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On Post-It Notes, DuckDuckGo, and Other Simple Solutions

 Post-It Notes            Think of that opaque little eye on your laptop’s forehead, its webcam, and think of everything it has seen. Did you know hackers can throw a spell over that lens from a distance and peer out of it? That, if they want, they can record what they see, and blackmail you? Think of what that eye has seen: appreciate the snitch’s sway it suddenly holds over you. You could pluck it out this minute and throw it in the garbage disposal; you could roll over your entire laptop with your car, and it won’t matter. If you were targeted, your webcam has already told the things it’s seen.  I see your memory working, Average Person; ha, you're blushing crimson! I wager an image of yourself just rose before you, or several. You’re in bed with your partner, on your birthday, while your laptop’s silent eye watches from where you placed it on your dresser… You’re checking your email before you hop in the shower, bending across your desk chair, not even wearing a tow
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On VPN's

            You know about Tor , now, and you know about Bitmessage . And today I’m going to tell you about VPN’s.             “Wait, wait, wait,” you say, rubbing your temples. “Are you telling me there’s more? I’m still not secure yet?”             My answer is, Depends. Tor has its problems as well as its advantages; it might slow your browsing down, and the use of it potentially attracts the attention of the NSA . For most of the things that most of us do online, Tor might not even be necessary. But a good VPN offers distinct benefits even to those of us who are not, say, investigative journalists, or political dissidents under an autocratic government, or…             “Wait, wait!” you cry. “I am just an Average Person, as you can tell by this haircut, which I got from Great Clips. And, as an AP, or Average Person, I have heard of these VPN’s, but . . .”             But you couldn’t pick one out of a line up, basically.             “Basically.”            Well then
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On Tor

            You may have heard of Tor , which stands for The Onion Router. As this blog is addressed to the Average Person I imagine you have heard of it, only you don’t know, not really, what it is. Why onions?             Well, let me ask you, have you ever opened your pantry door only to be crushed beneath an avalanche of onions? Have you ever, one fine morning in summer, thrown open your back door and gasped, finding your garden colonized over night by shallots? Have you, you Average Man or Woman, like me, packed away box after box of onions in your attic, others in your closet, still more in your shed, and one in each shoe, and still there’s no end in sight, just more and more onions, and market day isn’t till Saturday? Do you have to wear goggles in your own house? And do your in-laws refuse to cross your threshold but stand there on the porch, pinching their stinging noses, evincing the most withering judgement of your onion management? Are you, in short, in need of some mea
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On Secure Email

Honestly, I don’t care who snoops through my private emails. I just ask that they snoop like professionals, secretly, in a way I can ignore. I mean, I have principles, and if some amateur leaves dirty thumbprints all over my mail, or tears open the letters instead of steaming away the glue, like an experienced snoop, then I’d have to act on my principles. That’s an uncomfortable outcome for all parties involved. And moral outrage has a way of burning on in me well through the night, leaving me jittery in the morning and dry-eyed and vengeful. I’d rather rest; so would my principles, and, besides, the bulk of my emails just won’t excite anyone. And so I use Gmail. And the snoops—algorithms, app developers, the NSA, I don’t know them all—though, like roaches, I have faith in their presence, they have so far done their prying professionally, kept out of the light, and not left any tatters of envelopes, so to speak, where I can find them. So if Gmail suits me and my principles ha
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