AVOIDING

THE EYE
IMMEDIATELY STOP THE PURSUIT TO
COLLECT YOUR DATA AND CONTROL
YOUR WORLD

RICHARD MARSHALL
 INTRODUCTION

It was just another night in Columbus, Ohio. Teresa Clark and her
boyfriend were snuggling in their bed, watching Netflix on the laptop.
Nothing was unusual... Until Clark logged into Facebook the next
day and found intimate images of herself and her boyfriend from the
night before, posted by an unknown person. The person, identified
as Mahmoud Abdul in Cairo, Egypt, uploaded the pictures with a
caption “Really, cute couple [sic]”. The pictures were apparently
taken from the laptop’s webcam.

These stories are becoming more common. This past March, a young
man turned himself into the FBI and was sentenced to 18 months
in federal prison for hacking the computer of Miss Teen USA,
Cassidy Wolf. He watched her through her computer’s webcam for
months, and took intimate photos of her in her own bedroom. He then
attempted to blackmail her, asking for money in return for not posting
the videos and photos.

If this is what an amateur is capable of with a mere computer and

Internet access, imagine what government agencies are doing right
now with larger resources, their hidden agendas, and our blind trust.

First, let me ask you...

Do you ever get that strange feeling that you’re being watched? I sure
do.

The scary thing is, you are probably right – you ARE being watched...
Government agencies track our activities and collect our information
without our consent each day.

If you’ve watched Bourne Identity, Captain America: The Winter

Soldier, or the infamous TV show - The Person of Interest - you
probably have an idea of what government surveillance may look
like. You may have shrugged it off as being unrealistic, but the reality
is not that far off.

Government agencies like the CIA and NSA have the technology
to track your every move. Not only do they have it, they use it to
its fullest extent. You won’t know it, but they are carrying out
surveillance activities 24/7. The resources at their disposal and the
techniques they employ make them a top concern, as they can breach
any individual’s privacy at any given time.

Sure, these organizations’ efforts aid in protecting us from dangerous

criminals, but tracking ordinary people’s daily activities and labeling
it a “National Security Concern” is by no means justifiable.

It is not difficult for NSA and CIA (not to mention criminals and
hackers) to spy on us. Between smart technology, social media, and
holes in the security of our devices, we are pretty exposed.

If you post on social media, anyone can peek at your everyday life
through your social media account. Any time you purchase products
online, you create a record of it by leaving your personal information,
including your address, current phone number and credit card data,
as well as usernames and passwords. By tracking this information,
the government can know where you live, what credit cards you are
using, what you are buying and when you were last online.

Your smart devices are not safe as you think they are. Webcams and
microphones embedded in your device may be used by the government
to tap into your everyday conversations. The government can monitor
any suspicious activity through what you say and even write on social
media or anywhere else on the Internet.

Even if the activity is not suspicious, your privacy is being invaded

and you have no idea it’s happening! That is unacceptable! And
this is just one of the ways that government agencies can track your
activities.

This eBook will show you how government surveillance actually

takes place. I’ll describe some of the organizations and people who
took a firm stance against surveillance by government organizations.
I’ll also share important pieces of history of one of the government
agencies involved in surveillance.

We will talk about the deep web and the activities it is used for.
Lastly, I will share precautions and steps you can take to avoid the
prying eyes of Big Brother.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: About the CIA’s History 1

Chapter 2: Big Brother’s “Watching You” at All Times 3

Monitoring your spending 4
Databases with the FBI and NSCA 4
NSAR Program by the FBI 5

Chapter 3: Edward Snowden 6

His Early Life 6
Early Career in Cybersecurity 7
Stealing NSA’s Confidential Documents 8
The Leaked Files 8
Guilty Conscience 9
Aftermath of Snowden’s Actions 10

Chapter 4: Wiki Leaks and the Man behind it 11

What is Wiki Leaks 12
Why is Wiki Leaks a cause for Controversy? 13
The Man Behind WikiLeaks 13
Motivations behind WikiLeaks and Julian Assange 14
A Common Misconception 16
Chapter 5: The “Deep” Web 18
It’s the Hidden Web 18
The Deep Web is huge and not accessible
using regular software 20
It’s full of Criminals and Insidious Activity 21
Debit and Cash Don’t work on the Deep Web,
but Crypto-Currencies do! 23
The Inside Scoop: TOR is Government
Sponsored 24

Chapter 6: Your devices track every one of your moves 26

Your iPhone or Android 27
Your Smart TV 30
Example: 31
• Your New Car 32
• Your Laptop and Desktop 34

Chapter 7: How do you protect yourself? 36

Hide the source(s) 36
Limit Social Media Use 38
Protection during conferences from espionage 39
Update your Antivirus, firewalls and Operating
Systems 39
Get Duct Tape and cover up your webcam 40

HTTPS Everywhere 40
 • An alternative? 41
Encrypt your emails and browser 41
Encrypt communications as much as possible 43
VPNs are great for browsing 44
Go offline on a separate device 45
Two-Factor Identification 45

Chapter 8: A Final Word of Caution (Don’t go “over-the-top” 46

with Paranoia)
 CHAPTER 1

About the CIA’s History

I
ntelligence activities have been carried out by the US since the
days of George Washington. These intelligence activities became
more streamlined under the supervision of the government after
the Second World War.

The OSS (Office of Strategic Services) gathered critical information

during the Second World War. This information was sent for analysis.
This analysis was carried out to find ways the information could
be used to the advantage of the war efforts. William J. Donovan, a
lawyer by profession, was appointed the Coordinator of Information
for the OSS by Franklin D. Roosevelt. He later became the head of
the OSS during the Second World War. He was celebrated as a war
hero afterward.

Harry S. Truman became the 33rdpresident of the United States after

the death of Franklin Roosevelt. President Truman felt an increased
need to have a centralized intelligence organization to keep gathering
and analyzing valuable intelligence information.

The CIA was officially and technically given the role of coordinating
the intelligence activities across the country, correlating, evaluating

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

and disbursing that information as needed in the interest of national

security. This was done under the National security act of 1947
which President Truman himself signed. The CIA was formed to
gather, analyze and disseminate foreign intelligence information so
that appropriate measures and actions could be taken to defend US
National Security.

Gathering intelligence information from overseas requires the latest

technological equipment and techniques, which the CIA now has.
The CIA has access to international intelligence information (secrets)
and is an expert at guarding all those secrets.

There is no way for the average Joe to gauge the extent of tracking
and surveillance of citizens that the CIA is doing in the US, other than
what little information is available on the web and what the media
tells us each day.

This means that whatever you may be doing, you cannot escape the
clutches of Big Brother.

2
 CHAPTER 2

Big Brother’s “Watching

You” at All Times

T
he media is filled with subtle examples of the surveillance
and tracking the government does. If you’ve ever seen the hit
television series Chuck, you would’ve had some laughs. But
a breach of privacy is no laughing matter. If you watch between the
scenes, you can see an elaborate, although comical, representation of
how the government surveillance is done.

The show follows hidden microphones and cameras placed inside

the protagonist’s home in some episodes. Even the protagonist’s
workplace transforms into a secret CIA operations base under the
guise of a tech store.

Fiction aside, the methods of

surveillance are more or less
inconspicuous to the average
American. Our actions,
conversations and daily activities,
like shopping habits, may be
monitored by surveillance
cameras.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

Monitoring your spending

There have been cases when hackers hired by the CIA have hacked
into microphones and cameras of smart phones and TVs to monitor
daily activities of citizens.

Other than that, the government can spy on you through your
everyday spending. From the time you wake up and have the morning
coffee at Starbucks, to the time you go for groceries at Walmart, the
government has a record of what you spend, where and when.

The NSA collects countless phone calls, texts and emails on a daily
basis to monitor any suspicious or terrorist activity. That includes
your communication with clients and with your family. Although it’s
not part of the NSA’s duties to spy on US citizens, it still does that.

Databases with the FBI and NSCA

There are over a billion detailed records collected and updated from
commercial databases, criminal probes and government identification
information available with the FBI and the NSCA. There are two

aspects to the collection of this information – it can be used to

anticipate criminal activities in advance or spy on unsuspecting
Americans. Unfortunately, for many us, it’s the latter.

What the future holds is clear. With the rapid pace of technological
innovation (think RFID chips), the government’s bound to do more
surveillance. DNA and lab tests for DUI and other criminal charges
are already commonplace and we’re gradually brainwashed to let
go of more and more aspects of our privacy and accept the invasion
of our personal lives as the norm. Our private information is being
shared freely by companies that we buy from, police officials have
cameras attached to their uniform and will soon have handheld
devices capable of sending iris, face, fingerprint and even DNA scans

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 Chapter 2: Big Brother’s “Watching You” at All Times

to national databases in an instant.

NSAR Program by the FBI

The FBI uses Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative
(NSAR) to gather and analyze observations and reports by local
authorities. These observations and reports are mainly used to store
the profile of “suspicious” individuals who did not commit any crime
but chose to act “suspiciously.”

There are thousands of cars right now that have been fitted with GPS
tracking devices without the knowledge of the owner, to allow the
FBI to track these individuals. These devices cannot be installed in
a car without a warrant for probable cause being issued. Yet they are
being installed.

All these activities and measures show that no matter where you are
in the US, you cannot escape the Big Brother’s eyes, ears and worst
of all, their grasp, if they decide to target you. There were many
people who tried to expose the system, but one man stands out in
particular. That man is Edward Snowden.

5
 CHAPTER 3

Edward Snowden

E
veryone’s heard about Edward Snowden. He was allegedly
responsible for leaking highly confidential information about
many security organizations like the CIA, NSA, as well as the
British and Australian Intelligence, to the public.

His Early Life

Edward Joseph Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina
in 1983. Snowden’s whole family - his grandfather, mother, father
and sister – were all employed by the federal government and it was
likely that he would follow suit.

Snowden’s life took an unexpected turn when had to quit high school
after being diagnosed with mono in 10th grade. When he got better,
he headed straight for the local community college. This was where
his interest in computers and technology took roots.

He joined the US Army Reserve in 2004 but broke both legs during
special forces training and had to leave service.

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 Chapter 3: Edward Snowden

Early Career in Cybersecurity

In 2006, while working as a security guard at the University of
Maryland, he attended a job fair put on by intelligence agencies.
Despite the lack of formal education, he was offered a position at the
global communications division at CIA’s headquarters in Langley,
Virginia. He proved his worth as a junior employee and attended
CIA’s top-secret school for technology specialists.

The CIA saw his potential and posted him to Geneva to maintain
computer network security in 2007. He was also considered to be the
top technical and cyber security expert while he was there. In 2008,
he was even hired to support the President at the NATO Summit in
Romania as one of his diplomats.

In 2009, when Snowden left the CIA and Geneva, his supervisor
wrote in his file that there was a change in Snowden’s behavior and
work habits. The CIA became increasingly suspicious of Snowden,
saying that he was trying to gain unauthorized access to classified
computer files.

He began working as a private

contractor, initially for Dell and
then for Booz Allen Hamilton,
a consulting company. He was
secretly working for the NSA under
the guise of a private contractor,
responsible for computer network
security. Snowden was stationed
in Tokyo, Maryland and Hawaii,
to name a few. During this time,
Snowden slowly but surely
collected evidence of the spying
programs of the government
agencies such as PRISM,
FAIRVIEW, STORMBREW,

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

Blarney etc.

Stealing NSA’s Confidential Documents

While Snowden worked in NSA’s Information sharing office in
Hawaii in 2013, he was very disturbed by how ordinary citizens were
spied upon each day by the NSA. The primary sources of spying were
through their phone and Internet data. He intricately combined the
data into a portfolio filled with the NSA’s mass surveillance projects
and the practices that they employed.

He contacted the Washington Post to publish the 41 PRISM slides,

but they weren’t willing to meet his timeline for publication, so he
leaked the documents to the documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras,
as well as journalists Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Barton
Gellman.

In May 2013, Snowden approached his bosses for a medical leave of

absence for the treatment of the epilepsy he was diagnosed with. On
May 20th, 2013 Snowden flew to
Hong Kong to take refuge.

The Leaked Files

The documents leaked through
Guardian on June 5th, 2013, were
proof that Verizon was sharing
all of its users’ data with the
NSA. This marked the start of the
infamous leak that made Snowden
US

Government enemy no. 1. The next

day, Guardian and The Washington

8
 Chapter 3: Edward Snowden

Times made the world aware of

PRISM, a Global surveillance
program by the NSA.

Under PRISM, the NSA was

able to collect Internet data from
any online activity done through
products and applications from
many of the world’s leading
brands. The brands included
Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft and
Apple. The leaked files made the
public more aware of the global
surveillance programs by the NSA
and others.

Guilty Conscience
Snowden could not bear the CIA deceiving the American public. He
began to question the agency’s ethics. While undercover with the
NSA in 2009, he was disturbed when he witnessed junior officials
sharing people’s most sensitive data with their fellow operatives,
which was an infringement of the individuals’ privacy. The sensitive
data included private videos and photos that would be considered
embarrassing if revealed publicly.

He worked in the NSA’s information sharing office and raised

concerns over the behavior of the operatives to his bosses, but they
disputed his claims and said, “They will not leave you alone if they
find out you’re doing this.” Most of his colleagues were surprised at
the evidence that he showed them but no one would dare say anything
for fear of the implications.

Seeing the Director of National intelligence, James Clapper, lie

directly to the congress while he was under oath, on March 12th,
2013, was Snowden’s breaking point. It’s what finally moved him to

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

expose the agency.

Whether you believe him to be a patriot or traitor, Edward Snowden

brought to light just how active the government is in the surveillance
of people. The price of going against a government agency? Living
the life on the run.

Aftermath of Snowden’s Actions

Snowden exposed his own identity to protect countless others that
were involved with the leaks. He also said that he had nothing to
fear because he had done nothing wrong. He was charged with two
counts of violations of the US espionage Act in addition to theft of
government property: one was an unauthorized communication of
national defense and the other was willfully communicating classified
intel with unauthorized people.

Snowden remained in Hong Kong for a month after he was charged.

He was set to flee to Ecuador, with the aid of Wiki Leaks. When his
flight arrived in Russia, US officials revoked his passport. He couldn’t
make it to Ecuador and has been in Russia ever since.

He was given temporary asylum in Russia, and in 2014 he was

awarded a 3-year residency permit.

Edward Snowden was just one of the people trying to expose the
government surveillance programs. Another popular source of trusted
information on the Internet is “Wiki Leaks”. It has been labeled as a
‘go-to’ source of information for exposing government officials and
organizations and their hidden agendas, among other things.

Let’s find out a little bit more about Wiki Leaks, the secrets it has
exposed, its motivations and the man behind it.

10
 CHAPTER 4

Wiki Leaks and the Man

behind it

T
he US government is riddled with conspiracies and leaks,
and many of them are proven to be true. One instance is of
Deep Throat, an informant of the government who told about
the Watergate Scandal, that sank the presidency of Richard Nixon.
After 3 decades, Deep Throat was revealed to be former FBI deputy
Director Mark Felt.

Another example is of the

Pentagon Papers that revealed a
secret bombing campaign planned
by the US during the Vietnam War.
Advancement of technology lead
to sources of leaks popping all
over the Internet. None was more
popular than Wiki Leaks.

But what exactly is Wiki Leaks?

How does it get access to the
leaked documents and videos it
boasts on the website? What are
the motivations behind it?

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

What is Wiki Leaks

Wiki Leaks describes itself as a “not for profit” media organization
on its website. It was launched back in 2006 to publish restricted,
supposedly top secret, documents.

Their website is the go-to source for classified information. They

accept information, not rumors. If the information submitted to the
website is of any importance, ethically, historically, politically or
diplomatically, it will be accepted.

Wiki Leaks is responsible for checking the information to be

original and from a trustworthy primary source. The work also has
to be unpublished. Just like any other news organization, they have
editorial staff all around the world, but their operation and location
is a well-kept secret. There may be important people of authority
involved as sources, so the publications are kept anonymous to avoid
any backlash or implications.

For the last 11 years, Wiki Leaks has claimed to have released around

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 Chapter 4: Wiki Leaks and the Man behind it

10 million classified government documents on its website. The

number of unpublished documents they have in their possession is
still not known.

Wiki leaks is very secretive about who it employs. Some sources

say that it employs around 100 people around the world. The extent
of their roles in the organization can’t be determined with 100%
accuracy.

Why is Wiki Leaks a cause for Controversy?

The documents released by Wiki Leaks are said to be in direct
violation of national security laws, according to government agencies.
Allegedly, they can endanger lives, but nothing has been proved
in this regard. What can be said for sure is that it has damaged the
reputations of a few important people in the past.

Debbie Wasserman, former DNC chairperson, resigned as a result

of leaked emails. The emails reflected that she’d been biased against
Bernie Sanders.

The Man Behind Wiki Leaks

One of the people that is clearly known as a publisher for the Wiki
Leaks website is Julian Assange. Mr. Assange worked as a computer
programmer and an activist based in Australia. It is said that he was
one of the individuals who helped in founding the website.

In the very early years of Wiki leaks, Assange gave lectures and
interviews around the world, portraying himself as the founder of
the site. If you’ve watched the movie “the 5th Estate”, Benedict
Cumberbatch plays the leading role of Assange.

Assange has had allegations of rape against him in Sweden in the past.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

He sought asylum in London’s

Ecuadorian Embassy about 5
years ago to avoid extradition.
He has incessantly denied those
allegations since, calling them
politically motivated.

Thanks to the Statutes of

Limitation (elapsed time), other
charges against him had been
dropped. The extradition by the
Swedish government would have
led to Assange being extradited to
the US to face the consequences of
publishing leaked information.

Motivations behind WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

Both Assange and Wiki Leaks face increasing criticism for their
hidden motivations. These motivations are questionable at best. Julian
Assange has publicly stated that he doesn’t support the practices of
Hillary Clinton.

This can be supported by the political motivations behind the

Democratic National Committee emails that exposed Debbie
Wasserman, who was on team Hillary. The motivations are clear
keeping the timing of the leaked emails in mind.

The timing of the emails that cost the DNC dearly in 2016 were timed
perfectly by Wiki Leaks. Over 19000 emails and 8000 attachments
were leaked onto Wiki Leaks and showed DNC’s hidden agenda to
sabotage Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

This would show that the motivations of the website are anything
but pure. Wiki Leaks is like another media outlet and has editorial
procedures. Julian Assange professed to being against the US Global

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 Chapter 4: Wiki Leaks and the Man behind it

order as well as a determined critic to any of Hillary’s efforts. He

accused her of lacking judgment and spreading war and terrorism.
During Wiki Leaks’ early years, Assange refused to edit or remove
any sensitive personal information, like names, credit card details and
social security numbers – something that other news outlets normally
edit.

It still doesn’t censor much information, as the leaked DNC emails

showed. The social security and credit card details were published in
their entirety. Assange argues that omitting this kind of information
would compromise the integrity of the website.

The motivations of Mr. Assange are seen to vary at times. We can

be sure that his actions have gotten some very influential people
in trouble in the past and will continue to get them into trouble in
the future. Choosing whether to censor a name or not is crucial in
protecting the identities and lives of the people involved.

Many of WikiLeaks’ published documents are geared towards putting

the US in an uneasy position and while the site claims to exist to
expose the agenda of governments, it definitely looks like it has its
own political motivations.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

A Common Misconception
Despite the similarity in the name of Wikipedia and Wiki Leaks, there
is no link between the two. Both these organizations and websites are
separate. The organization started out as a “Wiki” Page but abandoned
the idea in 2010, when they set up the website separately.

Bonus: Another misconception regarding Wiki Leaks is that

it was used by Edward Snowden to leak the NSA documents.
This is completely untrue! If the previous section is any
indication, you’d know that Snowden was in contact with
Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian and Laura Poitras, a
controversial documentary filmmaker, among others for the
leak.

Edward Snowden leaked NSA documents that contained

information about global surveillance programs to these two
individuals, in addition to two other reporters. These reporters
were Barton Gellman and Ewen MacAskill. Laura Poitras
even made a documentary film on it by the name of “Citizen
Four”.

Wikileaks was said to go underground, resorting to the dark web for

a $600,000 fundraising effort. For that reason, there was a time when
all the content from the site was inaccessible to the public. This was
so that the fundraising effort continued until their website was up and
running.

On March 7th, 2017, thousands of documents were released by Wiki

Leaks. These documents explain, in detail, the methods and the
tools used by the CIA to break into phones, cars and TVs. Leading
technology firms like Apple, Microsoft, and Google have software
that could potentially be hacked by the CIA using these tools and
methods. This included documents detailing PRISM and other
surveillance programs.

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 Chapter 4: Wiki Leaks and the Man behind it

Wiki Leaks has also released some greatly disturbing videos in the
past. For example, there’s a video that shows a scene during the Iraq
war, where an American Apache (helicopter) was shown killing two
of Reuter’s journalists.

This was the video that incriminated US Army intelligence analyst

Chelsea Manning to 35 years, starting 2010. She’s currently at the
Fort Leavenworth Army installation in Kansas. She was charged with
espionage and theft, but the prison sentence was shortened to 7 years
upon President Obama’s commutation.

Chelsea/Bradley Manning was implicated through mistrust.

When working as the US Army Intelligence analyst she
released the documents to Wiki Leaks and also confided in
someone she knew online. That individual reported her to the
FBI, leading to her conviction.

Although in the public eye, Wiki Leaks claims to “open governments”

as depicted in their social media pages and on their website, the back
story is apparently different. Videos, pictures, emails and documents
that are leaked by the website do provide a creepy look into what a
government is doing, but at the same time endangers the lives of the
people involved in protecting the US.

Earlier, I mentioned that Wiki Leaks went underground for fund

raising. If anyone was seen supporting the website freely, it could
have had dire consequences. People would be caught by government
agencies and punished. The support had to be untracked and
anonymous.

That’s where the Deep Web comes in. The Wiki Leaks “underground”
fundraiser happened through the Deep Web. But what is the Deep
Web?

17
 CHAPTER 5

The “Deep” Web

Y
ou have probably heard that the Internet we use is only 10%
of the actual Internet. Think of it as an iceberg with only its
tip above water.

That’s known as the surface web. All the activities that we carry out
online, from online shopping to using social media, are done on the
surface web.

We also use the surface web for watching and downloading videos,
pictures and music, surfing for entertainment or work, applying
for jobs and much more. But there’s still a lot that is hidden and
unexplored on the web – a whopping 90% of it is not indexed by
regular search engines.

It’s the Hidden Web

The “Hidden” Web (or Deep Web) is that part of the World Wide
Web that is inaccessible by way of standardized search engines like
Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Government and other tracking programs
are very limited here because the pages are heavily encrypted behind

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 Chapter 5: The “Deep” Web

https forms.

The Hidden web has a number of uses. These range from encrypted
mail, secure online banking and pay as you go services (such as video
on demand and magazine/newspaper subscriptions), to a lot more
sinister goings-on.

The reason behind the Deep Web’s notorious reputation is that it’s
where all the suspicious activities happen. From buying and selling of
illegal drugs and weapons, to hiring assassins and gaining access to

stolen credit cards. There are loads of creepy and nasty activities
happening in the Deep Web, the thought of which would make the
best of us shudder.

Since the Deep Web allows users’ identities to remain hidden there
are many hackers and criminals who use it to carry out their illegal
activities to escape the clutches of government and law-enforcement
agencies.

Similarly, there are journalists and government agents who use the

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

deep web to collect information on sensitive and dangerous topics,

and to gain access to records of individuals they are after (in the case
of government agents). Edward Snowden also used the deep web to
gather the information that put him smack dab in the middle of a
worldwide controversy.

The Deep Web is huge and not accessible to

everyone using regular software
90% of the Internet is not indexed by search engines. This part of the
web is not available on the surface web that we use. Estimates dated
as far back as 2003 show that some 500 billion pages were present on
the deep web at that time.

These web pages, and billions of additional ones, are not accessible
by conventional search engines such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing.
They’re accessible to people only when they use a specific browser
called TOR using “.onion” instead of “.com”. Many links are under
the “onion” domain name.
You can’t visit all of the pages
on the regular Internet, let alone
the deep web. There’s not enough
time in the world... The Deep web
is completely separate from the
surface web. Of course you’ll be
using the Internet provider you
normally use and the same old
laptop you use. The only difference
will be that it won’t just be the
regular Internet anymore.

The TOR Software is the only

way to access the deep web. TOR
stands for “The Onion Router.”
This software allows superior

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 Chapter 5: The “Deep” Web

privacy in order for you to access

the deep web. Only if you decide
to log onto the deep web, will you
see why providing that privacy
is crucial. TOR scrambles and
changes your IP

(Internet Protocol) address

completely to make it anonymous.
That means that anything you do
cannot be tracked or traced back
to you. Whatever your mind can
conjure up, you’ll find it on the
deep web.

It’s full of Criminals and Insidious Activity

The very reason that the deep web is so secure and private is what
makes it unsafe. Since authorities cannot track your activity or trace
the activity back to you, the deep web is a hub for criminals. The
most underhanded activities you can imagine happen right there in
the deep web.

One prime example is the well-developed production of fake IDs.

People can order fake identification cards for virtually any country.
In addition, green cards, passports, credit and debit cards can also be
made on the deep web. By the way, they’ll be fully functional and
hard to tell apart from the real cards.

The IDs of people who have died can be reused by criminals or those
evading the law. They can assume the identity of the deceased, if
needed, on the deep web.

The Deep web is a den for hackers, too! Criminals employ the services
of hackers if they need to breach security protocols of selected

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

websites. These hackers can make their way into secure websites to
siphon off sensitive data including customer profiles, bank account
details and so on. Someone could potentially hack into the federal
reserve and empty out the bank if they wanted to – all with the help
of hackers.

Criminals also use the deep web to hire skilled assassins and to trade
drugs and weapons. Prostitution rings, sex trafficking groups and
human organ traders operate on the deep web.

Anything from bath salts to ecstasy, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines,

crack, methadone, crystal meth (methamphetamine), marijuana and
benzodiazepines is widely available on the deep web and is traded
freely.

All the biggest and most dangerous weapons, aircraft, smartphones,

laptops, guns and much more is available on the deep web. Criminals
can get their hands on bombs, rocket launchers, and guns that are not
available to the general public, like the Intratec TEC-DC9, which is a
semi-automatic pistol with a 32- round magazine.

The deep web is also frequently used by the media around the world.
Journalists are not allowed to expose the truth if it conflicts with state
or political interests in certain countries; they often use the deep web
anonymously to both find and disseminate the truth that matters,
while protecting their identities. The deep web is also used to bypass
censorship laws in China and the Middle East.

Governments may use it to find out the secrets of other countries.

It may be used for illegal betting, music album releases and much
more.

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 Chapter 5: The “Deep” Web

Debit and Cash Don’t work on the Deep Web, but

Crypto-Currencies do!
Most people on the deep web are up to no good. This means that
they’re making darn sure that they’re not traced back in any way. You
can’t expect credit and debit cards to work in a place where fake ones
are made every day. Besides, they leave the proverbial paper trail that
can be used to trace any transaction back to a user like breadcrumbs.
To avoid being exposed, the deep web users pay in crypto- currencies.

The original crypto-currency, Bitcoin, was designed to bypass tracing

to the user and this feature made it the payment method of choice on

the deep web. Today, Bitcoin gained popularity outside of the deep
web and some people even consider it the strongest currency in the
world due to its security and safety. It has also emerged as a great
investment tool in recent years, prompting deep web users to shift
towards a different currency.

Most deep web transactions are now done in Coin base, which works
much like any other crypto- currency, but Bitcoin and Ether (recently
included in the list of currencies to carry out deep web transactions),
remain quite popular.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

Beware: The deep web is not intended for inexperienced users.

Don’t try it if you don’t know the limits. Have someone -- who
has already had experience in using the deep web successfully
-- show you to the ropes. If you go on clicking away, there’s
no knowing what will happen to you. Hackers may be looking
to make a profit by offering their services, but some have more
malicious intent..

They may track you without the proper safety tools

(antiviruses and encryption) in place or if you click enticing
links. They may leave strong viruses blocking your access to
your own computer. Other than that, you can have malware,
that tracks your moves and relays your personal information
back to the hackers. Avoid it if you don’t have help from a
professional..

The Inside Scoop: TOR is Government Sponsored

It wasn’t always like this. The Onion Router was made by a non-
profit group but is now under the control of the government. The
government made its way into TOR to some extent and later took

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 Chapter 5: The “Deep” Web

over the whole program.

Currently, on paper, TOR is sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the
US Department of State: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor. There are more players involved, but not named.

This, of course, offers more questions than answers.

• How anonymous is the deep web itself after the “hostile

takeover” from the government?
• How can gun control be enforced when the illegal trade of
weapons and other harmful things continues to happen? Do
they (government agencies) have a hand in all of the illegal
activities
• Is the government and respective agencies turning a blind
eye to the illegal activity that goes on day in and day out?

Speaking of inside scoops, you don’t realize how much your

devices know about you. They’re playing a pivotal role in helping
government agencies carry out surveillance activities. The next
section describes exactly how your devices are doing that.

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 CHAPTER 6

Your devices track every one

of your moves

S
mart devices have come a long way in recent years.
Smartphones now boast dual cameras, 360° field of vision and
4G connectivity. You can pass files from one phone to another
simply by touching the phones. You can connect your phone to a
number of smart home devices and get remote camera feeds from
inside your house, start and stop appliances, turn off the lights, lock
the doors and open your garage --- even if you are on the other side
of the world!

But the fact of the matter remains that these devices are a portal from
your device to the government surveillance networks and databases.
The camera built into your laptop and the smart home accessories you
have placed all around your house are easy targets for the government
to spy on you.

Even public payphone and many telecommunication companies

have phone call records tracked through PRISM by the NSA, for
example. Not only that, the very credit card that you use to buy your
daily groceries, appliances and other items with, is tracked by the
government.

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 Chapter 6: Your devices track every one of your moves

The home monitor that you just purchased for your house knows
exactly how many people are in your house at any time and where
they are. The smart water meter you bought to monitor your water
consumption to help you be more energy efficient knows every time
you visit the bathroom to do your business.

Smart Alarm clocks can identify your sleeping and waking times and
your smart fridge knows every time you open and close it or draw a
glass of cold water. Many similar devices for your home and health
tracking can also send your information to the government officials.
All this information is used to create a very comprehensive database
of individuals with the government.

Your iPhone or Android

Your smartphone has tons of features that tell you how many steps
you’ve walked or how many calories you’ve burnt. There are a
multitude of apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store that
allow you to be more organized in your personal and professional life
and there are those that you use just for fun.

But do you realize what permissions are you giving them? You allow

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

apps to use your microphone, cameras, your GPS, various other

features of your phone. And since you have agreed to give them
access to this data, you cannot say you haven’t been warned. All of
these apps are being used to track your moves.

How?
If your mobile application
can use your GPS, it can track
wherever you are, as most
Americans always carry their
phones on their person. But
the permission for the app to
use your GPS is already there
so it can track you even if
there is no indication that the
GPS is on. The same is true
for any other feature, such as
cameras and microphones.

Could you imagine the

implications? Just think, your
cellphone can track where
you are...whether you’re on your way to work or school. That would
mean that the person tracking you could have kidnapped you if
they wanted to. While this is an extreme case, governments or even
hackers have tremendous resources at their disposal, which can help
them accomplish such nefarious activities.

iPhones and Android devices that have voice enabled commands can
help the government tap into your microphones and listen in on your
conversations, during a phone call, or in general. SIRI (iPhone) and
other voice activated assistants like Google voice Amazon’s Echo
record every time you say something to them.

It’s the way these assistants have been programmed. They track your
searches so that more relevant ads are displayed to you. It also helps

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them improve search features. You can play back your voice searches
to know exactly what you searched for in the past. This helps you
monitor yourself. The government can monitor you as well, if it gains
access to your device, which isn’t all that hard to do.

A combination of GPS tracking, voice recording and monitoring,

and camera observation can allow government agencies to track
your habits. For example, they can know exactly which mall you’ve
been to and how much time you’ve spent at specific shops and what
products you’ve bought. They know exactly how much you spend on
food, clothing and entertainment.

Apple argues that the data it collects from GPS tracking services
is used to learn about places that are most important to you to give
improved suggestions to you. They also guarantee that the data is
stored on your phone, locally, that it cannot be accessed by anyone
else, nor is it shared with anyone else. Your phone knows what you’ve
done over the course of the past month -- from where you’ve shopped
and how much you’ve spent, where you work, where you go for a
drink with your buddies, and what other addresses you frequent.

For Apple, you can search for frequent locations that you’ve visited
on System services in settings.
When you look at the history
section, you can see that the
iPhone you trust, has a record
of the 5 broad areas that you
have visited in the past month
or even two. Clicking on one
of the 5 locations, you’ll see
that a map opens up and shows
blue circles for the general
areas where you spent most of
your time.

The software figures out that

wherever you spend most your

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

day (besides home), as your workplace. The applications tracking

your location know exactly how long you were at your friend’s house
over the weekend and how much time it took for you to finish that
burger or steak at one of the restaurants that you frequent.

The government officials can easily figure out your habits using
this information. Some of the younger officials in government
organizations can unnecessarily share your personal pictures or videos
with their colleagues, without even having that incident reported.

Your Smart TV

Smart TVs have become all the rage nowadays. They connect you to
the Internet and have unmatched features that help you get more from
your TV. You can read blog posts, watch videos, look at pictures, buy
products and post on social media.

Smart TVs also track user information in order to provide better

content to the user. Many offer a “user friendly” interface for
exploring the Internet through connectivity with external motion

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 Chapter 6: Your devices track every one of your moves

gesture devices like the Xbox Kinect and speech recognition. The
speech recognition allows you to control your Smart TV using your
voice just as you control your iPhone using Siri. You can even buy
your favorite apps, games movies and TV shows using your remote
control, Tablet, laptop or smartphone.

What the advertisers of Smart TVs don’t tell you is that your smart
TV can be used by the government to track your viewership habits.
Government officials know which games you play, which movies and
TV shows you watch and how much time you spend on particular
sites.

They know exactly how much of your day is spent on Facebook,

YouTube and Twitter. They can also see what web and mobile apps
you have used and for how long.

When you buy a Smart TV, you normally don’t wait to start browsing
the web. You just want to explore the tons of features that it offers.
Who has the time to start reading through the license and service
agreements that show up when you startup your smart TV for the first
time?

If you’re like most people, you just click “I agree” and get to the fun
stuff. Well, next time you may want to read through the agreement
because, buried somewhere in the tiny lines of text is a clause that
allows your Smart TV to track your viewing habits – with your
permission! It also explains that you are giving express permission to
share your viewing habits with third parties, such as advertisers (and
even the government -you never know).

Example:
One of the manufacturers of smart TVs, Vizio, was fined a $2.2
million fine by the FTC for not properly disclosing how it can share
and track its users’ information. Vizio has been tracking whatever

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

you’ve been watching, whether it was a movie or a TV show on blue

ray or cable.

The Inscape data service would collect the “second-by-second”

viewership details on you and pair it with your demographics to sell
to advertising and analytics firms.

Demographics include your “sex, age, income, marital status,

education, home ownership, household size and value.” No wonder
they were given such a hefty fine for not disclosing this information
to users.

Samsung and LG have faced similar scrutiny in the past. This shows
that manufacturers also have to be careful in disclosing the entirety of
the methods used for tracking information.

Your New Car

You may be proud of your new car – the curves, the added amenities
– all the bells and whistles... But what you may not know is that it’s
tracking your every move.

Data connected cars know a lot about you, including your driving
style, how far you travel every day, how much emergency braking
you do each day, your average speed and even when you tend to
accelerate. New systems in smart cars can track traffic violations,
mobile phone use and more.

Smart Systems in your car can send engine statistics to emergency

services as well. They can also know how many passengers are in
your car at any given moment, and your frequent parking locations
(be it your office, home or the last place you had your fuel refilled or
your hybrid car’s battery recharged). This information may be sold
for profit to third parties. Auto manufacturing executives can use this
data in the same way that Facebook and Google use your browsing

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data.

There has been an

interesting case in the
Netherlands where a man
claims that he passed
a service station while
driving alone in his new
Volvo. On a different trip,
this time with passengers,
the man got a “ping”
message, prompting
him with the following:
“Don’t you want to take
a break now?”

The consumers’ data is theirs to share with third parties, but these days,
as smart devices collect more and more data, consumers seem to be
the last to find out who gets access to it. At the very least, we should
know what data is being collected and who it’s being shared with. As
consumers, we do have a right to privacy and the data collected and
potentially sold by auto manufacturers is in direct violation of this
right.

Davi Ottenheimer, an international data security expert, describes

cars as being a hub for 100 computers that are capable of transferring
25GB of metadata per hour. This metadata, he says, basically tells
where you’re going to be and when. Companies are taking advantage
of you by giving you something (that costs them virtually nothing in
comparison to the data they collect), for free.

In return, they gain valuable insight about your life. They can use this
data for generating additional revenue streams.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

Your Laptop and Desktop

Much like your iPhone or Android device, your Laptop or desktop
can be tracked. The software that you download contains agreements
that most of us are too lazy or too anxious to read through. The end
user license agreement makes it almost airtight for the government to
spy on you if well drafted.

Our favorite software, both for work and play, contains end user
license agreements to show the intended use of the software. It may
also show the user’s default rights upon download or purchase.
These agreements tell us whether the software is free to use, backup
or resell. The end user license agreement may also include a clause
that frees the software licensing company from certain liabilities that
may arise from the incorrect or unintended use of the software – for
example, using the software for illegal activities.

If the user chooses to agree with the terms and continue, the installation
begins. Otherwise, the software will not be installed. As consumers,
this is the choice we are given and most of us (especially having paid
good money for the software), simply agree and click “next”.

Software companies
also make agreements
with government entities
and large companies
to have warranties on
their software and have
support contracts for
the software. The end
user license agreements
are very lengthy to
go through and may
have clauses to allow
government snoopers to
track the time you spend

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 Chapter 6: Your devices track every one of your moves

using the software.

Other than these end user license agreements, the users need to be
wary of webcams and embedded microphones in their laptops. The
webcams usually have a light to indicate that it is on. But the camera
can be controlled remotely and not display the light when it’s on.

When government agencies decide to spy on you, their hackers can

tap into the camera and look around you to know exactly where you
are and what you’re doing. They can also tap into your microphones
to listen in on your most private conversations. Just the thought of it
can be harrowing.

Now that you know how the devices are secretly spying on you
without your knowledge, here’s how you can fight back.

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 CHAPTER 7

How do you protect yourself?

A
gencies like the CIA and more specifically, the NSA have
increased their efforts in keeping tabs on everyone. Many
people want to know how you can protect yourself from
these surveillance attempts.

If you’re someone that the NSA or any of the other government

agencies has a personal vendetta against, then there’s little hope for
you to defend yourself. If you’re like the average American, you
probably don’t have much to worry about, as they’re doing mass
surveillance on everyone. It’s very unlikely that you’ll be in any kind
of trouble with the authorities if you aren’t a “high priority” for them.

That being said, we all like our privacy and you won’t be as easy to
spy on if you have certain counter surveillance measures in place.

As we’ve discussed earlier, your laptop, PC, Mac, iPhone, Tablet,

Android device and other smart devices can help the government
or criminals track you down if need be. There are some things you
can do to lower your online footprint. You need to be protected from
those who have sworn to protect you as well as those who haven’t.

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 Chapter 7: How do you protect yourself?

Hide the source(s)

You need to be able to
protect your most private
and important data.
Luckily, you can. You
can use software like Bit
Locker to encrypt your
most personal data and
avoid anyone gaining
access to it except

you. True crypt was the

encryption software
of choice but it was riddled with security bugs that make your
information vulnerable to hackers.

A flash drive or similar USB storage device can be encrypted to keep

your information safe. The information might include your credit
card details, bank account statements your office work and other
important information. One easy way to protect yourself is to keep
your laptop and desktop offline as much as possible. Avoid installing
any unnecessary applications.

Another way to protect yourself is to back up your data. Since most of

your devices are now online 24/7 and may be tracked by government
organizations, it can be worthwhile to invest in a secondary laptop
to store the information. Buy the most basic one you can get – no
webcams, no Bluetooth connectivity or any other “flashy” features.
Keep this laptop for reading and editing documents.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

Limit Social Media Use

Do you have a social
media account on
platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter or
Instagram?
Of course, you do!
From posting selfies and
videos on Instagram,
Snapchat, Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube,
to keeping friends and
family up to date about
personal life events,
checking in to popular
locations and tagging
your friends -- social
media helps you stay connected on the go.
Convenient as they are, social media sites and applications know a
lot about you. They might even know more about you than you do
yourself. Facebook, for example, even keeps memories and shows
them to you from time to time. It may be a picture reminding you of
who you were with 8 years ago or when you added someone as your
friend.

There have been cases where people have posted vacation photos, as
soon as they took them, to social media. They later came home to see
that their house has been broken into. This means that whatever

you post online can be seen by anyone unless you change the privacy
settings on your photos and videos.
Even if you have changed those settings, it can be easy for hackers
and government officials to track your social media activity to figure
out where you are. The only way to avoid this surveillance is to
deactivate your social media accounts or limit their use.

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 Chapter 7: How do you protect yourself?

Protection during conferences from espionage

If you are sent to conferences by your tech company, you may need to
be extra careful about your smart devices and portable storage devices.
During these conferences, the attendees, in all the excitement, may
forget to take appropriate safety measures beforehand.

There may be government agents working undercover, and in addition

to industrial espionage and valuable company data, your personal
information is also at risk.

There are security weak points where your laptop or mobile phone
may potentially get compromised. If you do video conferencing with
your boss over an unsecured, public hotel network, hackers listen in
to your conversation and observe you while you’re at the conference.
You may forget your laptop in your hotel room, making it prone to
theft, or fail to password-protect one of your devices.

Criminals are known to

show up at tech conferences
to extract sensitive personal
and company data while
attendees are in the
conference room or at coffee
hour.

Update your
Antivirus, firewalls
and Operating
Systems
Chances are that right now, NSA, CIA and other agency spies may
be looking to break into Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to get their
hands on your data. What makes it worse is that your antivirus program
may not detect government malware and protect your device.

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

Software and hardware companies are continuously innovating and

figuring out ways to keep you protected from the many new malware
programs, Trojans and other harmful viruses that are continuously
being developed. This is why it’s important to have your current
antivirus software updated to deter the hackers from stealing your
information and destroying your computer.

Make sure you have the latest version of the antivirus and the
operating system you use and keep updating to stay protected.

Get Duct Tape and cover up your webcam

Mask your webcam. The government agencies can employ the help
of hackers to hack into your webcams and microphones to monitor
and listen in on your activity.

There have been times when technical operatives at the CIA and NSA
have shared webcam footage of someone’s private life with their
coworkers, without the knowledge of the one being observed. Worse
yet, there were no repercussions. Mask your webcam!

The process of making your devices more airtight is called hardening.

You can harden your hard drives to help secure the data within them.

HTTPS Everywhere
The government is not alone in tracking you. Cybercriminals can
be discouraged by the use of the secure protocol “https” (https://).
Whenever you login to your online banking site, you might have
noticed the https:// preceding the webpage’s address.

HTTPS, or secure transfer protocol is a way of making certain that

you are visiting the website that you are intending to visit and it

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 Chapter 7: How do you protect yourself?

allows secure login. HTTPS makes sure that you are not visiting a
proxy website that is being used by hackers or criminals in order to
gain access to your credentials, including bank account info, mother’s
maiden name, social security and so on.

Next time you open up your browser, you can actually force it to
use the HTTPS as much as possible. Download the free HTTPS
everywhere extension to help you use HTTPS on all of the sites
you visit and avoid getting tricked into revealing your information.
HTTPS everywhere is available for Chrome, Firefox, Android and
more.

An alternative?
The government agencies may still track your browsing habits. If
you are really serious about taking it to the next level, there’s always
TOR. Of course, there’s never a 100% guarantee of your privacy.
Anything can be hacked if given enough time and resources. Again,
if you are going to use TOR, make sure you know what you’re doing.
If you don’t have the guidance of a trustworthy and experienced TOR
user, you could be in hot water.

Encrypt your emails and browser

Your most private and intimate conversations and your most
confidential data is sent
through Instant messaging and
emails. If you’re not careful
enough, NSA, CIA and other
government agencies may
intercept the content of your
emails and texts and gain access
to your private conversations
and data.
To avoid the prying eyes, send
encrypted emails. One way

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

of encrypting emails is to use a personal email certificate. Using

this method, you can digitally sign your email, thus securing the
attachments and content.

The intended recipients will know that it is actually you and not
someone else who is sending the emails. This way, your recipients
don’t end up opening spammed or spoofed messages. This can be
tremendously advantageous to businesses that routinely send and
receive confidential and valuable information.

Personal email certificates make your communication and transactions

more secure. But this has a drawback: if you use encryption only
for important emails, hackers can screen out and focus their efforts
on decrypting only the important messages ignore others. In other
words, if you are going to start encrypting messages, encrypt them
all.

Safe Gmail, a Google Chrome extension, allows you to encrypt the

emails you send through Gmail. The way this works is that when you
normally send email, there’s an extra checkbox to “encrypt?” your
email and its contents. Just download this extension and add it to
Chrome to enable the encryption check box.

The encryption allows only you

and your intended recipient to
view the email. There are two
text boxes that work via the
PKI infrastructure (Public
Key Interface). You can have
a secret question to only allow
you and the sender to know the
answer (case-sensitive). When
you send this, there will be
an encrypted message for the
recipient, which they will then
have to copy.

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 Chapter 7: How do you protect yourself?

The recipient will click to access the content, but not before copying
the encrypted text. They’ll answer the secret question and paste
the encrypted message in the text box that appears after they click
‘submit’. The decrypted message will be shown next on the screen.
This is a great way to send confidential documents and data to
concerned parties. The best (or worst) part is that the messages
disappear after a period of time.

You can alternatively use

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or
Secure/Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions (S/MIME). Be
sure, however, that the people
you send the email to are also
on the bandwagon and are
using the encryption software
and applications to access your
encrypted messages.

Encrypt communications as much as possible

To make sure that your texts are not intercepted, you must have your
communications encrypted end- to-end. From the time that you send
the message to the time the recipient gets it, your message goes

through towers and has all the more chance to be intercepted.

Encryption lessens the chances of interception, but doesn’t remove
them altogether.

Apps like Signal, which are available on iTunes and Google Play,
can be used to encrypt your messages. WhatsApp also has end-to-
end encrypted messages but is owned by Facebook. The metadata
used by it enables anyone with access to know your location and
whom you are messaging. Signal is a great application to allow end-
to-end message encryption. It’s owned by Open Whispers Systems
and stores very little (meta) data about you. It cannot look at your

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Avoiding The Eye : Immediately Stop The Pursuit To Collect Your Data And Control Your World

messages. Apple’s iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp,

although end-to-end encrypted, can still find ways to store some of
your data, even if it isn’t accessed by the government agencies.

VPNs are great for browsing

VPNs (or Virtual Proxy Networks) are a great way to hide your
browsing activity and work better than going incognito or browsing
via a private window or tab. Normally, when you connect to the
web, you connect through your Internet Service Provider (ISP). The
ISP’s server then connects you to the world of the Internet. Your ISP
can view all your activity on its server and so can the government
(through your ISP), even if you are browsing in incognito mode.

The VPN, once downloaded,

can be used to scramble/
encrypt the web traffic while
changing your IP address. With
the replaced IP address, your
ISP will think that you’re using
the web from where the VPN is
based.

The VPN usually assigns an IP

(Internet protocol) address that
is based elsewhere in the world.
An added advantage is that the
VPN allows you to bypass the
censorships and restrictions in
the country you are in if your IP
is somewhere with more liberal
regulations. That means better Netflix, or access to sites otherwise
banned from viewership within your country.

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 Chapter 7: How do you protect yourself?

Go offline on a separate
device
Have a separate PC or laptop
that you don’t connect to the
Internet on. Use the laptop
or PC to create documents.
Encrypt them and transfer them
via an encrypted USB drive
to your main laptop and send
them to the concerned parties.
Keep your most private data,
just that: private.

You can also encrypt the data

you have stored on cloud
platforms for personal or business use such as Dropbox. Don’t buy
any smart home devices if you want to avoid surveillance. In other
words, keeping your devices dumb may be one of the smartest things
you do.

Two-Factor Identification
The two factor identification allows you to have a separate identification
code sent to a second device such as your phone whenever you try to
open a social media website. Twitter, Gmail and Facebook etc. have
this feature so no one can access these sites except you. This gives
you the security you need and ensures no one logs on as you even if
they gain access to your password. It’s that extra layer of protection
that can make all the difference.

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 CHAPTER 8

A Final Word of Caution

(Don’t go “over-the-top”
with Paranoia)

T
he most important thing to remember is that there are billions
of people in the world and you’re not the only one that the
surveillance programs by the government are targeting. The
steps described above are to make you more aware. It is equally as
important not to lose your mind over it.

You’re not Jason Bourne, nor are you Robert Dean (Will Smith) from
Enemy of the State, nor are you Julian Assange or Edward Snowden,
- so you’re not on the high priority list for the government to make
your life a living hell.

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Remember:

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so is a lot.”

– Albert Einstein.

47