This website is for all Internet users. We can hardly imagine our lives without the Internet – nor do we want to. We believe that it gives us knowledge and freedom each one of us should have equal access to. It is our common task and interest to preserve and exploit the value of the Internet. It has the potential for endless possibilities but almost as many dangers.

Nearly all of us are exposed to these lurking dangers, but the members of a small group are even more exposed. Political and social activists, legal defenders, whistleblowers and journalists perform a special role. The causes they fight for may require keeping their data and communication much safer than average. This website was not created specifically for them, but we took their situations into consideration while choosing the applications, and we are sure that they can find the most adequate tools for their demands.

It is vital to understand that every single person’s privacy and personal information are valuable. Just as we lock our doors, we should also protect our online valuables from unauthorized persons. Not all violators are alike; their tools and purposes may differ and can cause different kinds of damage. A lot of them are interested in gaining control of our personal data. People living under the oppression of dictatorships fear governments might infringe on their privacy. In contrast, the citizens of Western countries trust the state more than they trust private companies. In the Digital Age we must realize that the success of various enterprises are reliant on huge databases and the sale of personal data. One of the lessons of the surveillance scandal is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the dangers caused by the public and private sectors. The assessment of these dangers and the role they play are no longer black-and-white. The American surveillance scandal also proves that due to the nature of the state and the market there are numerous violations, even in democracies. It follows that our fear of surveillance, even within the framework of a constitutional government, cannot be exaggerated.

This website has been created to support a life without imminent fear that our online activities are exposed in order to be misused. The Snowden revelations have shown that government surveillance is far more extensive than we had previously thought. This website intends to provide average Internet users with the knowledge and self-confidence necessary to regain control over their personal information, without having to give up their favorite Internet activities.

The protection of privacy and personal information in the digital age presents us not only with technological challenges, but also raises legal difficulties as well. The website was not created with this problem in mind, but it can point us towards where we should start. The team of the HCLU is naturally at anyone’s disposal should further questions arise.

We not only receive information in a passive manner while we browse the Internet, clicking from article to article, blog posts or cat pictures, but also provide data about ourselves. When we buy a book, register to a website or write about the events of the past few days, we give away large amounts of personal information: name, e-mail address, credit card and bank account details, birthdate, phone number, home address, password details of our personal lives and personal thoughts.

Communication sent to websites is transmitted through many devices. The process is the same when we retrieve a webpage or send data:

1. We type the address of the website in the browser/fill in an online form. Let the example be a registration form to blog.com.
2. The request is transferred via intermediary devices until it reaches the one which finally finds its recipient and transmits the request
3. The recipient computer processes the data and sends the response, for example that the form data was saved and the registration was successful.
4. The response, just as the initial request, is transferred to the initiating computer by hopping through routers.
5. The initiating computer displays the response.

(For a visualization of how a data packet gets to a server located in the US, click here http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/visual-tracert)

BROWSING

When browsing the Internet we usually access website using a technology which transmits data in a non secure, non encrypted way. This allows the data to be easily intercepted and read by others over an unprotected wireless network or on any device it travels through.

Secure HTTP connection, HTTPS was devised to overcome this vulnerability. When using HTTPS, data is transferred in a secure way between our browser and the computers hosting the websites. This way if someone intercepts the message, they will not be able to break the encryption to access the message content.

It is typical for banks and shopping portals to secure data transfer with HTTPS. Major websites such as Google and Facebook usually also enable it.

BROWSER TRACKING

We reveal a lot of information about ourselves simply by visiting site or clicking ads. What can be known about us based on these activities and who can have access to this knowledge?

It is easy to follow this process through ads as an example. If we buy a ceramic knife set in an online shop, we may realize soon that we get bombarded by ceramic knife ads throughout Facebook, Youtube or news portals.

Online behavioural tracking and using this data for advertising is labelled behavioural advertising. The advertisers are aiming to collect data about customers so that they are able to show them tailored, targeted ads online.

This is not necessarily a problem for everyone, many Internet users are willing to accept this trade-off so that they see advertisement of products they are really interested in. But advertisers don’t only know our habits related to purchasing of knives, but they may know about our interests, political convictions, sexual orientation or health issues based on what sites we visit, how often, for how long. As online behavioural data represent significant business value, many companies specialize in collecting, selling and using this data.

Data can be collected in many ways, one of the most prevalent methods is through cookies. A cookie is a plain text file sent by server of the visited website to browser which then stores is. When we visit the website next time, our browser sends the cookie back to the site along. The server uses the browser’s unique identifier to identify us, looks for the file storing information about our previous visits and appends new data – for example this time how much time we spent on the site, what our IP address is (which generally reveals our approximate location) or which subpages we visited.

Using this method enables websites to keep us logged in having once typed our username and password, or stay connected after closing the browser window, keep the items in our shopping basket, or have our individual settings on the site at each visit. If we open the site from a different browser or clear the cookies, the site will treat us as new visitors.

Websites typically only store the browser’s unique identifier in the cookie, but in some cases personal data may also be stored such as online form data. These are usually, but not always, stored encrypted. Cookies have differing lifespans, some are automatically deleted when we close the browser, and most have a preset lifetime – this may range from a few hours to decades. A study conducted in September 2014 found cookies which remain active for 7984 years.)

As long as a website’s cookie is stored in the browser, information on the server  about one’s visits to the site are extended by each visit.

First-party cookies are the cookies set by the visited website and they store information about our using the site. However many other cookies are kept in our browser from websites we have never visited.