount cards are an important marketing tool, tracking and storing your spending habits each time you shop. In fact, store cards are one of the first ways retailers began specifically tracking consumers as individuals.

When you use your loyalty card, companies record each transaction you make under your specific customer profile and use your spending trends to predict future transactions. Retailers take your spending habits and use the information for marketing campaigns. While it is nice to get coupons for items you are actually interested in buying, it comes at a cost — your anonymity.

Smart lights 

“Big Brother is watching” is taking on a whole new meaning with the advent of this new technology. Philips, the electronic company, recently released an LED lighting system that can be used in stores to track and communicate directly with your cell phone.

By connecting to your phone’s camera, these lights can tell marketers exactly where you are in a given store. There’s even an app that can be connected to this technology, allowing retailers to send real-time coupons for products located exactly where you’re standing in their shop. It may be nice to get some discounts while you’re shopping, but remember that rebates are not without cost. For one, your ability to withstand impulse buying is diminished.

Apps

When you download a store app in order to get discounts and promotions, you are also giving marketers direct access to your spending habits. Opening an app in its specific store allows the company to track your movements and send you promotions to “close the deal” on a purchase.

If you have used the app to make a shopping list, retailers can tell whether you’ve forgotten or decided not to buy a certain item on your list. The company can then send you additional promos or coupons to lure you back into buying that product.

Opt-out law

With the pervasiveness of online data collection, retail stores are given the ultimatum of either using ethically debatable tracking methods or be overrun by savvy Internet retailers. By shopping online, customers constantly give cyberspace marketers invaluable consumer information that allows them to specifically target their market audience. In order to compete with the ever-growing online market, physical stores are being forced to act like Internet sellers to keep up.

Luckily, there have been campaigns to limit consumer tracking, both on and offline. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is pushing for a “Do Not Track” bill to be passed by Congress. This law would make it easy for online consumers to curtail being personally monitored by cyber marketers. Likewise, the FTC is also working to make a consumer disclosure law for the use of retail video surveillance in stores. This would also enable customers to opt out of being monitored in certain situations.

Do you think it’s creepy to have your shopping tracked or monitored in stores? Or do you enjoy the benefits of receiving discounts specific to your tastes and interests? 

from:    http://www.thealternativedaily.com/stores-track-your-every-move/

You ARE Being Watched!

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Do You Know Who is Watching Your Private Life?

Waking Times

Infographic – Lack of privacy on the Internet and in the real world continues to grow. Many people are becoming aware that what they share on their social networks can find its way to the furthest reaches of the Web. But did you realize that your private life at home could also become public, without your knowledge or consent? Here’s how technologies such as Google Street View and government monitoring initiatives are starting to intrude on people’s personal lives.

whoswatchingyou

from:    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/09/07/do-you-know-who-is-watching-your-private-life/

 

Amazon Echo & Other IN-Home Spy Devices

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Amazon

Amazon releases the ultimate Big Brother spy device that constantly listens to everything you say in your own home

CNaturalNews) Some of the most invasive new technology is being marketed as invaluable tools that “help” around your home or office, so-called “Internet of Everything” devices that have massive potential to serve as spy tools for snooping authorities.

One such device is being marketed by online retail giant Amazon. Called the Amazon Echo, it is a voice-activated “knowledge” device designed to respond to users’ questions. But to do so, the device continually monitors all sounds for your voice, and as such, given its Internet connectivity, could serve as a surveillance device to anyone who has the ability to hack into it.

The approximately 12-inch-tall, 3-inch-wide black cylindrical device is part microphone, part computer; when you ask it a question, it responds with an answer that is retrieved from “the cloud.”

“Echo is a device designed around your voice,” says a marketing video. “Simply say, ‘Alexa,’ and ask a question or give a command.”

And there is the “family“ robot line, too

Continuing, the marketing video notes that Echo is connected to Alexa, “a cloud-based voice service, so it can help out with all sorts of useful information right when you need it.”

Further, “Echo can hear you from anywhere in the room, so it’s always ready to help,” says the video.

One user notes the efficiency of the device’s voice recognition technology.

“I can have the water running, I can be cooking, the TV can be on in the back room, and she still can hear me,” he said.

Among the uses mentioned in the video: Echo can help you make a grocery list, provide timely news, control your lights, set timers, keep appointments and even provide timely traffic reports for commuters – all information that can be useful to anyone snooping on you.

And, of course, Echo can connect users to Amazon’s online retail services, to order or reorder products.

The motto for Echo is: “Always ready. Always Connected. Just ask.”

The Echo is not the first, or only, device that can serve as an audio surveillance tool for hackers and authorities. Natural News readers may remember that, earlier this spring, we reported on a new “family-oriented” robot named Jibo (pronounced JEE-boh) that essentially performs the same (surveillance) function as the Echo.

Like the Amazon product, Jibo can do a great many things, like talk to you, track your movements, engage in face and voice recognition, take photos and videos, and even “educate” and “entertain” your children.

As further noted by USA Today:

Jibo promises a sense of humor. With built-in cameras, it can recognize you and learn from you over time. It might ask for your favorite color and factor that in when it presents information.

And Jibo is being designed to recognize critical cues, like whether you’re smiling or not. It might use that to decide when to snap a picture of you or other family members. [emphases added]

It’s not just physical devices – robots, talking “companions” and such – that people have to worry about when it comes to chronic invasions of their privacy. Everyday tech products we use online, like media giant Google, are part of a growing network of technological tools that are being utilized to monitor everything we do.

Online technology is also watching, tracking you

As reported by the UK’s Guardian, Google is installing eavesdropping programs on users’ computers without their knowledge.

The paper reported:

Privacy campaigners and open source developers are up in arms over the secret installing of Google software which is capable of listening in on conversations held in front of a computer.

First spotted by open source developers, the Chromium browser – the open source basis for Google’s Chrome – began remotely installing audio-snooping code that was capable of listening to users.

Google officials sought to downplay the paper’s findings and report, but within a few days the company nevertheless pulled the program.

Considering Uber? Consider this

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Uber is your Big Brother: It tracks you everywhere, even when you’re not using the Uber app

Wednesday, June 24, 2015 by: Daniel Barker

(NaturalNews) Uber, the popular mobile ride-finding app, has been at the center of controversy since its launch in 2009. Much of the uproar has been due to the fact that its low-cost ride service poses a direct threat to the livelihood of cab drivers and other professional drivers who claim that the competition is unfair, unethical and downright illegal. In March 2015, Brussels cab drivers went on strike in protest of the Uber service, and since then, there has been increasing pressure on the company regarding its practices.

In June, the debate reached a fever pitch when taxi drivers in France staged anti-Uber demonstrations that turned violent, leading to a raid by police on the Uber headquarters in Paris and the detainment of two Uber executives for questioning.

However, there is another issue with the Uber smartphone app that has raised serious concerns among the public and various privacy groups: Uber tracks and records information regarding the location of passengers who use the service even when the app is not in use.

In the first years of its operations, Uber came under fire over charges that the company had “casually” used the information it gathered with its “God View” technology, which gives the company the capability of monitoring the location of all its drivers as well as users who have flagged its vehicles. The company even reportedly shared some of this data with third parties who did not work for Uber.

Recently, however, it has been revealed that Uber’s updated policy tracks passengers and allows access to their personal information.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., has called for the Federal Trade Commission to conduct an investigation into the company’s invasive practices.

The complaint filed by the EPIC reads:

Uber will claim the right to collect personal information and detailed location data of American consumers, even when they are not using the service.

Among the concerns raised by the EPIC complaint is the fact that Uber employees have admitted to tracking the geo-locations and other info regarding journalists who were questioning the company’s policies. The EPIC also points to the possible threat of hackers gaining access to users’ personal information.

In the EU, regulators have been scrutinizing the company’s privacy policies in an attempt to determine if Uber is in compliance with European privacy laws. Among the EU regulations are requirements that companies that use geo-location tracking must first obtain clear consent from the user.

EU guidelines also require the company to provide users with “comprehensive, easily accessible and understandable notice” regarding their data collection policies and to allow users access to their own collected data so that they can modify or delete particular details.

Finally, the regulations require that the data collected by companies such as Uber must be deleted as soon as the information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained.

It is unclear at this point whether Uber has revised its policies to reflect the EU regulations or similar privacy laws in the United States. The company has stated that it it amended its privacy policies to address the concerns raised by various legal entities and privacy groups.

Judging from Uber’s past track record, there is plenty to remain concerned about. The company has showed a clear disregard for the privacy rights of its users, not to mention their continued undermining of the rights of cab drivers and other professionals throughout the world whose jobs have been threatened by Uber’s cheap, non-professional ride services.

Sources:

http://money.cnn.com

http://www.theguardian.com

Minds.com Takes on Facebook

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New Social Media Platform Dubbed ”The People’s Site” by Anonymous

By Claire Bernish

Facebook may have finally met its match. By directly targeting the social media behemoth’s lack of messaging encryption, infamously opaque algorithms, and government and advertiser accessibility, Minds.com has earned the attention of privacy advocates, activists, and frustrated Facebook users—and has even garnered active support from Anonymous. By employing many similar features found on Facebook and other social media giants, Minds gives its users a familiar platform without the numerous privacy concerns plaguing the long-established sites.

Users will find the typical status updates, comments, and link-sharing as other social media, but Minds takes the government’s eyes out of the equation by encrypting private messages and using open-source code that any programmer can check. The platform uses a “reward’ system based on points to earn “views” for posts, so the more active you are, the more the network will promote your posts—-without hindrance from advertisers and profit models.

“For every mobile vote, comment, remind, swipe & upload you earn points which can be exchanged for views on posts of your choice. It’s a new web paradigm that gives everyone a voice,” explains the website.Minds.com founder Bill Ottman told Business Insider, “Our stance is the users deserve the control of social media in every sense.”

As an answer Facebook’s enigmatic algorithm that has contentiously manipulated users’ newsfeeds for years—essentially strangling organic post reach, even for wildly popular pages—Minds has vowed its formula for boosting posts will be transparent and available. Instead of using inexplicable formulas that rely on Orwellian features like how much time a user lurks on a post, the new platform logically bases its system on user interaction.

These features have been so appealing, the site had 60 million visitors before the official launch on Monday—the majority of whom listed an interest in “alternative media” as their primary reason to be there. In fact, the Facebook page Anonymous Art of Revolution—with a following of over one million users—boosted the Minds website when it announced a hackathon. According to the post:

Anonymous is initiating a call to hackers, designers, creators and programmers to unite worldwide. Let us collaborate on the code of Minds.com and build a top site that is truly of the people, by the people and for the people.

There have been many attempts to build alternatives to Facebook, but Minds.com—with its heavy emphasis on privacy and transparency—appears to be the most promising yet.

Claire Bernish writes for theAntiMedia.org, where this article first appeared. Tune in! Anti-Media Radio airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific.

from:     http://www.activistpost.com/2015/06/new-social-media-platform-dubbed.html

To De-Google or Not?

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Google

How to avoid Google surveillance and protect your personal data

Friday, May 29, 2015 by: Daniel Barker

(NaturalNews) It all seemed rather innocent in the beginning. It certainly seemed convenient, and still is – maybe more so than ever, to be truthful. But if you haven’t noticed, slowly and gradually, during the past 17 years since its inception, Google has evolved from being a company which once merely provided Internet users with a free search engine and email to becoming an all-encompassing entity that monitors nearly everything you do.

And not only does Google snoop on you, it takes the personal information it has collected and sells it to corporations. Google also provides that information to intelligence agencies, such as the NSA.

A recent article penned by Derek Scally of The Irish Times explores the extent of Google’s tentacles into our private lives and offers some very useful advice on how to “de-Google” your life.

And why should you de-Google your life if you have “nothing to hide”?

From Scally’s article, which is titled “De-Google your life: it’s worth the hassle if you value your privacy”:

“For privacy campaigner Glenn Greenwald, the man who revealed Snowden’s mass surveillance claims against the National Security Agency, the most common response he hears on the road is what he calls the ‘I have nothing to hide’ argument. To this he has a simple answer.

‘Whenever I hear someone say “I have nothing to hide,” ‘ said Mr Greenwald in Berlin last year, ‘I always ask that person for their email password so I can read their messages. No one has ever taken me up on the offer.’ “

How to de-Google your life

Look for storage alternatives – Scally recommends not putting “all your digital eggs” in one basket. For example, he urges people to explore alternatives for storing emails, photos and cloud content. European-based services are preferable due to EU laws which protect privacy. German-based mailbox.org is one example of an alternative mail service that does not sell or give your data to corporate interests.

Change the way you search – Whenever you can, use an alternative search engine that doesn’t track your searches, such as DuckDuckGo.com or GoodGopher.com (GoodGopher is a new search engine described as “the world’s first privacy-protecting search engine that bans corporate propaganda and government disinfo”).

Block cookies – We’re told that cookies “improve the user experience,” but they also track everything you do online. Install a tracking blocker, such as Ghostery or DoNotTrackMe, into your browser. You can also download the privacyfix.com service from AVG, which helps you click the right privacy settings on your computer and the Internet services you currently use.

Find an alternative to Gmail – Scally admits that it’s “difficult” to give up Gmail and its 15GB of “free” storage, but he points out that even though you theoretically retain intellectual property rights to the content stored on Google, you also give the company a: “worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify . . . communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.” Better to use a service such as the above-mentioned mailbox.org or Posteo. Another alternative is to encrypt your emails using PGP.

Stop using Google and Apple cloud services – Keeping your calendars and contacts synced on multiple devices without using the Google or Apple cloud services can also be difficult because, as Scally notes: The “big players deliberately tinker with file standards for their calendar and address-book offerings to make migration possible and keep you inside their golden cage.” This “devious and effective practice” is perhaps not easy to sidestep, but it’s probably worth the hassle. And as Scally says, “if you clear this hurdle, you’re home free.”

Smartphone alternatives – It’s possible to wipe your Android phone and install CyanogenMod, which uses the same OS, only without Google’s presence. However, installing it requires some technical skills. Another alternative is to invest in a Jolla smartphone. Jolla is a Finnish-made smartphone that uses an OS with “no corporate tentacles.” A team of Nokia designers left the company to introduce this product, which aside from offering privacy also has some very innovative features.