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Tighten Privacy

In the July issue, you had a news article titled “FBI Searches Data Without Warrants”. They aren’t just spying on people, they act on it, too. Thousands of arrests are made every year due to the FBI or other alphabetsoup government agencies invading our privacy. Hacking and ransomware attacks are at an all-time high.

My suggestion to you is to have a full feature on privacy and how to keep your data secure. I believe Nick Peers has done this before, maybe a few years ago now, but he did a great job. It could cover how simple it is to have your data monitored (or stolen) if you’re not being careful, and how to prevent it from happening by using VPNs, TOR, encryption, and any relevant Linux distros.

This is such an important issue, it should be covered annually to keep everybody up to date with what is out there to keep data secure and your privacy intact.

–Dillon Kenneth Wicks

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The Doc has it on good authority that such a feature will be incoming at some point in the near future. In the meantime, here’s some quick advice on what tools can—and can’t— do to protect your security and privacy.

First, make sure you have strong up-to-date antimalware software to keep malware (including spyware and hacker tools) off your PC.

Ensure your entire network— including your router—is protected. In the case of your router, disable any remote administration options and change the default password if you haven’t already. Also, check your router’s firewall is enabled and that UPnP is disabled to prevent drive-by hackers from discovering a backdoor to your system. Finally, you should visit https://routersecurity.org/ testrouter.php to perform a series of tests to verify how secure you are.