The Innovation Hubs

How many of you like Beyonce? What about Imagine Dragons? AC DC? Rachmaninoff???

It's pretty likely that nobody reading this will like ALL of them, or even ANY of them. 

The point is: while pretty much everyone likes "music", no two people's specific combination of likes and dislikes is identical. This is analogous to people's lives online; we share a pseudo-common experience insofar as we are all on the Internet, but our specific combination of activities, and the concerns raised by those activities, can differ widely (and the Internet we experience itself can be wildly different, but that's a whole other blog post…). As a result, the tools and practices this author deploys to lock down my digital privacy are likely different than anyone reading this.

• Some of us don’t like the idea of others being able to read/hear our communications, but we don’t mind ads following us while browsing. Some of us even like targeted advertising and consider it better than the other options.
• Others of us don’t like being followed online, but we use plain text email and non-encrypted SMS, voicecall, and/or chat services.
• Some of us use public wi-fi without a second thought, while others resist free services, only connecting through a VPN (which creates its own set of issues) 
• Still others feel the eyes and ears of the entire world dogging our every step, and think of avoiding the internet entirely. Not that we actually can, mind you.

Each of us have a different Threat Model

A threat model is our understanding of the threats we face, and the steps we can'take to mitigate those threats.

For teens with their first smart phone, paren'ts and teachers loom large in their threat model. For political activists, threats would include undercover police, provocateurs, rival organizations/parties, etc. For lawyers, religious leaders, physicians, psychotherapists, and others who may hold career-destroying information on their clients (or faithful, as the case may be) a high level of built-in security and privacy technology is a must, as the consequences of failure are unacceptably high.

When you consider threats online (or 'risks', if threats sounds too…uh, threatening), ask yourself: What do I need to protect (assets)? From whom to I need to protect it (adversaries)? How likely is an "attack" (or how capable is that threat?) (capabilities)? What is the worst outcome if I fail to protect (consequences)? How much trouble am I willing to put up with the protect whatever-I-am-protecting (actions)? Your answers will vary, and will change over time as security and online privacy are not one-of acts: they are a process. 

Finding Solutions

Your answers will determine your course of action: you may choose to use a VPN, to browse with Tor browser, to stop particular activities on certain devices (I don't bank through my mobile phone, for example, though I do bank online), to use encrypting messaging or VOIP apps, or change all your passwords. You may choose all of these things, or none of them. 

This may feel overwhelming, so please remember: you are not alone. 

If this blog motivates you to do only one thing, let it be this: Join us at North York Central Library on Saturday Sept 22nd from 10am-4pm for TPL's Digital Privacy Expo. It's a full day of informative talks and hands-on demonstrations that promises to answer your questions in a safe community setting, with the guidance of my librarian colleagues.

Registration is open now (for the discussions), while the demo fair takes place all day. We welcome walk-ins to see Tor browser, password managers, encrypted communications apps, diceware passwords, privacy-enhancing browser extensions, and possibly even a TAILS demo. See you there!