How-To Guide for Keeping Your Computer Data and Emails Out of the Hands of NSA and Other Eavesdroppers

Paul Wagenseil

April 22, 2015

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SAN FRANCISCO — There are three simple steps you can take to limit what Google, the National Security Agency and other data-collecting entities can learn about you, computer-networking expert Lisa Lorenzin explained at the BSides SF hacker conference here yesterday (April 19).

“They’re easy to do,” Lorenzin said. “They don’t make your life complicated. Anyone can turn them on.”

The first, she said, is to use HTTPS Everywhere, a free browser plug-in from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that creates encrypted connections to any website that allows them. It runs in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox (including Firefox for Android) and Opera.

The second, Lorenzin explained, is to use the privacy-enhancing DuckDuckGo search engine instead of Google’s search engine.

“Stop giving Google this information,” she said. “If you’re not adding your data to their vast stores of collected information, then the government can’t be getting it from them.”