[Verizon HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE] IceDragon59:
Anyone who has ever entered information on the internet has left a digital fingerprint of one form or fashion. Companies keep all records for years, so if you bought something online, they still have record of it. Using a cell phone, law enforcement agencies can petition the company for which towers you were connected to during a given time, and if you have GPS enabled, that information as well, and use it against you whether you are guilty or not. Every text message, its contents, every phone call, and more is tracked and stored by your company for years, despite claims by the company to the contrary. I know a guy who had text messages subpoenaed by the court from over a year before used in his child custody case, despite the company saying it only saved them for a week. With smartphones, any app you download with the right permissions can steal all of your data, or utilize a known exploit and do it without the right permissions. There are apps which can prevent certain apps from performing functions you don't want them to, like access the internet or your GPS, but that's assuming it obeys the normal rules.

I've been working with computers for over 20 years and know the risk that revealing personal information can pose. I change my passwords every couple months, and for some sites, change my username on occasion. Every website you visit is tracked and stored by your ISP, and every download you make, including torrents, is tracked. I don't enter credit card data online, I'll pay someone the cash and get them to make purchases for me with their card if I need something. I don't reveal my real name or much personal information about myself, other than basic things like that I work and have kids. Your IP address is stored by almost every website you visit, and if you allow cookies you are being tracked by multiple websites across your entire internet experience until you delete them. All this may sound extreme, and it is, but it's all true. Now, is it really that bad? If you're not smart about it, yeah, it can be. I can name over a dozen people I know that had some form of identity theft or credit card fraud in the last year alone, some due to sheer stupidity, others due to bad luck.

Now, whose spyware is worse, Microsoft or Verizon? Microsoft forces you to make a new account when you have a new installation of Windows, generally leaving the default Administrator account created but disabled, unless you're savvy enough to enable the default Administrator account during installation and use that one as your primary account, thereby leaving the computer open to anyone with a Windows boot CD able to take over your computer with admin rights. While not technically spyware, it's a dumbass move. Verizon stores everything you do, every website you visit, every text you send, and then lies to you about it. Still, not technically spyware, but shady to say the least. Microsoft can remotely access any computer with Windows on it, even if you have it disabled, and now Verizon can access our phone, even if we don't want them to. Both claim they wouldn't use this without our consent, but how do we really know? Once again, bleak, but true.

So, you want to use the internet, but don't want your information stolen or used against you. How do you minimize personal information on the internet? Don't use your real name, don't use your credit card to make purchases, use a proxy server logged into another proxy server to prevent website tracking, don't text or instant message any information you don't want police to see, use the default administrator account on Windows with a password, preferably a 12+ character password with capital letters and symbols. Don't use the same username across many websites, alternate difficult to crack passwords and change them out on a semi-regular basis. Never store passwords on your computer! That's one of the biggest problems I've seen. Perform full-drive encryption on your hard drive, turn your computer off when not in use. Don't leave webcams plugged in when you're not using them, and just don't be stupid.

In our society, it's really difficult to not use electronics, and eventually something about yourself is going to come out. When you've been working with computers and their users as long as I have, it's hard not to have seen so many horror stories which spawned this post. Most people aren't going to have a problem which requires all that, but I've taken a largely preemptive stance toward privacy on the internet. If I Google my name, I get a few references in family tree websites, which don't really uniquely identify me, and am mentioned in a couple posts on a few websites, like a company I used to work for which hasn't updated its site in years but keeps paying for web services. While this type of severe privacy isn't necessary for most people, I've never had a single account hacked, never been a victim of identity theft/fraud, and still manage to enjoy myself on the internet. Sure, a Facebook with my real name and a picture of me wouldn't be the end of the world, but I just don't need that to continue enjoying myself. Randomly-named Facebook with a few close friends and family and a picture of the sunset from the beach in California I took last summer while on vacation with my kids are enough.

Sorry this rant has gone on so long. I just have strong opinions due to scenarios I've seen first-hand, and don't want that to happen to me. I guess I'm a privacy freak. lol. It's all your fault, Nyobie, you opened up a can of worms!