Over the last 16 months, as I've debated this issue around the world, every single time somebody has said to me, "I don't really worry about invasions of privacy because I don't have anything to hide." I always say the same thing to them. I get out a pen, I write down my email address. I say, "Here's my email address. What I want you to do when you get home is email me the passwords to all of your email accounts, not just the nice, respectable work one in your name, but all of them, because I want to be able to just troll through what it is you're doing online, read what I want to read and publish whatever I find interesting. After all, if you're not a bad person, if you're doing nothing wrong, you should have nothing to hide." Not a single person has taken me up on that offer.

Related: How do you counter the "I have nothing to hide?" argument?

start search

example search: edward snowden

privatesearch.io is our new privacy-respecting and highly customizable search engine with excellent results. it's open source and doesn't have ads, logs or tracking.

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The UKUSA Agreement is an agreement between the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to cooperatively collect, analyze, and share intelligence. Members of this group, known as the Five Eyes, focus on gathering and analyzing intelligence from different parts of the world. While Five Eyes countries have agreed to not spy on each other as adversaries, leaks by Snowden have revealed that some Five Eyes members monitor each other’s citizens and share intelligence to avoid breaking domestic laws that prohibit them from spying on their own citizens. The Five Eyes alliance also cooperates with groups of third party countries to share intelligence (forming the Nine Eyes and Fourteen Eyes), however Five Eyes and third party countries can and do spy on each other.

Why is it not recommended to choose a US based service?

Services based in the United States are not recommended because of the country’s surveillance programs, use of National Security Letters (NSLs) and accompanying gag orders, which forbid the recipient from talking about the request. This combination allows the government to secretly force companies to grant complete access to customer data and transform the service into a tool of mass surveillance.

An example of this is Lavabit – a discontinued secure email service created by Ladar Levison. The FBI requested Snowden’s records after finding out that he used the service. Since Lavabit did not keep logs and email content was stored encrypted, the FBI served a subpoena (with a gag order) for the service’s SSL keys. Having the SSL keys would allow them to access communications (both metadata and unencrypted content) in real time for all of Lavabit’s customers, not just Snowden's.

Ultimately, Levison turned over the SSL keys and shut down the service at the same time. The US government then threatened Levison with arrest, saying that shutting down the service was a violation of the court order.

Key disclosure law - Who is required to hand over the encryption keys to authorities?

Mandatory key disclosure laws require individuals to turn over encryption keys to law enforcement conducting a criminal investigation. How these laws are implemented (who may be legally compelled to assist) vary from nation to nation, but a warrant is generally required. Defenses against key disclosure laws include steganography and encrypting data in a way that provides plausible deniability.

Steganography involves hiding sensitive information (which may be encrypted) inside of ordinary data (for example, encrypting an image file and then hiding it in an audio file). With plausible deniability, data is encrypted in a way that prevents an adversary from being able to prove that the information they are after exists (for example, one password may decrypt benign data and another password, used on the same file, could decrypt sensitive data).

Related Information

• Avoid all US and UK based services
• Proof that warrant canaries work based on the surespot example.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_order
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Mass_surveillance

VPN Service	Jurisdiction	Logs	Encoding	Bitcoin	Servers	P2P	Price / Year	Warrant Canary
AirVPN.org	Italy	No	RSA-4096 / AES-256	Accepted	76	Allowed	54 €	Statement
blackVPN.com	Hong Kong	No	RSA-4096 / AES-256	Accepted	25	Allowed	99 €	Statement
Cryptostorm.is	Iceland	No	RSA / CBC / SHA	Accepted	13	Allowed	$ 52	Statement
FrootVPN.com	Sweden	No	RSA-2048 / AES-256	Accepted	27	Allowed	$ 36	Statement
hide.me	Malaysia	No	RSA-4096 / AES-256	Accepted	85	Allowed	$ 65	Statement
IVPN.net	Gibraltar	No	RSA-4096 / AES-256	Accepted	15	Allowed	$ 100	Statement
Mullvad.net	Sweden	No	RSA-2048 / AES-256	Accepted	23	Allowed	60 €	Statement
NordVPN.com	Panama	No	RSA-2048 / AES-256	Accepted	52	Allowed	$ 48	Statement
Perfect-Privacy.com	Panama Switzerland New Zealand	No	RSA-4096 / AES-256	Accepted	40	Allowed	150 €	Statement
Proxy.sh	Seychelles	No	RSA-4096 / AES-256	Accepted	288	Allowed	$ 90	Statement

A warrant canary is a posted document stating that an organization has not received any secret subpoenas during a specific period of time. If this document fails to be updated during the specified time then the user is to assume that the service has received such a subpoena and should stop using the service.

Warrant Canary Examples:

1. https://proxy.sh/canary
2. https://www.ivpn.net/resources/canary.txt
3. https://www.vpnsecure.me/files/canary.txt
4. https://www.bolehvpn.net/canary.html
5. https://lokun.is/canary.txt
6. https://www.ipredator.se/static/downloads/canary.txt

Related Warrant Canary Information

• Warrant Canary Frequently Asked Questions
• Canarywatch.org - Lists warrant canaries, tracks changes or disappearances of canaries
• Companies and organizations with warrant canaries

Worth Mentioning

• JonDoFox - A profile for the Firefox web browser, particularly optimized for anonymous and secure web surfing.

When you visit a web page, your browser voluntarily sends information about its configuration, such as available fonts, browser type, and add-ons. If this combination of information is unique, it may be possible to identify and track you without using cookies. EFF created a Tool called Panopticlick to test your browser to see how unique it is.

Test your Browser now

You need to find what most browsers are reporting, and then use those variables to bring your browser in the same population. This means having the same fonts, plugins, and extensions installed as the large installed base. You should have a spoofed user agent string to match what the large userbase has. You need have the same settings enabled and disabled, such as DNT and WebGL. You need your browser to look as common as everyone else. Disabling JavaScript, using Linux, or even the TBB, will make your browser stick out from the masses.

Modern web browsers have not been architected to assure personal web privacy. Rather than worrying about being fingerprinted, it seems more practical to use free software plugins like Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin and Disconnect. They not only respect your freedom, but your privacy also. You can get much further with these than trying to manipulate your browser's fingerprint.

Related Information

• How Unique Is Your Web Browser? Peter Eckersley, EFF.
• Join our discussion on reddit.com about browser finterprinting.
• Our Firefox privacy addons section.
• BrowserLeaks.com - Web browser security testing tools, that tell you what exactly personal identity data may be leaked without any permissions when you surf the Internet.

While software like NoScript prevents this, it's probably a good idea to block this protocol directly as well, just to be safe.

Test your Browser now

How to disable WebRTC in Firefox?

In short: Set "media.peerconnection.enabled" to "false" in "about:config".

Explained:

1. Enter "about:config" in the firefox address bar and press enter.
2. Press the button "I'll be careful, I promise!"
3. Search for "media.peerconnection.enabled"
4. Double click the entry, the column "Value" should now be "false"
5. Done. Do the WebRTC leak test again.

If you want to make sure every single WebRTC related setting is really disabled change these settings:

1. media.peerconnection.turn.disable = true
2. media.peerconnection.use_document_iceservers = false
3. media.peerconnection.video.enabled = false
4. media.peerconnection.identity.timeout = 1

Now you can be 100% sure WebRTC is disabled.

Test your Browser again

How to fix the WebRTC Leak in Google Chrome?

There is no known working solution, only a plugin that is easily circumvented. Please use Firefox instead.

What about other browsers?

Chrome on iOS, Internet Explorer and Safari does not implement WebRTC yet. But we recommend using Firefox on all devices.

Stop tracking with "Disconnect"

Disconnect was founded in 2011 by former Google engineers and a consumer-and privacy-rights attorney. The addon is open source and loads the pages you go to 27% faster and stops tracking by 2,000+ third-party sites. It also keeps your searches private.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disconnect/

Block Ads with "uBlock Origin"

uBlock Origin is an lightweight and efficient blocker: easy on memory and CPU footprint. The extension has no monetization strategy and development is volunteered. OS: Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chromium. AdBlock Plus is not recommended because they show "acceptable ads". The system behind that white list is lacking transparency.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

Hinder Browser Fingerprinting with "Random Agent Spoofer"

Random Agent Spoofer is a privacy enhancing firefox addon which aims to hinder browser fingerprinting. It does this by changing the browser/device profile on a timer.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/random-agent-spoofer/

Automatically Delete Cookies with "Self-Destructing Cookies"

Self-Destructing Cookies automatically removes cookies when they are no longer used by open browser tabs. With the cookies, lingering sessions, as well as information used to spy on you, will be expunged.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destructing-cookies/

Encryption with "HTTPS Everywhere"

HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox, Chrome, and Opera extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. A collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Be in total control with "NoScript Security Suite"

Highly customizable plugin to selectively allow Javascript, Java, and Flash to run only on websites you trust. Not for casual users, it requires technical knowledge to configure.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/

Content control with "Policeman"

This addon has purpose similar to RequestPolicy and NoScript. It's different from the former in that it supports rules based on content type. For example, you can allow images and styles, but not scripts and frames for some sites. It can also be set up to act as a blacklist.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/policeman/

Preparation:

1. Enter "about:config" in the firefox address bar and press enter.
2. Press the button "I'll be careful, I promise!"
3. Follow the instructions below...

Getting started:

1. privacy.trackingprotection.enabled = true
• This is Mozilla’s new built in tracking protection.
2. geo.enabled = false
• Disables geolocation.
3. browser.safebrowsing.enabled = false
• Disable Google Safe Browsing and phishing protection. Security risk, but privacy improvement.
4. browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled = false
• Disable Google Safe Browsing malware checks. Security risk, but privacy improvement.
5. dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled = false
• Disable that websites can get notifications if you copy, paste, or cut something from a web page, and it lets them know which part of the page had been selected.
6. network.cookie.cookieBehavior = 1
• Disable cookies
• 0 = accept all cookies by default
• 1 = only accept from the originating site (block third party cookies)
• 2 = block all cookies by default
7. network.cookie.lifetimePolicy = 2
• cookies are deleted at the end of the session
• 0 = Accept cookies normally
• 1 = Prompt for each cookie
• 2 = Accept for current session only
• 3 = Accept for N days
8. browser.cache.offline.enable = false
• Disables offline cache.
9. browser.send_pings = false
• The attribute would be useful for letting websites track visitors’ clicks.
10. webgl.disabled = true
• WebGL is a potential security risk. Source
11. dom.battery.enabled = false
• Website owners can track the battery status of your device. Source

Related Information

• mozillazine.org - Security and privacy-related preferences.
• user.js Firefox hardening stuff - This is a user.js configuration file for Mozilla Firefox that's supposed to harden Firefox's settings and make it more secure.

Email Service	Since	Server	Storage	Price / Year	Bitcoin	Encryption	Own Domain
GhostMail.com	2015	Sweden	1 GB	Free	Accepted	Built-in	No
OpenMailBox.org	2013	France	1 GB	Free	Accepted	Built-in	No
ProtonMail.ch	2013	Switzerland	1 GB	Free	Accepted	Built-in	No
RuggedInbox.com	2014	Bulgaria	200 MB	Free	Accepted	No	No
Tutanota.com	2011	Germany	1 GB	Free	Accepted	Built-in	Yes
mailbox.org	2014	Germany	2 GB	12 €	Accepted	Built-in	Yes
Posteo.de	2009	Germany	2 GB	12 €	No	Built-in	No
Runbox.com	1999	Norway	1 GB	$ 19.95	No	No	Yes
Neomailbox.com	2003	Switzerland	1 GB	$ 49.95	Accepted	Built-in	Yes
CounterMail.com	2010	Sweden	500 MB	$ 59	Accepted	Built-in	Yes
StartMail.com	2014	Netherlands	10 GB	$ 59.95	No	Built-in	No
KolabNow.com	2010	Switzerland	2 GB	$ 60	Accepted	No	Yes
CryptoHeaven.com	2001	Canada	200 MB	$ 66	No	Built-in	Yes

Interesting Email Providers Under Development

• Confidant Mail - An open-source non-SMTP cryptographic email system optimized for large file attachments. It is a secure and spam-resistant alternative to regular email and online file drop services. It uses GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) for content encryption and authentication, and TLS 1.2 with ephemeral keys for transport encryption.

Become Your Own Email Provider with Mail-in-a-Box

Take it a step further and get control of your email with this easy-to-deploy mail server in a box. Mail-in-a-Box lets you become your own mail service provider in a few easy steps. It’s sort of like making your own gmail, but one you control from top to bottom. Technically, Mail-in-a-Box turns a fresh cloud computer into a working mail server. But you don’t need to be a technology expert to set it up. More: https://mailinabox.email/

Privacy Email Tools

• gpg4usb - A very easy to use and small portable editor to encrypt and decrypt any text-message or -file. For Windows and Linux.
• Mailvelope - A browser extension that enables the exchange of encrypted emails following the OpenPGP encryption standard.
• Enigmail - A security extension to Thunderbird and Seamonkey. It enables you to write and receive email messages signed and/or encrypted with the OpenPGP standard.
• TorBirdy - This extension configures Thunderbird to make connections over the Tor anonymity network.
• Email Privacy Tester - This tool will sent an Email to your address and perform privacy related tests.

Related Information

• Aging ‘Privacy’ Law Leaves Cloud E-Mail Open to Cops - Data stored in the cloud for longer than 6 months is considered abandoned and may be accessed by intelligence agencies without a warrant. Learning: Use an external email client like Thunderbird or Enigmail, download your emails and store them locally. Never leave them on the server.
• OpenMailBox keeps one year logs of meta-data - Forum discussion, reply of the server admin.
• With May First/Riseup Server Seizure, FBI Overreaches Yet Again
• Autistici/Inventati server compromised - The cryptographic services offered by the Autistici/Inventati server have been compromised on 15th June 2004. It was discovered on 21st June 2005. One year later. During an enquiry on a single mailbox, the Postal Police may have tapped for a whole year every user's private communication going through the server autistici.org/inventati.org.

Worth Mentioning

• K-9 Mail - An independent mail application for Android. It supports both POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, but only supports push mail for IMAP.
• GNU Privacy Guard - Email Encryption. GnuPG is a GPL Licensed alternative to the PGP suite of cryptographic software. Use GPGTools for Mac OS X.
• Mailpile (Beta) - A modern, fast web-mail client with user-friendly encryption and privacy features.

Worth Mentioning

• RetroShare - Open Source cross-platform, Friend-2-Friend and secure decentralised communication platform.

Worth Mentioning

• MetaGer - A metasearch engine, which is based in Germany. It focuses on protecting the user's privacy. Supported by 24 own crawlers of small scale web search engines.
• ixquick.com - Returns the top ten results from multiple search engines. It uses a "Star System" to rank its results by awarding one star for every result that has been returned from a search engine. Based in the USA and the Netherlands.
• Google search link fix - Firefox extension that prevents Google, Yahoo and Yandex search pages from modifying search result links when you click them. This is useful when copying links but it also helps privacy by preventing the search engines from recording your clicks. (Open Source)

Worth Mentioning

• Ricochet - A peer-to-peer instant messaging system built on Tor hidden services. Your login is your hidden service address, and contacts connect to you through Tor.
• Kontalk - A community-driven instant messaging network. Supports end-to-end encryption. Both client-to-server and server-to-server channels are fully encrypted.
• Conversations - An open source Jabber/XMPP client for Android 4.0+ smart phones. Supports end-to-end encryption with either OTR or openPGP.

Related Information

• Secure Messaging Scorecard | Electronic Frontier Foundation
  Which apps and tools actually keep your messages safe?
• Chatting in Secret While We're All Being Watched - firstlook.org

Worth Mentioning

• Tox - A free and open-source, peer-to-peer, encrypted instant messaging and video calling software.
• Subrosa - End to end encrypted communications platform. Supports text, voice, video including group chats.
• Ring (formerly SFLphone) - Gives you a full control over your communications and an unmatched level of privacy.

Related Infromation

• Should SpiderOak be avoided?

Worth Mentioning

• CryptSync - A small utility for Windows that synchronizes two folders while encrypting the contents in one folder. This is best used together with Dropbox.
• S4 by Least Authority - A tool for Windows great way for people to use already existing storage spaces like Dropbox and make sure their information is secure.

Worth Mentioning

• ownCloud - Free and open-source, allows anyone to install and operate it for free on a private server, with no limits on storage space or the number of connected clients.

Worth Mentioning

• git-annex - Allows managing files with git, without checking the file contents into git. While that may seem paradoxical, it is useful when dealing with files larger than git can currently easily handle, whether due to limitations in memory, time, or disk space..

Worth Mentioning

• Secure Password Generator - generates a unique set of custom, high quality, cryptographic-strength password strings which are safe for you to use.
• SuperGenPass - A master password and the domain name of the Web site you are visiting is used as the “seed” for a one-way hash algorithm (base-64 MD5). The output of this algorithm is your generated password. You remember one password (your “master password”), and SGP uses it to generate unique, complex passwords for the Web sites you visit. Your generated passwords are never stored or transmitted, so you can use SGP on as many computers as you like without having to “sync” anything.
• Password Safe - Whether the answer is one or hundreds, Password Safe allows you to safely and easily create a secured and encrypted user name/password list. With Password Safe all you have to do is create and remember a single "Master Password" of your choice in order to unlock and access your entire user name/password list.

Related Infromation

• Edward Snowden on Passwords - YouTube

Worth Mentioning

• miniLock - Browser plugin for Google Chrome / Chromium to encrypt files using a secret passphrase. Easy to use. From the developer of Cryptocat.
• AES Crypt - Using a powerful 256-bit encryption algorithm, AES Crypt can safely secure your most sensitive files. For Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
• DiskCryptor - A full disk and partition encryption system for Windows including the ability to encrypt the partition and disk on which the OS is installed.

Worth Mentioning

• Tor Project - Provides anonymity to websites and other servers. Servers configured to receive connections only through Tor are called hidden services.
• RetroShare - Open Source cross-platform, Friend-2-Friend and secure decentralised communication platform.

Worth Mentioning

• Libertree - A free, libre, open-source software which is intended to provide a way for people to create their own social network. Currently in an invitational alpha phase.

Related Information

• Delete your Facebook account - Direct link to delete your Facebook account without being able to reactivate it again.
• How To Permanently Delete A Facebook Account - This guide will take you through a smooth and successful Facebook account deletion.

Worth Mentioning

• Namecoin - A decentralized DNS open source information registration and transfer system based on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Worth Mentioning

• dudle - An online scheduling application, which is free and OpenSource. Schedule meetings or make small online polls. No email collection or the need of registration.
• Turtl - Remember ideas, track research, share documents, or bookmark your favorite sites. Turtl makes it easy to organize your life and uses solid encryption to keep it all safe.

Worth Mentioning

• OpenBSD - A project that produces a free, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Emphasizes portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography.
• Arch Linux - A simple, lightweight Linux distribution. It is composed predominantly of free and open-source software, and supports community involvement
• Whonix - A Debian GNU/Linux based security-focused Linux distribution. It aims to provide privacy, security and anonymity on the internet. The operating system consists of two virtual machines, a "Workstation" and a Tor "Gateway". All communication are forced through the Tor network to accomplish this..

Worth Mentioning

• JonDo Live-CD - A secure, pre-configured environment for anonymous surfing and more. It is based on Debian GNU/Linux. The live system contains proxy clients for JonDonym, Tor Onion Router and Mixmaster remailer. JonDoFox is a pre-configured browser for anonymous web surfing and TorBrowser is installed too..
• Tiny Core Linux - A minimal Linux operating system focusing on providing a base system using BusyBox and FLTK. The distribution is notable for its size (15 MB) and minimalism, with additional functionality provided by extensions.

Worth Mentioning

• Replicant - A free and open source operating system based on the Android, which aims to replace all proprietary Android components with their free software counterparts.

Worth Mentioning

• OpenBSD - A project that produces a free, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Emphasizes portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography.
• DD-WRT - A is Linux-based firmware for wireless routers and wireless access points. It is compatible with several models of routers and access points.

Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.

We all need places where we can go to explore without the judgmental eyes of other people being cast upon us, only in a realm where we’re not being watched can we really test the limits of who we want to be. It’s really in the private realm where dissent, creativity and personal exploration lie.

• ipleak.net - IP/DNS Detect - What is your IP, what is your DNS, what informations you send to websites.
• Surveillance Self-Defense by EFF - Guide to defending yourself from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices.
• PRISM Break - We all have a right to privacy, which you can exercise today by encrypting your communications and ending your reliance on proprietary services.
• Security in-a-Box - A guide to digital security for activists and human rights defenders throughout the world.
• The Ultimate Privacy Guide - Excellent privacy guide written by the creators of the bestVPN.com website.
• IVPN Privacy Guides - These privacy guides explain how to obtain vastly greater freedom, privacy and anonymity through compartmentalization and isolation.
• AlternativeTo.net - Great collection of open source online and self-hosted software sorted by likes.
• Keybase.io - Get a public key, safely, starting just with someone's social media username.
• Security Now! - Weekly Internet Security Podcast by Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte.

It's important for a website like privacytools.io to be up-to-date. Keep an eye on software updates of the applications listed here. Follow recent news about providers that are recommended. We try our best to keep up but we're not perfect and the internet is changing fast. If you find an error, or you think a provider should not be listed here, or a qualified service provider is missing or a browser plugin is not the best choice anymore and anything else... Talk to us please. This is a community project and we're aiming to deliver the best information available for a better privacy.

Here is what you can do:

Make suggestions on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/
View and edit our website source code on GitHub: https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io

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privacytools.io is a socially motivated website that provides information for protecting your data security and privacy. never trust any company with your privacy, always encrypt.