Prepping and Technology: The Pros and Cons

When it comes to prepping we are constantly looking for ways to not only live, but thrive when the world as we know it comes to a screeching halt. Just because we are working on what to do when this technology is not available doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of it while we can.

With prepping and technology come some pros and cons. On one side of the coin we have more access to information than any time in history, on the other side every big business and government agency is collecting as much information about us wherever they can.

While it is true that if you are online there is no way to be completely invisible, there are some things we can do to erase our online footprints, or at least minimize how much data these companies collect from us.

In this week’s show Lisa and I talked about some of the great resources we have available to us because of the internet, how we have handed over our rights to privacy in the name of convenience, and some ways to use these tools and apps as safely as possible.

SPP149 Prepping and Technology: The Pros and Cons

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We talked about the book “Deep Web” in the podcast which I highly recommend which talks about how much we can do to protect our online privacy even if you are not so “tech savvy”.

Quite a bit of information on this page is from that book, but there is much more information in the book itself. The links and resources mentioned in the book make it well worth the $2.99 price.

Pros of Internet Prepping

On the internet we can literally learn anything we want about preparedness and survival we want. From apps on our cell phones, videos on YouTube, podcasts and a plethora websites and other online content, if we want to learn something we just need to search for it.

Later I will go through some of the ways we can safeguard ourselves on the internet, but here are some links I mentioned in the show about cellphones, apps and file storage.

30 Apps From Urban Survival Site: http://urbansurvivalsite.com/survival-apps/

More Apps From Geek Prepper: http://geekprepper.org/essential-smartphone-apps-for-preppers/

Even More Apps From USCrow: https://uscrow.org/2016/02/02/top-10-prepper-apps/

Ideas for Old Phones: http://www.smartpreppergear.com/6-ways-to-use-old-smartphones/

File Storage: In the article above they talk about using old phones for file storage, although you still need a way to charge it. I actually have an old phone I use for this purpose and have a small solar charger I will use to charge it if needed.

External hard drives: I have one of these as well, and if you want to save a bunch of prepping information without cluttering up your computer this is a great investment. For about $75 you can get 2TB of storage (1 Terabyte = 1,000 Gigabytes)

Google Drive: This is a decent option for file storage, but it does have a couple of downsides, first off being that you need internet access to get to them. The second is that you are putting that information “in the cloud” which Google has access to.

Personally I use Google drive for “noncritical” information like gardening, recipes and some bushcraft stuff. I keep all the important information, or information that could be held against me on my hard drive.

Cons of Internet Prepping

Online OPSEC: Everyone wants our information, And the internet has become the place where people shop. The internet has given these companies a way to collect your data and be super targeted to what they think you are most likely to buy.

The bigger problem come in when the alphabet agencies see how this information can make their jobs a whole lot easier, and decide that “for the good for the people” they also need this information.

As convenient as they are, smartphones are the most affective tracking device ever created. This doesn’t just include our location, but also our buying habits, interests and contacts.

Changing our habits is the first step. If we use the default settings on our browsers, are unwilling to sacrifice some of these conveniences or trust that “they” have our best interest at heart, we are only setting ourselves up.

Things might not be as easy when we tweak some of these settings, but it will be more secure. I personally have a small tablet I use for most apps, and 3 different browses on my computer which I use depending on what I am searching for…none of them are Internet Explorer!

Deep Web Secrecy and Security

I found out about this book from Prepper Website and it really sheds light on what we can do about our privacy and security as preppers. Most of the information below can be found in the book, and this is just a brief overview of what the book covers.

If you are interested in implementing some of these techniques, do yourself a favor and get the book. This book goes through the basics of internet security as well as some of the more advanced techniques of using the deep web.

What are Cookies and Cache? These are an example of the very basic things we can do to secure our browsing, and all browsers have a way to delete them. A browsers cache is used to store your browsing history, and cookies can be used to track you around the web.

Not all cookies are necessarily bad, but they can be used maliciously. If you have ever been looking for something on eBay, and all the sudden you get served ads for the same product you looked at…that is cookies.

Online Quizzes: This is not from the book, but is very important to your privacy. Some of these quizzes that ask something like “what Star Wars character are you?” are just data mining.

These quizzes and even games of Facebook all make you give them access to your data before you can play.

The Big Players: One thing I learned from the book (and now seems completely obvious) is to stay away from the big players like Google and Microsoft. The bigger the company, the more likely the alphabet agencies are going to “request” information from them.

Alternative browsers: In the book it says to ditch Internet Explorer and I did that a long time ago. There are a couple of better, more secure browsers you can use that are just as good, or better.

The Firefox browser is far more secure, and the Comodo Ice Dragon browser is even better. In the book, he also goes through some easy browser setting and extensions you can use for these browsers to make them even more secure.

This includes Email: If you use Gmail, Yahoo or any of the large free email companies your data is getting stored somewhere just waiting to be accessed, and even you delete it from your inbox, it doesn’t get deleted from their servers.

Here is a link to some of the free email services available, and while they might still store your data, it is less likely they have the sophisticated storage systems the big guys have.

Tor Browser: Conrad talks about the Tor browser in the book, right now I don’t know enough about Tor to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. The Tor browser is only necessary for completely secure and anonymous web surfing, and I won’t be using it until I know more about it.

My thought process is that this is where the hackers and whistle blowers hang out, and the alphabet agencies know that. Just the fact that I have used it might make them think I have something to hide and I’ll be added to yet another list.

Search anonymously: An alternative to the Tor browser is to search anonymously. There are search engines like AllNetTools and Guardster that are free, and even DuckDuckGo which is not exactly anonymous, but you will not be tracked all over the web.

Online Passwords: Another no no is to let your browser save your password for you. If someone gains access to your computer, they could also access your passwords. I use Dashlane which has both a free and paid version, but there a few others like LastPass and Sticky Password.

For some websites it’s not that critical to protect my passwords, but for banking, purchasing and social networks my password manager will auto generate passwords for me and I don’t need to remember what they are because they are stored.

Driving Without a License

Most people these days surf the internet without even understanding how easily their information can be compromised, to me this is like driving a car before you know how. If you hop into a car and start driving, and all you know is gas pedal, brake and steering wheel, bad things are bound to happen.

If you have any other ideas about how preppers can protect their privacy or some great tools we can use, I’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment below.