To reiterate the opening line of the previous blog, “this is the part of the Internet experience where most users give away their privacy.  The Internet is free and that means you are the product.”
I taught my three-day course last week, OpSec in Cyberspace Domain/Electronic Signature Reduction, and one of the students asked me “what is the point in doing all this to guard our privacy if we are not doing anything wrong?” I think it is a great question and here is my humble reply.
Privacy is the precursor of security in all domains. In the physical domain, you close your curtains at night to gain privacy because it makes you feel more secure that nobody will be snooping on what you do at home, even when you are doing normal actives. In the cyberspace domain, privacy is also the precursor of security. If you keep your online activity private, it is more difficult to social engineering you and get hold of your credit cards, or other information that can be used to either rob you of your money or use your technology as a stepping stone to commit another crime.
When cybercrime costs our nation an average of $7.8 billion dollars a year (according to the Computer Crime Research Center http://www.crime-research.org/news/13.08.2006/2179/), then protecting your online privacy is a responsibility that all citizens should fulfil in order to curtail the cyber economic warfare being inflicted upon our nation.  

Although I spend 80 percent of the time using Ixquick, DuckDuckGo and Google, I explore the following search engines when the topic requires imagination. :-)
 
Dogpile.com
It offers web, image, video, news, blog, and job search. Before doing any search, click on the Preferences button found immediately below the Go Fetch button. Under the Preferences tab, go to Recent Searches and select Off. This search engine does not understand Boolean markings.
 
Gigablast
Once you read the description on their website, you will understand that you are the product here. Nevertheless, it is handy to use when one does not want to leave any rocks unturned. “Founded in 2000, Matt Wells created Gigablast to index hundreds of billions of pages with the least amount of hardware possible. Gigablast provides large-scale, high-performance, real-time information retrieval technology and services for partner sites. The company offers a variety of features including topic generation and the ability to index multiple document formats. This search delivery mechanism gives a partner "turnkey" search capability and the capacity to instantly offer search at maximum scalability with minimum cost. Clients range from NASDAQ 100 listed corporations to boutique companies. Gigablast is one of a handful of search engines in the United States that maintains its own searchable index of over a billion pages.” https://www.gigablast.com
Use the Advanced search rather than direct Boolean markers.

Addict-o-matic – addictomatic.com
It allows you to instantly create a custom page with the latest buzz on any topic. This is great to follow major events where one needs constant updates. Click on Available Sources after entering your topic, and this list pops down.

​







​Kartoo.com
“Quick web search and get relevant results with the meta search engine with its directory and services that make the Net a portal KartOO totally free.” It offers free online chatrooms. Here again you are the product so proceed with critical thinking because EVERYTHING that you type here is parsed and indexed along with your IP address.

Tag Galaxy at taggalaxy.de
Browse through Flickr photos in 3D with this flash application. It is a great search engine to find out relevance of the topic in question.
 
Icerocket.com
A great tool to look at all posts on blogs. It also allows you to search Twitter individually, and create an RSS feed to read post on your topic in a different platform as they are being posted on the web.
 
socialmention.com
This is a good one to look at hot topics.
 
Conclusion
If you are looking for obscurity and maximum privacy (about 90%), then you must also use a virtual private network service such as ExpressVPN.com
You might also wonder whether I am making you my product. The answer is no. I do not sell or trade your contact information. Notice that I am sending you directly to ExpressVPN.com rather than giving you the link that will give me a month free per each one of you that subscribes to the service.
The only thing I have asked in exchange for this free information is your liking my Art Meta Gallery Facebook page, and your following me in LinkedIn at the Meta Intelligence and Art Meta Gallery pages.
 
That is all for now. Thank you for reading!
 
Meta brings the courses Risk Management When Online and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Collection and Analysis to your organization regardless of where you are located. Watch this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXazQuPzFs Then call us to schedule training for your team or organization. ​

This is the part of the Internet experience where most users give away their privacy. The Internet is free and that means you are the product. The more data companies can compile on you while you use all the free services available to make your Internet experience fun, the more you are exposed to be manipulated through data or to be fed tailored articles to you. Facebook is the champion at manipulating the data it feeds you through its extensive violations of normative privacy.
In this blog, you will also learn that there is life beyond Google. Yes, I agree that Google is an amazing search engine, to the point that we have even made verbs in many languages with its brand…I will google this or that, googlea esto o lo otro, etc.
 
How many search engines are there?
Many. In this blog, I will talk about Google, DuckDuckgo and Ixquick. Bing/Yahoo are not worth talking about. I will touch on a couple of others on the follow up to this blog.
 
The fundamental difference between the three is that only Google parses your search with your IP address. This is the reason I highly recommend your using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service such as ExpressVPN.com (in my humble opinion is the best in the marketplace). This means that when you type “How to cook Italian pasta al dente,” Google will notate your IP address and the fact that you like to eat pasta cooked the Italian way. Next thing you notice is that you are getting ad after ad of Barrilla pasta.
On the other hand, Google allows the use of Boolean and white hat hacking techniques. It also allows use of its cache to peruse information before clicking on the link. More on this below.
 
Duckducgo (duckduckgo.com) prides itself for not collecting any user data. Founded in 2008 by Gabriel Weinberg, it is slowly but steadily becoming Google’s fierce competitor. DuckDuckGo is my favorite by far when I need to look for a person. It does an excellent job at bringing page after page of information that contains the person I am looking for. It has an App for the iPhone and Android platforms.
 
On the other hand, DuckDuckgo does not have a cache for you to look at, and it does not accept Booleans and white hat hacking techniques.
 
Ixquick.com owns the famous Startpage search engine that you see when you use TOR. Its CEO states that “privacy is a basic human right;” thus, you can imagine that this search engine does not parse the words you search and they are not paired with your IP address. Ixquick.com is owned by Surfboard Holding BV, a privately owned Dutch company.
​
In the example below, note that Ixquick gives you the option of selecting a Proxy instead of clicking directly on the title of the result. This Proxy is an anonymizer that masks the IP address of your Internet connection. If you real IP address is located in Arlington, VA, when you hit Proxy, you will show to the webmaster of the site you are visiting that you are coming from The Netherlands. Also note on the photo below that the link that has a green down arrow is not for a cached page but it is an advertisement. Ixquick does not offer the option of looking at cache. This will be addressed below when I talk about the difference between footprint and rank. ​

This is all for now folks! Thank you for reading.

Meta brings the courses Risk Management When Online and Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Collection and Analysis to your organization regardless of where you are located. Watch this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXazQuPzFs Then call us to schedule training for your team or organization. 

Some believe that there is no possibility of privacy these days when surfing the Internet. Although it is true that 100% privacy is almost impossible in today’s cyberspace domain environment, there are ways to protect one’s normative privacy while still enjoying the surfing experience.

What are descriptive and normative privacies in Internet?
Descriptive privacy is “what you see is what you get.” If you visit a website at an Internet café, your descriptive privacy is the people that surrounds you. In the privacy of your room or office, it is just you and the device you use to access the Internet. No tricks… no hidden cameras, etc.
Normative privacy is your expectation that when you are looking at a website, it is you and the screen.  You assume that you are alone but in reality there are many, many onlookers behind the screen. Today, every time you visit a website, you can expect to have more than 20 companies collecting information on your surfing experience.
This screen shot shows a CNN page in which 27 companies are trying to collect data.







​
​
This blog will teach you how to regain your normative privacy online.


What browser shall I use?
First, let’s quickly talk about the two or three that you should not even start in your computer or phone: Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera. Internet Explorer is the Gruyere cheese of all. It has so many security holes that one does not know where to start to patch. Safari is one-way channel of your surfing experience to Apple. Even in Private Mode, Safari will grab everything from your surfing experience to send back to Apple. Opera…no comments. :-) We are left with Chrome and Firefox.

For many years, we recommended Mozilla Firefox as the best by far Internet browser because of its privacy protections. This changed on or around September 2015. Shortly, I will explain but without further ado, I introduce you to today’s best Internet browser: Chrome in Incognito Mode.

In September 2015, Mozilla Firefox announced, “data stolen from its bug tracking system was used to attack Firefox users in the wild.” Then, not shortly after, Mozilla Firefox announced that it had discovered the presence of a rogue employee changing code, etc., etc. and Mozilla Firefox began releasing one version after another. Moreover, Mozilla Firefox is a non-profit organization that receives 51% of its operating budget from a questionable group. Therefore, it is not a platform that I trust or use at all these days.

How do I configure Chrome for privacy?
Chrome has a regular mode and an Incognito mode. The incognito mode does not open automatically, the user has to go to File—New Incognito Window, or click on the three parallel lines to the right of the screen and select New Incognito Window, or with the keyboard press at the same time Shift+Ctrl+N.
First things first… we need to change some of the settings in Chrome to regain your normative privacy.  For that, I invite you to look at this PDF. 
Notice that at the end of the file, I list the Extensions that you need to include in Chrome to help you with privacy. The extension Ghostery needs a further adjustment.  Ghostery, if you closed the Tab that opens when you install it, you can re-open it by going to Settings—Extensions and clicking the Options in Ghostery. You will put a check mark on Enable tracker library auto-updating and then you will click on Select All under Trackers and click Save at the bottom of the page. Even though I am asking you to use Chrome in Incognito mode, I want you to have a protective barrier in the regular Chrome in case it takes you a few days to get used to switching to Incognito mode. Ghostery pushes away the companies snooping on you. These companies violate your normative privacy and you can see them in the image above, in the purple bubble.
As for the extension Keyboard Privacy, did you know that your typing has a pattern as unique as a fingerprint and that there are companies collecting those patterns? Keyboard Privacy extension scrambles your typing pattern so you cannot be tracked online based on how you move your fingers around the keyboard.

What browser can I use on my phone and tablet?
Chrome! The easiest way to teach yourself to stop using Safari and to switch to Chrome is by going to System Settings on your iPhone or iPad, select Safari and cancel Use Cellular Data. You will only access Safari when you have WiFi enabled.
To configure Chrome in your phone, follow the instructions in this PDF that I host in my Dropbox.
You cannot add extensions to Chrome for iPhone or iPad.
To access Incognito Mode, you will click on the three vertical lines to the right of the screen, and select Incognito mode.

How to configure Safari in your desktop and mobile devices for maximum privacy?
Even though Apple likes to be with you 24/7/365 when you surf the Internet, you can keep some level of privacy by adjusting the following. This link takes you to a PDF that I have parked in my Dropbox and has screen shots and instructions.

As for Safari on mobile devices, if you go to Settings-> Safari, change the following:
Search Engine: DuckDuckGo (next blog will talk about Search Engines); Search Engine Suggestion= OFF; Safari Suggestions=Off; Quick Website Search=Off; Preload Top Hit=Off.
Do not save passwords and autofill data.
Frequently visited sites = OFF; Block Pop-Ups=On (green); Do not Track =On; Block Cookies = Allow from Websites I visit; Fraudelent Website Warning=On; Use Cellular Data= Off .
Get in the habit of clearing the History and Website Data daily.

Conclusion
As you can see, privacy in the United States of America is an Opt-out feature. In other words, it is up to you to educate yourself and get out of all the ways these companies are using to track you and your habits, your children, etc. This should be the other way around – For those who do not care about privacy at all, they can opt-in to have their lives disclosed and habits tracked.
If you want to read more on privacy online, look at the Protective Data Privacy implemented in the European Union. I would like to see the same implemented in our country.

Next blog will talk about Search Engines and Privacy.

On another note, and in case you are an art enthusiast; I have opened my virtual art gallery at www.art-meta.com. Your visit is highly appreciated and you can subscribe to the newsletter that comes out once a month announcing new artwork and artists added to the site. You can find it in Facebook at Art Meta Gallery.

Thank you for reading. This is all for now folks!

Meta brings the course Risk Management When Online to your organization regardless of where you are located. Watch this short clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXazQuPzFs Then call us to schedule training for your team or organization.