Discover simple strategies for protecting your personal and confidential information on and offline with this essential and easy-to-understand guide. We all know that the internet can serve as a hotbed for identity theft. But it isn’t the only place where your privacy can be breached. In fact, there are lots of ways you can protect your privacy (or diminish it) that have little or nothing to do with access to the internet. Your home, your photos, your trash can, your kids, your favorite restaurant or store—and even you have the ability to unknowingly reveal your private information to everyone from thieves to busybodies. But you don’t need to hire a specialist to keep your information safe—you can do it yourself with these 200+ easy-to-implement tactics, some of which include: —Shredding hard copies of bills — Turning off Bluetooth when not in use — Using a firewall — Hiding spare keys in an unusual place Keeping your information secure lies in your hands—make sure you’re not putting yourself at risk in your daily habits with this essential guide.

More and more of our life is becoming digital. Are you prepared to deal with the privacy and security implications? As a digital nomad, the author lives online more than most others and has sometimes had to learn about the issues involved the hard way. As an online researcher, he decided to take a comprehensive look at all aspects of cybersecurity and share that knowledge with you via this hands-on guide to the ever growing and complex world of digital security. The following major topics are covered: - Passwords: Everything You Need to Know - Protecting Your Computer - Protecting Your Mobile Devices - Protecting Your Files (Encryption) - Protecting Your Online Activity - Protecting Your Network Connection You'll also find helpful information and practical tips to secure your electronic devices, avoid social engineering (phishing) attacks, browse the Internet safely, deal with social media privacy concerns, remove your personal data from information brokers, keep your cloud data safe, avoid identity theft, choose and use virtual private networks (VPNs), and preserve or pass on accounts in case of death. Newer digital privacy issues like generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), passkeys, and automotive privacy threats are covered as well. Each topic is covered in detailed, yet easy-to-understand language. In addition, throughout the book are references to almost 400 hundred useful resources.

The whirlwind of social media, online dating, and mobile apps can make life a dream—or a nightmare. For every trustworthy website, there are countless jerks, bullies, and scam artists who want to harvest your personal information for their own purposes. But you can fight back, right now. In The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy, award-winning author and investigative journalist Violet Blue shows you how women are targeted online and how to keep yourself safe. Blue’s practical, user-friendly advice will teach you how to: –Delete personal content from websites –Use website and browser privacy controls effectively –Recover from and prevent identity theft –Figure out where the law protects you—and where it doesn’t –Set up safe online profiles –Remove yourself from people-finder websites Even if your privacy has already been compromised, don’t panic. It’s not too late to take control. Let The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy help you cut through the confusion and start protecting your online life.

Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a "writer's eye" to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career.

An expert on computer privacy and security shows how we can build privacy into the design of systems from the start. We are tethered to our devices all day, every day, leaving data trails of our searches, posts, clicks, and communications. Meanwhile, governments and businesses collect our data and use it to monitor us without our knowledge. So we have resigned ourselves to the belief that privacy is hard--choosing to believe that websites do not share our information, for example, and declaring that we have nothing to hide anyway. In this informative and illuminating book, a computer privacy and security expert argues that privacy is not that hard if we build it into the design of systems from the start. Along the way, Jaap-Henk Hoepman debunks eight persistent myths surrounding computer privacy. The website that claims it doesn't collect personal data, for example; Hoepman explains that most data is personal, capturing location, preferences, and other information. You don't have anything to hide? There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep personal information--even if it's not incriminating or embarrassing--private. Hoepman shows that just as technology can be used to invade our privacy, it can be used to protect it, when we apply privacy by design. Hoepman suggests technical fixes, discussing pseudonyms, leaky design, encryption, metadata, and the benefits of keeping your data local (on your own device only), and outlines privacy design strategies that system designers can apply now.

Today, whether it’s banks, governments, schools, or businesses, they all store data digitally. Keeping our personal details off the internet is nearly impossible. While it’s difficult to avoid having some personal information online, readers can take steps to secure it from prying eyes. This guide provides common-sense tips about how to avoid online theft and the mining of data by advertisers and others. In easy-to-follow steps, readers will also learn how to safeguard their computers and other digital devices. With this guide, readers can keep their private info private.

This is a book about what privacy is and why it matters. Governments and companies keep telling us that Privacy is Dead, but they are wrong. Privacy is about more than just whether our information is collected. It's about human and social power in our digital society. And in that society, that's pretty much everything we do, from GPS mapping to texting to voting to treating disease. We need to realize that privacy is up for grabs, and we need to craft rules to protect our hard-won, but fragile human values like identity, freedom, consumer protection, and trust.