Digital security and privacy are aspects of modern life that I have been thinking about and experimenting with for a long time. I am not sure what the original impetus was -- perhaps an earlier, parallel inclination to make personal freedom a very high priority. And where there is no security, there is not privacy. Where there is no privacy, there is no freedom.
Let us try to divide digital security into some logical components:
- good backups are fundamental to everything else, not just security!
- choice of Operating System and software: choose Open Source over commercial to the greatest extent possible
- encrypt everything, both on the wire and at rest
- use Tor or VPN to obscure your IP address and physical location
- use a password manager to assign a long, DIFFERENT random password to EVERY login
- minimize (ideally forgo entirely) use of public services like GMail and Big Social Media, build your own if possible
- practice separation and isolation (advanced): activities that require less security (ie. random web browsing) should not happen in the same "place" as activities that require a much higher level of security (ie. storing bitcoin or subverting your least favorite government).
All of the above require time and effort, though some more than others. Make no mistake, the world is setup so as to make it as easy as possible to give up one's privacy, and rowing in the opposite direction is not easy. But a few quite easy measures fall out of the above larger list:
- use a private e-mail service, even if (not necessarily) it costs a few bucks
- get a big USB drive or NAS unit and periodically make a copy of your personal files
- setup GPG-encrypted e-mail (yes, this is easy) and encourage your friends to do the same
- Us Firefox, not Internet Explorer. Install privacy-enhancing plugins
- install and use a password manager
As with most big changes, just start! And start small. Chip away at it over a period of years. Personal digital security is kind of like a minor (or in some cases a major!) hobby. Assuming you are reading this, you are already interested. Just start picking away, starting with easy stuff. And know that you are potentially preventing future problems, and poking the NSA in the eye.