Among the most enjoyable sessions at the 2007 Antitrust Spring Meeting was the breakfast with the FTC bureau directors Jeff Schmidt, Michael “Heavy Lifter” Salinger, and Lydia Parnes. Lydia Parnes’ presentation about the Bureau of Consumer Protection’s increasingly active role in going after breaches of privacy policies was particularly interesting. If you missed it, be sure to check out the bureau’s brand new website. Here are some additional suggestions for the paranoid privacy minded PC user:

1. Uninstall Windows and use (Ubuntu!) Linux or OSX instead. The real issue with Windows is not weak security but a combination of weak security, scale, and self-selection. Windows runs on about 95% of all PCs connected to the internet (excluding servers), Linux and OSX share the remaining 5%. If I were a spyware or trojan coder, I’d focus my efforts on Windows, too. As a result, virtually all known large-scale botnets are Windows based. Self selection is another factor. The vast majority of Windows users are barely computer literate and thus much less likely to detect spyware or trojans. Linux users, in contrast, are still by and large hardcore geeks. Anyone who likes to compile their applications from source is not an attractive target for spyware. Mac users are probably somewhere in between.
2. Use Firefox. There is absolutely no reason to use anything else. (Well, maybe Opera or Lynx, but certainly not Internet Explorer).
3. If you’re not satisfied with Firefox’s built-in cookie manager, install Cookie Culler.
4. On the subject of plug-ins, Adblock Plus is another must have, and if you’re using Google and Gmail (and who doesn’t), you can protect your clickstream with Customize Google.
5. Moving on to the BFG 9000 of online privacy, go to the EFF’s website and download the Tor/Privoxy/Vidalia bundle. After (one click) installation, your communication is encrypted and sent through a cloud of onion routers, thwarting most attempts at intercepting the content of your communication (encryption) and determining its origin (IP masking). Anonymity is legal and feels good. If you install Tor, don’t forget to add Torbutton to Firefox to easily turn encryption on and off.

I just went through the routine of installing all of the above on a new machine. It took a grand total of 30 minutes, including wiping the hard drive to get rid of Vista and installing Ubuntu Feisty Fawn from scratch. Without the OS upgrade, it would have taken less than 10 minutes. Considering the risk of becoming a victim of identity theft (or worse), that’s time well spent.

Technorati Tags: consumer protection, privacy, linux

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