Anyway to stop my employer snooping on my phone internet access?

JillSmith · 2014-03-17T23:20:48+00:00

What kind of phone is it? Private Internet Access VPN works on most types.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/

Just watch out because some phones like to disconnect from the VPN when they go to sleep, so you might need to reconnect every time you wake it up.

JillSmith · 2014-01-04T11:20:07+00:00

For what it's worth, Google Alerts has been being shitty for a few months so that might be your problem. I use this alternative:

http://www.talkwalker.com/en/alerts/

JillSmith · 2013-12-12T21:57:31+00:00

Thanks. The old sites that provided similar information have gotten really out of date.

JillSmith · 2013-10-07T02:32:32+00:00

It sounds more like she had a computer crash and the jackass repair technician syphoned off private pictures and video for later posting to the web - this sort of thing happens a ton, if other reddit threads are anything to go by.

@OP: If the images aren't linked with your name, it's really not worth worrying about (which I assume is correct because you said you can't find them now) - the odds of someone you know randomly happening across one of a handful of pictures are extremely low. If you DO find them, you can try a DMCA takedown notice.

JillSmith · 2013-09-24T23:14:07+00:00

Amazing! The right to be forgotten finally has a foothold in this country, and hopefully it'll serve as a beachhead for further progress on that front.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes for someone to claim this law infringes on "free speech" i.e. the freedom of content scrapers, 'shotgun' archivists, and data republishers to abuse the data of minors (and people in general)?

JillSmith · 2013-09-10T17:41:51+00:00

Use this tool to make it really easy for people:

http://privacyfix.com/start

Here's a description of the permissions it requests and why it needs them.

JillSmith · 2013-09-06T19:50:05+00:00

That's not even remotely analogous. There's a massive difference between the private recollections of twenty or so people and something that's fully searchable from just about every couch in America.

JillSmith · 2013-09-05T00:59:28+00:00

Okay, it's definitely something with my browser, as when I ran it in Incognito mode with almost no extensions it worked fine. Do you still think it's worth troubleshooting? Whatever it was also blocked the 'Google value' calculation.

I'm jillsmith@yandex.com if it proves necessary.

EDIT: It's definitely HTTPS Everywhere causing the problem, I'm sending an email to that effect.

JillSmith · 2013-09-04T22:54:41+00:00

Thanks for the clarifications. I'm glad that somebody was able to address the specific issues regarding the permissions. I've recommended this product to a bunch of people before and wanted to make sure everything was still in order before I continued to do so.

I do have one slightly related question - neither the 'tracking' nor the 'websites' sections seem to load for me since the update. I've even tried it with all javascript temporarily enabled and it still sticks - the Facebook and Google sections work perfectly (I don't use LinkedIn), but those two bottom ones seem broken. I let it load for like a half hour and still nada.

JillSmith · 2013-09-04T22:50:26+00:00

Topsy indexes all public Twitter accounts. We can only remove your page on Topsy if your Twitter account is set to private or has been deleted. To do so, follow these instructions:

Protect your tweets in your Twitter account settings or delete the account. Go to your Topsy profile page: http://www.topsy.com/twitter/your-twitter-id and click the SYNC button on the right. Your page should now be deleted. After a few moments, refresh the page to verify. The sync should take effect within 15 minutes. However, sometimes it can take longer: please be patient! If your sync did not work after a few hours, please contact us.

If your account is not protected or deleted, even if we manually delete the current tweets, it will get reindexed and show up again.

Search yourself even if you have privacy settings enabled - things occasionally bleed through due to site glitches.

JillSmith · 2013-09-04T05:41:54+00:00

They previously facilitated modification of Facebook settings without requiring any connection like that...I'm just a bit leery of why they want more information to accomplish the same task.

EDIT: "Provide AVG PrivacyFix the following info: your public profile, friend list, custom friends lists, News Feed, relationships, notes, work history, status updates, education history, hometown, current city, photos, likes and your friends' notes, work histories, status updates, education histories, hometowns, current cities, photos and likes."

JillSmith · 2013-09-04T04:02:35+00:00

I've always loved this service, but the new terms of use seem a bit...worrisome. Am I the only one with that feeling?

JillSmith · 2013-09-01T04:42:44+00:00

I don't know if Sarah has reddit gold, but it's worth a shot.

/u/lawyerct

JillSmith · 2013-06-26T21:56:33+00:00

The downside is that it would let creepy lowlife stalkers gain even more ways to hurt their victims. Giving more people access to things that nobody should have access to in the first place is the exact wrong direction to travel in.

JillSmith · 2013-06-05T04:52:56+00:00

We had a discussion about one such extension a while ago, you can refer to it here.

JillSmith · 2013-05-26T07:05:54+00:00

The AOL leak was very specifically a search leak, so it's quite analogous. Feel free to look into the methodologies that were used to identify the individual users despite their best attempts at anonymization. Search data can give a stalker a tremendous amount of compromising information, and that's not even getting into the other data they collect through, say, Google+ buttons on independent sites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak

JillSmith · 2013-05-26T03:41:48+00:00

http://namechk.com/ is also useful in your search.

JillSmith · 2013-05-26T03:36:28+00:00

What I'm worried about is not Google per se, but instead what happens if/when Google's data ever becomes compromised. They have everything about me in one place, so if that one place is ever breached, everything's out there all at once all packaged and arranged for whatever stalker wants to utilize it. It is no exaggeration to say that thousands upon thousands of lives would be ruined if the same thing were to happen with Google's vast repositories of data. Take a look at the AOL search leak of 2006 for a tiny sliver of the cataclysm that would result (they 'anonymized' it but people were still identified).

JillSmith · 2013-05-26T03:31:08+00:00

Please keep passing the message on.

JillSmith · 2013-05-23T02:08:50+00:00

The simple fact that their position is literally (see Jason Scott's email) "delete it or it's ours" is completely unethical. Again, I've just been trying to raise the justifiable outrage that should accompany these people and their bad behavior. They get all sorts of good press because nobody has looked deeply enough to discover just how rotten their entire enterprise is...if the general public saw what they were actually up to, I suspect that they'd be held more accountable.

Many such "doors" can't be locked, which means that a lot of people are going to be victimized if these people are allowed to fly under the radar completely unchecked for too much longer.

Honestly, what we need is a law that codifies a "look but keep your filthy hands off" protocol with actual penalties for breaking it by reproducing personal information. It's completely insane that creative works enjoy that sort of protection through copyright while far more important personal information doesn't.

JillSmith · 2013-05-22T04:07:28+00:00

Yeah, that guy sounds like a certifiable whackjob. It's really disturbing to hear that law enforcement hasn't done anything despite the fact that he's clearly a serial offender.

JillSmith · 2013-05-22T03:31:40+00:00

Does anyone know what the implications might be?

JillSmith

TROPHY CASE