Exams are over, I’m at home but a lil… out of shape, shall we say :razz: Less than half the places are left for May 13th, so get in if you haven’t. :)

This post is by guest blogger Agent 001. He is a student, currently at IIT Kharagpur. He is from India. He wants to share some of his knowledge on Privacy on the Internet. He blogs at Greatest Reviews. Let’s hear what he has to say.

Invariably if your private data are on internet in any form, be it your email account, some membership or purchase of item, you already have broken your privacy. Unbelievable but the above statement is true in its sense, even if you argue that they are safe with certain websites or companies etc.

If you have read the privacy policy of websites, e-mail service providers etc, then you are already acknowledged that they wouldn’t share the private data. But the only reason I say your privacy is broken is that your private data is accessible by many person even without your knowledge. They are the service provider (major part). I haven’t mentioned the minor part; they are crackers, spammers and phishers.

Most companies (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc) keep your data safe and encrypted thus you might not (remember it’s only might not) have to worry much. That’s about online data’s which you cannot do anything about except choose only safe services. But what about your offline data, they could harness by crackers, phishers etc. So you need to be alert. Keep your data’s as safe as possible. How to do that should be your main concern.

Here are some possible and advisable steps to be taken.

1) While browsing phishing filters must be enabled and you should report any case of phishing if you feel that you have come across so.

2) Enable spam filters in your e-mail services. Most e-mail service providers, provide this feature but it might not be enabled by default.

3) While shopping for something on internet pay either offline methods or by indirect methods (like PayPal services). You must also ensure that your data is safe with the indirect way.

4) After browsing and downloading delete all private data (cookies, URLs browsed, forms filled etc).

5) Last but not the least you must use a good, lengthy and hard to guess password, I mean a unique one. Read here how to make strong unique passwords.

There’s one more, it is called encryption. It only adds more security to your files. There are many encryption softwares available on the internet.

I hope the above tips might be helpful to you.

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