Why privacy?

Our entire lives are under constant digital surveillance. Facebook monitors the most intimate details of your life and sells it to advertisers. Think of it as a personalized NSA. Your credit card company sells your details to advertisers, your ISP snitches on you to sell your privacy to others, Google can predict what you will search for and anybody on the internet can cheaply find where you live using services such as peoplefinder.com and https://www.intelius.com/. Automated system can be used to personalized emails to be written to you to appeal to your specific psychological weaknesses gleaned from your social media. In addition to all that the criminals at Equifax have just ratted out to the entire internet your Social Security number, your driver’s license number and all your current and past addresses. Your new boss will check your social media before hiring you. Your exes might stalk on you on social media. The list goes on and on. 1984 has arrived and we didn't even notice.

Fight back

It might seem that Internet privacy is an unobtainable dream. This guide is a first in a series of posts where I will detail how you can claim your privacy back, delete yourself from the internet and social media and get some breathing space and live freely and happily.

1. Social Media Deletion and Human Finder websites
2. Mobile Privacy
3. Computer Privacy
4. Money Privacy
5. and Property privacy

Delete Facebook

This step is the most essential, most difficult and yet most beneficial. Trust me your life will go on, your friends will still talk to you, you will have a social life and probably be in fact much happier without Facebook.

1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
2. Log in
3. Click "DELETE MY ACCOUNT"
4. Enter your passoword again
5. Type in the captcha code
6. Click OK to submit the captcha .
7. Click OK to delete your account.

Congratulations! You have made the first and most important step towards your freedom. If you dont' log back in you are forever free from the FacebookNSA. Next is

Delete Twitter

1. Log into https://www.twitter.com
2. Click on your profile image.
3. Click on Settings.
4. Click on Deactivate my account.
5. Click on Deactivate @[username].
6. Click on Deactivate account.

and onwards to

Deleting Google:

1. Go to Google Account Settings.
2. Select Delete your account or services under Account preferences.
3. Click Delete Products. Note: You can also choose Delete Google Account and Data to remove your entire Google account (including your search history, Google Docs, AdWords and AdSense as well as other Google services).
4. Select the Gmail account you want to delete.
5. Type the password to the account over Enter your password.
6. Click Next.
7. Click the trashcan icon (🗑) next to Gmail.
8. Enter an email address different from the address associated with the Gmail account you are closing under Enter an email address in the How you'll sign in to Google dialog box.
9. Clic​k Send Verification Email.
10. Open the email from Google (no-reply@accounts.google.com) with the subject "Security alert for your linked Google account" or "Gmail Deletion Confirmation".
11. Follow the deletion link in the message.
12. If prompted, log in to the Gmail account you are deleting.
13. Under Confirm Gmail Deletion Select Yes, I want to delete example@gmail.com permanently from my Google Account.
14. Click Delete Gmail. Important: You cannot undo this step. After you click this, your Gmail account and messages are gone.
15. Click Done.

Now that we are rid of the pestilence of Facebook, Twitter and Gmail let's get a real encrypted email service that does not spy on you, read your emails or hand over your data to the government.

Get Protonmail, delete LinkedIn

1. Go to https://protonmail.com/signup
2. Select the free plan and go through the verification process with the captchas
3. You might have to enter 5 -10 different captchas to get it. Be patient and persistent.

Congrats! You now have an encrypted at rest email which doesn't read your email and spy on you. Next is the removal of yourself from the persistent people watcher - The LinkedIn. You would think it's useful for you to be on LinkedIn but in fact Microsoft now is selling your profile to advertisers and recruiters. Get rid yourself of this pestilence as follows:

1. Go to Account Settings
2. Click the Me icon at top of your LinkedIn homepage.
3. Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
4. Under the Subscriptions section, click Change next to Closing your LinkedIn account
5. Check the reason for closing your account and click Next.
6. Enter your account password and click Close account.

Now we are very close to having a decent email, the four horsemen of the internet snooping (Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) off your back and we can

Get Earn.com

Earn.com is something between a LinkedIn and Facebook, but the only difference is that you get paid when people want to spam you. If I want you to reply to my unsolicited email, I have to pay a few bucks to get your attention.

1. Signup https://earn.com/signup/ and start getting paid for your attention

We are almost done now with the first stage. You can now

Remove yourself from the creepy People Finders of the world

Intellius and other creepy services gather your data from public and private databases and sell to anybody online where you live, who your kids are, where you worked and what your cell phone numbers are. Truly creepy. You can get rid of this pestilence by enrolling in Delete.me who will mail a physical letter to all the creepy manhunter services and ask them to remove you.

1. Sign up at https://www.abine.com/deleteme/plans.php

and while we are at it

Freeze all 3 of your credit bureau files

1. https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp
2. https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
3. https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/landingPage.jsp

Once again congratulations! You are now free of the pestilence of Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and Linkedin. You have a secure email, are earning Bitcoin for your attention on Earn.com, you have been removed from creeply online manhunting search services as well as frozen your credit. Next time we will discuss how to secure your phone and computer.