What is the value of your privacy ?
Answer these questions:
- Do you leave your the door of your house opened, day and night?
- Would you let your young kids play in an unknow neighrhood ?
- Would you give the key of your car at a perfect stranger ?
- Would you discuss important matters in a public place?
If you answered at least one time "no", then you should be aware that you risk your privacy every day on the internet.
Let's see why:
Data Mining
The internet is the next marketplace, but in order to beat competition every company need informations. Informations regarding the potential customers: what is your level of income, how many people live in your family, do you have kids and how many, are you feeling ok or do you need medicines, how old is your car, your washing machine, your computer.They Need you to give these informations in order to create a better offer, one you should not refuse. But You don't want to shell our those personal data, some of them are confidential... so the companies offer rewards to people that collect and supply these informations.
Enter the middleman.
, It's a dirty business: the middleman collect these informations mostly in secrecy, against our will. Then when they have a certain amount of informations, they sell them to the companies, for an amazing amount of money. These informations should be anonymous, but.. let's put this way: would you pay some cash for a used car, without driving it at least once ? Ok, the companies need a proof that the collect datas are true... guess what... there a way. Each record of you probably hold the internet address you have used and with this kind of informations, the companies could trace you to your city, maybe even your block!And that's only the beginning
Believe me when i say that's only the tip of an iceberg.The middlemen use an huge array of weapons to collect your informations:
- Malicious cookies: they remains on your browser for months and are read when you browse some sites
- Adware: A program that show random popups or banners. If you consider them harmless...think again. They are profiling your internet usage.
- Spywares: harmfull software that sit on your system, draining resources and tracking your informations somewhere on the net.
- Trojans: a kind of virus that run in background and silently steal your data and send them away (usually by email)
- Keyloggers: one of the worst kind of trojans, it read your typing and send them for archiving on remote sites. Your mail passwords, your credit card numbers, your confidential memo... No more secrets... no more privacy.
Fighting Back
I could start a long list of "Best practice", like "update your antivirus every day" or "stay away from dubious websites". etc. I am sure that you have heard these advices at leaast 1 millions of time. I'm afraid there's only one true response to this threat:Increase your Awareness of the Privacy issue!
Yes, the better defence Against these scams is your brain! There is no software that can replace your judgement: you may update your antivirus, you may have a very good firewall, you may be behind an excellent router, but you should never underestimate this menace. That's why i suggest this Service. A complete suite of programs coupled with a team of of experts and a supportive community!!