How to defend yourself against government censorship and spying?
Why Governments are censoring their citizens?
Governments are censoring their citizens for many reasons. They want to control the flow of information within their own country, they don’t like what you’re saying, and they want to keep certain people from reading your website. Whatever the reason may be, it’s important that you learn how to defend yourself against government censorship and spying. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of ways you can protect your online privacy and remain anonymous when browsing the internet. These will come in handy whether you live in a country with strict internet censorship, or if your government is spying on your browsing habits.
Sign up for Prepper Daves Free Newsletter HERE
The first thing that citizens of all countries need to do is get rid of their habit for using the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter . Both are storing information about every user who signs up. This includes everything from personal details like an email address or full name (which can be traced back to other accounts), phone number(s) and home addresses; but also more intimate data including contacts lists, status updates, comments made by friends within statuses/comments etc., IP addresses used when signing up for the site; this combined gives any hacker enough info needed to crack into someone’s computer and steal his identity.
Another way of keeping your online privacy is by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. VPN encrypts all of your traffic and tunnels it through an intermediary server in a location of your choice, making it difficult for anyone to track or spy on what you’re doing. This also works when travelling, as it allows you to access websites that are blocked in your home country.
A good browser extension that can help with this is called Ghostery. It’s available for Firefox, Chrome and Opera browsers and will show you which companies are tracking your activity on each website you visit.
You can also use the Tor Browser Bundle, which is a free anonymity tool that routes all of your traffic through several volunteer-run servers around the world. This makes it nearly impossible for any observer to know where you’re located, but also slows down the speed of your internet connection quite a bit.
For those who are looking for something even more anonymous than Tor Browser Bundle , there’s always Ixquick…now Startpage. It combines searches from multiple engines and displays results in an anonymized way (with no tracking cookies). For example if you search on Google: “How do i disable javascript” all that will be displayed is relevant information about how to do so; nothing else connected with this request can be traced back to your IP address or browser history etc.
Another good tool which helps bypass government censorship and protects anonymity when browsing the web is called Psiphon. It comes as both free and paid software, and helps bypass internet censorship in countries such as China or Iran.
If you’re looking for a more secure chat application that allows encrypted communications than the regular ones (such as Skype), there’s always Pidgin. It supports OTR encryption to protect your chats from prying eyes. You can also use it with Tor so nobody knows who you are when chatting on Pidgin; all traffic is routed through several volunteer-run servers around the world which makes tracking of conversation contents nearly impossible. Another good thing about this app is that it works on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Android operating systems.
A lot of people would be happy if they could simply block websites they don’t like while still having access to all of the other websites on the internet. This can be done by using a proxy server such as HideMyAss! All you have to do is type in the address bar any website that’s blocked and it will display its content via an anonymous IP address; effectively bypassing government censorship, firewalls etc.
If your country has banned certain services like Skype or Viber , which are often used for free communication between citizens (which costs millions per month making them look bad), then there’s always Zangi. It works just like Viber but uses regular phone numbers instead of mobile ones so no one knows who you’re talking with/to since there are no caller IDs displayed during conversations either.
Another way how people around the world are getting around government censorship is by using a service like Facebook. Even though it’s blocked in countries such as China, people are still finding ways to access it. The most popular way of doing so is by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service; which encrypts all of your traffic and tunnels it through an intermediary server located in a location of your choice, making it difficult for anyone to track or spy on what you’re doing.
If you’re not sure how to go about setting up a VPN yourself, there are many different services that will do the job for you. A good one that we recommend is called ExpressVPN . It has servers located all around the world, provides high speeds and excellent customer support.
So there you have it! A few ways how you can protect yourself from government censorship and spying, and still be able to browse the internet freely and without fear. We hope that this information will help keep your online activity private and secure. Stay safe!
Thank you for reading, and be sure to check out our other blog posts for more information on subject such as; PSYOPS: Propaganda, Censorship, and Disinformation and Censorship: The Psychological Operation Campaigns (PSYOPS), and Secrets of Spying – Communications Intelligence
Photo Credit: WSJ, Don’t Let Google Get Away With Censorship