THEY are reading your MAIL!

Have you ever wondered if your mail woman is reading your mail? Maybe she makes a copy of everything you send so she can sell it to telemarketers? What if they had a magic phone book that records every number you look up and tells those telemarketers who you want to call?

If you are a major Internet Service Provider like Frontier, Spectrum or Comcast, Congress gave you permission to open everyone’s mail and put magic phone books in every home you serve.

Yep, your private info just became public. If you want to claw your privacy back, there are a few steps you can take to secure your info from your ISP.  None of these suggestions are foolproof. Savvy hackers, government security and corporate espionage use tricks that are unknown to the public and very difficult to defend against.

Here we will offer a few suggestions to dramatically improve your security against the universal snooping of your Internet Service Provider or ISP.

Virtual Private Network, Like Using Security Envelope

When you go on the internet from your computer, tablet or smartphone, the information you see is transmitted across the network of your Internet Service Provider. Think Verizon, ATT, Spectrum, Comcast or Charter Communications. They can look at that information and see what you see.  Your Internet Protocol Address or IP address assigned to you by the ISP tells them who you are. It’s like sending mail. Your mail woman can see who you’re sending it to and she knows who it is from. Unlike your mail woman, your ISP can take the liberty to open your mail while they’re sending it back in forth.

The best way to stop them is a Virtual Private Network or VPN. A VPN takes the information your device transmits and encrypts the stream so you ISP can’t read it. It makes your info almost impossible to see. It’s like you sent all your mail in a security envelope to a friend who then forwarded it to its final destination.   

I recommend Private Internet Access who is standout in a number of important ways.

• PIA has been reliable and provided ample bandwidth for HD streaming and downloading large files.   
• PIA does not log traffic so they cannot provide your information to anyone.
• Anonymous payment so PIA doesn’t know who you are
• Works on PC, MAC, Smartphone and Tablets
• Worldwide Servers so you can look like you are in NYC, Paris or Frankfort when you are really in your living room

Dynamic Name Servers, Don’t Use the ISP Phone Book

Encrypting your internet traffic with a VPN isn’t enough.  When you go to a webpage it uses the internet equivalent of a phone book to look up the webpage. The default setup is to use the phone book provided by your ISP. Every time you look a page up, your ISP knows who you looked up.

The best way to stop them is to use a different phone book. This is done by changing your DNS settings. It is relatively complex to change your DNS settings. The best way is to get someone who can check your network out and make the necessary changes to your devices.

With a VPN and proper DNS settings you have made it much harder for your ISP to spy on you.  Now what about Google and Facebook?  It’s tough to get around using these behemoths. Everything you tell them about you goes into your file. You’re paying for the “free” service by serving up the details of your life. If you don’t like that deal, there’s a few steps you can take.

Search, Pretty simple, use duckduckgo.  They don’t log your searches so you don’t get tracked.

Email. Encrypted? off-shore?  Proton Mail both. I can’t afford a Swiss Bank Account but I do have a Swiss Email Account. With a solid app for Iphone and Android, Proton Mail offers a reliable secure solution to email.

We can walk you through these steps. Contact us at freedom4all@protonmail.ch