Privacy and Surveillance Issues Affect Your Personal Security

Many people these days are worried about their privacy. And from internet ads that feel like they’re following you to concerns about various governments spying on people, there’s a lot of different things that play into that. Concerns about privacy and surveillance aren’t bad things to have. In fact, as we become more aware of how mass surveillance is being used, understanding how to protect your privacy and security is more important than ever.

See Privacy and Surveillance with Josh Summers for a complete transcript of the Easy Prey podcast episode.

Josh Summers is the host of the All Things Secured YouTube channel and website of the same name. There he provides practical privacy and security advice for people who want to protect their data and identity in an increasingly hostile online environment. Josh wants to help people become hackers’ worst nightmare. That involves being aware of privacy practices and using methods that can help you ensure better privacy.

I essentially want to help people become a hacker’s worst nightmare.

Josh Summers

An Overseas Privacy and Surveillance Problem

Josh first became concerned with privacy and surveillance while living in China. He and his wife were there teaching English, and he eventually starting doing business there by producing travel-related content. They were there in the mid-2000s, when censorship was really dramatic. Facebook was blocked, Gmail was blocked, YouTube was blocked – even Chinese citizens were using VPNs to access these things. It was Josh’s introduction into the world of tracking, IP addresses, and why you might want to change or hide them.

The privacy and surveillance issues came to a head after they had been in China about ten years. Surveillance tech that’s now common around the world started in a region just north of Tibet. People there were aware, and it intensified slowly over that decade. Josh’s travel-related work meant he was running around that sensitive region with a camera, talking to people and gathering information. If you’re doing travel stuff, that makes sense. In hindsight, he also understands why the government thought it was suspicious.

In 2018, the Chinese government brought Josh in for interrogation. It was scary – you don’t realize that when you travel abroad, you give up a lot of rights you would have in your home country, especially when the country you’re in has different human rights standards. This interrogation experience made Josh realize how much surveillance was actually capable of. That began his journey into what mass surveillance does and how to take better care of your privacy.

The Interrogation Experience

Josh and his wife had their passports taken and were interrogated for seventeen days. They actually took Josh to a facility and had a camera on him at all times. If you think of a movie or TV show where someone got interrogated, that’s what happened. He learned the hard way that there were ways around the things he should have legally been able to do. According to international treaties, he was allowed to ask for a translator. But his interrogators said if they do that, they’d have to put him in a solitary confinement cell and take away his access to good food. They used things he should have had a right to as leverage to get what they want.

Their concern was that Josh’s travel stuff was a cover and he was really a spy. Every time you got on or off public transportation, there were stands were you were required to plug your devices in. Officially they were looking for malicious or anti-government content, but they could see everything on your devices. Even having all of Josh’s files, that wasn’t enough. Sometimes when you get into security, you start doing things to protect your privacy that make you look more guilty to surveillance methods. Josh had a USB device that was locked with a keypad. He thought it was fun and used it for sensitive documents. But to the Chinese government, it looked like he was hiding something.

Josh wasn’t a threat to the Chinese government. And eventually, they decided that he wasn’t enough of a threat to do anything with. So they let him go and told him he wasn’t allowed in China anymore. The whole experience rattled him and affected his view of privacy.

Practical Privacy in Real Life

Josh loves the idea of practical privacy steps that you can implement in your life. With what he does, he often gets two kinds of negative responses. Some say that they don’t have anything to hide, so privacy isn’t that important. And others say that privacy steps don’t matter because everything’s out there anyway.

Both feelings are understandable. But Josh disagrees. As far as having nothing to hide, he likes the quote from Edward Snowden: “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” Just because you have nothing to say (or hide) right now doesn’t mean it’s not valuable to protect that right. And just because surveillance is legal all over the world, and even with the way big tech tracks us, that doesn’t make it ethical in Josh’s mind.

When you think about privacy, yes, true anonymity is probably impossible at this point. We’ve lost a lot of that. But small, consistent steps can go a long way towards making you less of a target. You’re never going to be completely safe from the threat of hackers, phishing, or anything else. But it’s worthwhile to not be low-hanging fruit. And it’s not as much effort as it seems. You don’t have to go off the grid – you just have to take steps.

Small, consistent steps toward privacy are beneficial and helpful to make us less of a target.

Josh Summers

Surveillance and Monitoring

Part of the privacy concerns these days come from the fact that forms of surveillance are everywhere. Some of it is malicious, but a lot of it is the system that we live in. In China, cameras are huge. We see things like that all over the world with facial ID tracking and location monitoring. It seems like a big deal, but we’re all carrying devices in our pockets that are tracking us everywhere anyway. It’s not new.

In China, digital currency is the primary thing. It’s very difficult to use cash – a lot of businesses don’t accept it. Josh thinks that’s where we’re going, even in the West. Tap to Pay on smartwatches and phones is becoming a much bigger thing. That’s not necessarily bad.

There’s always a trade off between security/privacy and convenience. You have to find the balance that fits your life. If you go all-in on privacy and security, you’ll have a really inconvenient life. If you want everything to be as convenient as possible, you’ll be opening yourself up to surveillance and giving up a lot of your privacy and security.

The thing … about security and privacy is there’s always a trade-off between that and convenience, and you’ve got to find the balance that’s good for you.

Josh Summers

Digital Tracking

Most of the surveillance and tracking that impacts our privacy happens online. Digital payments, things on digital devices, the websites you visit, and more. Josh was aware he was being tracked by the government in China, just like you should be aware that if you’re searching on Google, they’re tracking what you’re searching for.

The same is true with Facebook and the Facebook Pixel. A lot of people think that because they don’t have an account or they’re not logged in, that they’re not being tracked. Josh once made a video where he downloaded all the data Facebook had on him and did a mock printing. He didn’t actually print it, because it was thousands of pages. But he counted out that many pages and showed how much Facebook has on him. And he only posts about twice a year!

Once you’re aware of it, a lot of it is easy to sidestep. But most of us go through life unaware of mass surveillance. Many aspects of what we do online don’t mean much individually, but put together can identify us pretty accurately in a process called fingerprinting. Most of it isn’t malicious, just a monetization game – they want to deliver ads to the most interested people possible.

You can take the nuclear option and go off the digital grid entirely. But that’s not necessary if you don’t want to. And having that much privacy can come at a steep price. Some people do want to go nuclear, but you don’t need to. There are ways to build privacy in your digital life while still using these tools.

There are ways to build a privacy moat around your digital life while still staying in contact with your friends and family via Facebook, Gmail, and all these other things.

Josh Summers

Protect Your Privacy from Mass Surveillance

The number one thing you can do to protect your privacy from mass surveillance is to just be careful about how you share your data. Right now, Josh is in Thailand. He’s not willing to share more details – not because he doesn’t trust you, but because that’s his level of comfort. Some people know what city he’s in, but most people don’t need to know that. Sometimes we voluntarily share personal information that doesn’t need to be shared. Keeping that information to yourself can go a long way towards protecting your privacy.

Sometimes we just voluntarily [share] very personal information that doesn’t necessarily need to be shared.

Josh Summers

Doing most of these things, including being careful what info you give out, is something that you do gradually over time. You’re not going to get to perfect privacy or surveillance protection immediately. Taking small steps towards privacy layer over time, and you don’t have to go nuclear. Any small steps you take can make an impact.

Use Alternative Services

A lot of services we commonly use are invading our privacy with surveillance. But most of them have alternatives that also have end-to-end encryption. Josh still has a Gmail account, and he still uses it. He’s had it since high school. But he also has an end-to-end encrypted email account. There are a lot of options for these types of private emails, like Proton, StartMail, and Fastmail. Gmail has a form of encryption, but it’s not the same.

The same is true for texting apps. Josh uses WhatsApp and iMessage, but not for everything. Signal is great if you want to make sure things are really encrypted. Just make sure that you’re using the encrypted service for anything sensitive. Obviously, you shouldn’t be doing anything illegal. But this can go a long way to protect your privacy.

Mask Your Digital Footprint

One of the best things you can do to beat surveillance and protect your privacy is to use masking services. Josh uses them wherever he can, though it’s not always possible.

The only people who know Josh’s phone number are his wife, his mom, and a few family members. Everyone else gets a virtual number where he has more control and that doesn’t necessarily have to ring on his device. The same is true with his address. He has a virtual address for his business, which also has the bonus of making living overseas easier. The address is in the US, and they scan his mail so he can check it any time. He can also choose to have it forwarded from there to anywhere else. That way, when giving out his address, he’s not giving out his real address.

You can also do the same thing with your credit card information through virtual cards. At one point, Josh had to hire a tree service for a property he owns in the United States. The company wanted him to send his credit card information over email for payment. He set up a one-time-use virtual card. After they charge it, they can keep the card number or even publish it, and it doesn’t matter – that number was useless after one charge. This is great for privacy and for financial protection.

Use Caution with Peer-to-Peer Apps

Peer-to-peer payment apps like CashApp and Venmo are popular these days. But they are also risky – not just from a privacy and surveillance perspective, but also from the perspective of avoiding losing money (to scammers or just from accidentally sending money to the wrong person). Generally, it’s best to avoid those apps if you can. If you do use them, only use them with people you know personally and only when you are with them in person.

Josh has used Venmo in the past, and he doesn’t understand why people make their transactions public. The default setting is that anyone can see who you paid and what you said it was for, but it’s easy to turn off. This feature has even gotten a few politicians in trouble – if you use Venmo, turn it off. It’s not that you’re trying to hide something that you’re doing wrong. Having this kind of information publicly available makes it easier to manipulate and social engineer you for nefarious purposes.

It’s not that we want to hide illegal activity or things that are bad. … It makes it easier to social engineer when your habits and your contacts are known and are public.

Josh Summers

A Note on Internet of Things Devices

Also sometimes called “smart devices” or referred to by the acronym “IoT,” Internet of Things devices are any device that has some kind of smart electronic or internet-connected component. Some people love the convenient features. Others think these devices are inviting surveillance into your home. Josh thinks they’re interesting, but you do have to be careful. The big issue is the data – where is it being stored, how is it being transmitted, and who has the right to view the information?

[The] biggest issue, especially when it comes to any kind of data, is how is it being stored, transmitted, and shared?

Josh Summers

Josh is currently testing a camera system in his office. He wouldn’t put one in his home, but he has a lot of expensive equipment in his office. He chose the brand because they claim all your video stays on the local hub and none of it goes to the company. In any IoT device you use, you want to make sure you know what data it’s collecting and where it’s going. Often, that’s hard to find out.

When Josh had to replace his garage door, they offered a wifi version that he could open and close from an app. But Josh would rather have to check his garage door when he leaves than have a company take whatever data that app is collecting. A lot of IoT devices offer greater convenience and comfort. But you have to use a little skepticism. Is it going to make your life better? And what are the risks if someone got access to this data? It comes back to security and privacy versus convenience and surveillance. You have to decide what’s worth it to you.

Check out Josh Summers and All Things Secured on YouTube or at allthingssecured.com.