The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a pretty decent website to give advice on reducing your handover of information to third parties: Surveillance Self-Defense.
Some simple tips of my own which are really easy to implement, you have no excuse not to do these.
Get your friends to start using Telegram Messenger (it's free secure instant messaging for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows/Mac/Linux).
Snowden said that they use unique (or close to unique) identifiers to follow you. They can link you to virtually everything you do online.
Email addresses for logons
Usernames
Passwords (yes, if you use the same password for multiple sites they will cross reference that)
IP and MAC addresses
Location of logons and activity
So even if you do sign up for something secure, they know that it's you using the service and the metadata is still linked to you (still very revealing) but the content isn't known so it reduces your footprint. It's crazy how good at tracking us they have become.
[–] JROppenheimer 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a pretty decent website to give advice on reducing your handover of information to third parties: Surveillance Self-Defense.
Some simple tips of my own which are really easy to implement, you have no excuse not to do these.
Get your friends to start using Telegram Messenger (it's free secure instant messaging for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows/Mac/Linux).
Encrypt your laptop, especially if you travel with it. Tutorial for Windows
Encrypt your phone and make sure it has a lock screen code (this will be in the security settings of your device).
[–] [deleted] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
[–] JROppenheimer 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Snowden said that they use unique (or close to unique) identifiers to follow you. They can link you to virtually everything you do online.
So even if you do sign up for something secure, they know that it's you using the service and the metadata is still linked to you (still very revealing) but the content isn't known so it reduces your footprint. It's crazy how good at tracking us they have become.