You don’t have to follow Edward Snowden’s revelations to be concerned
about your privacy on the Internet. Anytime you use Google as
a search engine, you are providing deeply personal information to a company
that is not known for its commitment to free speech and liberty. In fact, such
data mining is how they earn their billions…at least it’s the one public way we
know.
Instead, I use Startpage
for my searches, a site I found about from something I read a while back at
LewRockwell.com.
And the reason I do is succinctly explained
by Startpage:
Every time you use a regular search engine,
your search data is recorded. Major search engines capture your IP
address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search
terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose—then they store that
information in a giant database.
Tracking your searches can erode your
privacy and lead to censorship.
In addition, those searches reveal a
shocking amount of personal information about you, such as your interests, family
circumstances, political leanings, medical conditions, and more. This
information is modern-day gold for marketers, government officials, black-hat hackers and
criminals—all of whom would love to get their hands on your private search
data.
StartPage prepared a PowerPoint (which we
know government and Fortune 500 employees love) but this one is totally
different: it’s witty and informative. So I’ve shared a few slides on the most
important points.
And it’s not just your privacy and the fact
Google and its ilk making obscene amounts of money from your searches. Remember
that…
I can’t be the only one to have read this
article on Lew’s:
So why give people who don’t share our
values a nefarious and dishonorable way to make billons of dollars—not to
mention access to our intimate thoughts, feelings, preferences, and
“prejudices” all to be shared and mined—I suspect—by NSA for its customers,
including the “Deep State.” After all, Prism was Snowden’s major revelation: what
kind of profiles of all Americans are being prepared and to what end? Does each
of us have an associated “threat level”? This is something I trust Edward
Snowden wouldn’t know since interviews I’ve seen do not mention the “deep
state” and its motives.
Another feature of Startpage searches is
the ability to be able to view sites by proxy, i.e. not view them directly and
leave a trail for the NSA and the government to mine. Say you’ve read Paul
Craig Roberts “truthing” on 9/11 and are curious; type “engineers architects
truth” in the search box. Your first result will be:
www.ae911truth.org Proxy
The first two links are to the site itself.
Instead, click on Proxy I; that way you can view the site without
actually visiting it. See the explanation
here.
And there are more things on heaven and
earth than search engines that invade our privacy and spy on us; there is also
email.
I just took the plunge to use a more secure
email service, which is—SURPRISE—Startmail
from IXquick. (And no, I’m not a paid spokesperson although I’m pleased
Ixquick, which is behind Startpage, hosted this Snowden
interview.)
Yes, I do have to pay around $5.00 a month
for StartMail
but I can use PGP encryption to send secure email with information I only want
the recipient to read. I suspect now that I’ve gone from being a regular LewRockwell.com
reader to a contributor the NSA has prepared a profile of me for the deep state
“customers” that would make my head spin. Why make it easier for
anyone—including hackers—to obtain personal information? Privacy matters. Plus
I think Lew is getting a kick when we send each other PGP messages even though
our conversations are comparatively dull compared to Snowden and Greenwald’s.
From Startmail’s site
on why their service is worth your consideration:
What’s wrong with free email services?
“Free” email services like Gmail, Yahoo!
Mail, and Hotmail come at a high price: your privacy. The fine print lets them
search every message you send and receive for profit‐generating keywords. They
even keep their own copies of your deleted messages and your attachments.
Furthermore, your emails can pass through
servers all over the world, where they’re vulnerable to hackers and mass‐surveillance programs.
Protecting yourself with encryption is often difficult and time‐consuming.
How does StartMail protect you?
StartMail never reads your
email. We believe that your privacy is a basic right. We don’t send or sell
information about you to any corporation or marketer, and we don’t store copies
of anything you’ve deleted.
StartMail lets you encrypt your email with
PGP, the Internet’s gold standard, with a single click. And you can send
encrypted email to a regular email user, who reads it by answering a security
question you provide. No matter what server your email passes through, it
remains secure.
Since I’m a firm believer in the free
market and its frequent innovations, there are other choices than Ixquick’s
Startpage and Startmail services (several provided below), but I can give
Ixquick my personal recommendation since I use them regularly and so far, they
work amazingly well. Glen Greenwald would never have had all that trouble with
encryption described in his book No Place to Hide.
In addition, I now use almost exclusively Brave for my
web browser, developed by the guy Mozilla (Firefox) fired
for non-SJW approved conduct. It’s the fastest browser I’ve ever
used, and comes with a built in ad blocker. (I also use Palemoon.)
It’s deceiving but you click on the lion’s head symbol to make selections
including security.
But here’s what’s really cool about Brave.
I purchase Bitcoin via Brave
and it makes anonymously—once the total it calculates reaches a ten dollar
threshold—a
contribution based on websites I visit the most frequently and that
I designate as recipients. I truly enjoy and learn from the videos and articles
posted on SouthFront
and since it’s (volunteer and nongovernment but) Russian based, I can donate
funds off the radar of the NSA and CIA. I love that!
And I apologize to Lew that his site is now
number two according to Brave. I have a good reason. Sort of…
I found a new, time wasting, Lotus-eating
addiction: GAB.
Although the Valkyrie in my novel Son of Thunder commented on social media
by saying “Tweets and twitters— may the All-Father defend me! In the name
heaven, men are no longer real men, they have become buffoonish birds…” I’ve
found that Gab is not only a great way to meet like-minded people—even if the
encounters aren’t in great depth—a tremendous amount of information is shared,
including links to information I wasn’t aware of. And since Lew hasn’t an
active account—yet—I’ve been “Gabbing” several of Lew’s blogs and articles from
his site.
Finally, you’ll see links in this article
to Infogalactic,
a non SJW converged encyclopedia.
I’m sure there are even more free market
alternatives to the massive “surveillance state” and its allies than what
I’ve discussed; feel free to share and if Lew’s interested, I’ll post a
follow-up.
I hope Lew’s webmaster can replace Google
as his site’s search engine or you can just use Startpage and type
host:lewrockwell.com after your search string.
As for me…
Goodbye, Google and Gmail!
The libertarian revolution strengthens when
brave individuals create alternatives to dominant, corrupt players. I think
it’s only right that we support these platforms.
My new email is ylorenzo@startmail.com.
Go ahead and hack away, NSA!
Kidding. I’m sure they’ve got nothing
better to do.
Then again…
List of alternatives to the arguably
fascist crony capitalist sites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and
Twitter from a post by Jason Israel at Gab:
Alternatives to Twitter:
Alternatives to FaceBook:
Alternatives to Google: Startpage.com
Alternatives to YouTube:
Alternatives to Gmail, Yahoo Mail:
Alternative Browsers to Internet Explorer,
Chrome :
Alternative to Wikipedia: Infogalactic.com
Yvonne Lorenzo [send her mail] makes her home in New England
in a house full to bursting with books, including works on classical Greece and
by Mises, Tom Woods, Joseph Sobran, and Lew Rockwell. Her interests include
mythology, ancient history, plasma cosmology and classical music, especially
the compositions of Handel, Mozart, Bach, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is
the author Son of Thunder and The Cloak of Freya.