You're being Watched

Is Privacy no longer a term for the internet?

What Happens with just One Click?

1. You visit websites and tracking files record your online activity
2. Tracking companies use these records to build your profile based on your internet search
3. These tracking companies sell your information to advertisers
4. Your data is also available on exchange networks where anyone can purchase your profile.
5. Your personal profile can also be linked to other sources of your personal data
6. Once again, this is sold to advertisers looking for consumers with your interests
7. Advertisers buy ad space from websites at auctions
8. Real-time automated bidding starts as you surf the web

How you are Tracked

Cookies

A small piece of data is sent from a website and stored in a users web browser.

Types of Cookies

• Absolutely Necessary Cookies: Required for a website to work
• Functional Cookies: Social sharing and behavioral
• Targeting Cookies: Full user tracking

Pixel Trackers

Small 1*1 images are placed on specific pages so site owners know when the specific page is loaded

Deep Packet Inspection

Enables advanced network management, user service, and security functions as well, along with internet data mining, eavesdropping, and internet censorship

Supercookie

It can create user profile even after regular cookies have been deleted

Device Fingerprinting

The Cookie(less) Monster
Information is collected from properties without depending on cookies from all your devices like PC, Smartphones and Tablets to identify and track even if "Do Not Track" is enabled.

How?

1. When a device is turned on, these characteristics in the browser make it unique
2. Screen Dimension
3. Browser version
4. List of Plugins(Flash, Java, etc)
5. List of Installed Apps
6. Clock
7. What the browser talks to

Is it Legal?
Unfortunately, Yes!!!
This category falls under supercookies, meaning they are outside the traditional restrictions on tracking cookies.

5 Steps to Maintain your Privacy.

1. Install a browser plugin like Collusion to check how many companies are tracking you every day.
2. Use a Virtual Private Network to add another layer to your internet usage. My personal favorite is Tor Brower which comes with a built-in VPN and other security features to prevent you from being Tracked.
3. Disable Javascript and Flash and change your computer settings frequently.
4. Install Plugins like Ghostery, Disconnect or Peer Block to block trackers.
5. Turn off cookies and stick to regular font stack.

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com
http://phys.com
http://webmonkey.com
http://arstechnica.com
http://wikipedia.com
http://w3techs.com
https://techgenie.org/

My Darling Websites

Site Link	Description
ge.tt	quickly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
whoishostingthis.com	Find the web host of any website
midomi.com	Find the name of any song
urbandictionary.com	Find the definitions of slangs and informal words
typingweb.com	master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
snopes.com	Find if that email offer is real or a scam
talltweets.com	Send tweets more than 140 characters
notes.io	Easiest way to write short notes in your browser
tagmydoc.com	Add QR codes to your documents and presentations
pancake.io	Create a free and simple website using your Dropbox account
minutes.io	Quickly capture effective notes during meetings
stupeflix.com	Make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips
sumopaint.com	An excellent layer-based online image editor.
alertful.com	quickly setup email reminders for important events.
sxc.hu	download stock images absolutely free.
aviary.com/myna	an online audio editor that lee record, and remix audio clips online.
downforeveryoneorjustme.com	Find if your favorite website is offline or not
similarsites.com	Discover new sites that are similar to what you like already
kleki.com	Create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes
typewitme.com	Work on the same document with multiple people
hundredzeros.com	The site that lets you download free kindle books
onlineocr.com	Recognize text from scanned pdf
iwantmyname.com	Helps you find domains across Top Level Domains(TLD)
google.com/webfonts	A good collection of open source fonts
pdfescape.com	Lets you edit pdf files in the browser itself
office.com	Download templates, clip arts, and images for your office documents
iconfinder.com	The best place to find icons of all sizes
copaypastecharacter.com	Copy special characters that are not on your keyboard
goo.gl	Shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes

Windows Greets you with a Custom Voice Message at startup

Ever thought of taking your windows customization to next level? Well, today we'll help you set up your windows desktop to greet you whenever you boot up your pc with your own custom message.
Follow the Instructions below to get started.

• Open notepad or any word editor of your choice, but notepad is preferred.
• Type the code below into the text editor. You can also copy and paste.

        Dim speaks, speech

        speaks = "Input the message here; e.g. welcome to your pc, username"

        Set speech=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice")

        speech.Speak speaks

• Replace "Input the message here; e.g. welcome to your pc, username" but do not forget to include the quotation marks.
• Save the file as a 'vbs' file. E.g. "Welcome.vbs'
• Navigate to the startup folder. If you have trouble doing that, press Windows Key+R and type 'shell:Startup'
• 
• Paste the file in this location
• The next time you start your computer windows will welcome you in its own customized way. Enjoy!!

NB: Be mindful to mute your pc on startup especially in quiet areas such as libraries as your welcome message won't be tolerated in such areas.

To turn this feature off, open your task manager; press Windows key+R and type 'taskmgr'  Navigate to the startup tab, select the 'welcome.vbs' or whatever name you saved your file with and disable it. To disable it permanently navigate to the startup folder where you pasted the file and delete it from there.

Windows Command Prompt Buddy

The windows command line is a very useful tool embedded in every windows desktop. It looks old school and may seem not to be not used again in this modern era of GUI. But there are some instances where you’ll be able to work much faster with the command line than clicking your favorite icons. Here are some cool things to do with the windows command prompt:

1. Set Up Wi-Fi Hotspot

First of all, you'll need to open the windows command prompt, then type the following commands 

‘netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode = allow ssid=HotspotName key=Password’.

You can replace ‘Password’ with any word of your choice to serve as the password to connect to the network. To turn your connection on, enter the following ‘netsh wlan start hostednetwork’

Congrats!!! You don’t need any third-party apps to get this simple task done. Don’t forget to turn your connection off after use. You can do that by typing ‘netsh wlan stop hostednetwork’

2. Uninstall Desktop Program

 There are times you’ll be stuck trying to uninstall some apps on the desktop, you may not even be able to get it done using the control panel. Try windows command line to get this done:

Open the windows command as administrator, type ‘wmic’ to see which apps you can uninstall with the command line type ‘product get name’
the names of all apps will appear. Continue with the command ‘product where name=”name of program” call uninstall’.

You must replace “name of program” with the name of the program you want to uninstall. If the uninstallation is performed successfully, you see a ReturnValue=0 and a message saying “Method execution successful.”

3. Hide Folders

 Okay so now let’s get to some form of encryption, I’ll show you how to hide some of your personal folders or top secret folders:
Start by navigating to the directory that contains the folder, you can do the by launching cmd and then with the ‘cd’ command. But I’ll show you a simpler way. Open the root of the folder like you normally do with GUI and on the address bar type ‘cmd’ and hit the enter key.

Enter the following command into your command line,

‘Attrib +h +s +r ’ and then type the name of the folder next to the command. Hit the enter key. You're done.
Now to unhide your folder, navigate to the directory again, and enter the following command:

'Attrib -h -s -r' together with the name of the folder.