With the advent of the social network, more and more of our lives and consequently our identities, are finding their way to the net. Names, interests, social relationships, birth-dates, and sometimes even financial information. All very valuable information for the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) person. It shouldn’t come as any surprise...

The hot privacy topic right now in social media is the large push by social sites not use pseudonyms, as in pen names/nicknames/handles. I don’t agree with real-name-only policies – but for a different reason, that being to better establish your internet identity. In this day and age it is way too easy to forget someone’s name online. You as a...

On Reddit I saw this thread which may be of interest to some. As far as I’m aware, it lists all the web sites out there that people (meaning anyone) can use to perform background checks. Some don’t mind being listed on sites like these while others really take offense to it. No matter what side of the fence you’re on, it’s good to know...

“Please confirm your birth date to view this content.” Date entered by most people: January 1, 1970. Why that specific date? Because 1/1/70 is easy to remember – especially if the site intends to periodically enter it again to verify the information you entered previously. 1/1/80 and 1/1/90 are also acceptable because those also qualify as...

You may have heard recently that the State of Texas accidentally left the public records of 3.5 million of its residents on a public-accessible state computer server. The information included names, addresses, SSNs and other information. The story has a happy ending as basically nothing happened. Why? Because the location of the server even though public...

Being paranoid is easy, fun and educational these days (try to figure out if I was being sarcastic there). Time is precious however, and people want quick simple solutions to hide from The Man. That being said, here are two that actually work. 1. Always delete your cookies on exit of your browser You’ve heard over and over again that The Man (a.k.a. Google...

In yet another made up "day" to bring our attention to something, yesterday was Data Privacy Day: Data Privacy Day is an international holiday that occurs every January 28. The purpose of Data Privacy Day is to raise awareness and promote data privacy education. It is currently celebrated in the United States, Canada, and 27 European countries.[1] On...

I personally believe the upcoming do-not-track list (similar to do-not-call) is going to be a complete bust because it wholly depends upon whether web companies actually honor it or not. Larger ones will, smaller ones won’t and that’s just the way it will work. The key to understanding do-not-track relies 100% on your cookie data. Yes, I’m...

This is a guest post by Bill Rounds. You are online every day, probably for several hours for fun or work. But the online universe is not always status updates and YouTubes of funny cats. There are some grown up things to consider. One is how much information you are broadcasting to the world while using the interwebs. Fortunately, manning or womaning up is...

In the context of this article, the hiding of files covers in-plain-sight and not-in-plain-sight. You’ll understand what I mean by that as you read through this. People have their reasons for wanting to hide certain files. Maybe you’re updating your résumé at work and want to keep it away from prying eyes. Maybe you have some super-secret plans for...

When I read articles like this, I facepalm because as far as I’m concerned it’s a bunch of FUD-spreading nonsense. Here’s something you should always remember: "Delete" does not mean "Delete" on a web site and hasn’t for years. Now I’ll explain why that is so. Any enterprise-sized web service (Facebook,...

The latest Facebook feature, Places, when enabled broadcasts your current location: Easily share where you are, what you’re doing and the friends you’re with right from your mobile.Check in and your update will appear on the Place page, your friends’ News Feed and your Wall. Tag the friends you’re with so they can be part of your...

Despite it’s name, “private browsing” mode does not necessarily live up to its intended function. The problem comes when add-ons are running while the browser is in private mode: Internet Explorer and Chrome both disable browser extensions by default in their private mode; Firefox, however, does not, and this provides yet another avenue by...

By now you’ve most likely seen several articles like this one where the CEO of Google infers that anonymity on the web isn’t necessary and that the Internet’s future will contain none of it whatsoever. People freak out when they read stuff like that. Every time I read an article of that ilk I get a chuckle because the bitter truth is that the...

As you probably know, when you are browsing the Internet your browser of choice keeps a local cache of items you view in a temporary internet files folder. It is important to remember that most everything you view and open is saved here which can include sensitive information. For example, if you use online banking with paperless statements and then view your...

Private browsing is a feature that is present in IE, Firefox and Chrome. What it does is that when you launch a private session, any images or cookies are deleted when the browser is closed. In addition, with the exception of Firefox, all add-ons are disabled (or are at least supposed to be disabled) when using Private Browsing. To launch a private browsing...

Due to it’s popularity, Facebook has become a breeding ground for widespread malware and phishing attacks. One such vehicle for these attacks is the use of Facebook Apps. Apps can be particularly dangerous because they can tap into your personal information and hand it over to the app’s developer to use for who knows what. For a good tip on how to...

As you probably know, Facebook has been in the news recently being hammered for their apparent lack of concern regarding user privacy. While Facebook is responding to these issues, it raises the question: would you use a Facebook alternative where your data is controlled by you? Such a task is the goal of an in-progress open source project named Diaspora. The...

I’m going to be blunt honest here and state that the following advice is only for the super-paranoid type of internet user. Even so, it’s still some good tidbits of information, and I’ll explain why that is in a moment. EFF claims that every browser is unique due to version number information. No, it’s not just the browser version...

For Facebook users concerned about your privacy or wanting to leave the site for one reason or many others, the site does not make the process of removing your account intuitive (by design). Unlike a dead email account (which is private), leaving your Facebook account disabled or inactive still leaves your information out in the open. So for instructions on how...