Re-using Login

It is critical for online security that you never re-use the login for one site anywhere else.

Why is this? When one site is broken into, user login is normally one of the key targets for any criminal hacker. Through these they can break-in at more locations, except it will (mostly) look as if it was you who logged in and then did whatever. Sometimes this is simply to collect other people's online identities, other times is to use your login as a springboard to break-in to the service you are on. Each time you are left to clean up the mess.

Having a really secure password won't be sufficient as they, in the above case, have bypassed your login entirely and gained access to everyone there.

There is a new concept floating around which saves logins where you can add your login from, for example, Facebook and Google. The bad part is that when they get broken into your access would then be violated across all the sites where you saved your efforts using that service.

The idea, presented to you the user, is that they will monitor for break-ins across the internet and when identified will notify you. However who are these two particular organizations? They track more people's usage than probably anyone else, using their service means you are making it easy for them to keep track of you.

Security is one of the LEAST understood subject across governments, institutions, corporations and general users. It is unpleasant to deal with and especially online requires a very deep understanding and or someone you can trust who will help you stay secure.

Criminal hackers are doing what hackers have always done, which is looking under the hood to see how things work, except they do it at your expense, and usually in violation of laws, and often at great expense to the ones attacked.

A better solution is probably to keep a good password manager on your computer and a more secure Operating System such as Linux, or one of the BSD's. Apple is using a modified version of BSD which makes it really reliable, but again the big corporations make money tracking you, and Apple is as bad as the rest. (Though they hide behind helping their users from getting violated by others.)

Most of you have all heard about end-to-end encryption where nobody in between two phone can listen in, Signal is the only one of those service providers who use a proper encryption to stop others from 'listening'. That is unless the device is doing the listening.

Apple introduced this feature where they would protect you from getting pornographic pictures sent to you from some other phone. Now, if you have end-to-end encryption, how would Apple know to block it, you might wonder? Ah, this 'think of the children' abused excuse is how. To be able to block anything before you see it their phone spies on your traffic.

Unfortunately spying on you is a massive business, enough to do just about anything to get it. Of course any arm of the government does not need to spy on you if they feel they need to. All they have to do is to visit one of the big corporations and get it from them. Don't put ANYTHING online that you are not willing to end up anywhere. This does not apply to all as Home Land Security are already tapping the internet on multiple location across the world. (The internet is built on top of phone companies connections. Since the internet is passing through phone companies you simply pick a key point where it passing through and listen in. This is old news from the -90's.)

My point with sharing the above is to give you some insight into what is far bigger, far more established and well known than people tend to realize. Having personal online security and to not be treated better than a criminal is a hard fight, though it is still possible through what is called Open Source.

Open Source is where you have access the blue-print of the technology on question, for example how to build or make something, including computer programs. The how-to is not a closed secret but available to anyone who is interested. 60-70% of the internet is built on Open Source, as is this website.

There are phones that are not made by large corporations, phones that does not do any covert tracking. Service who does not sell you out for money or anything because some people still believe in personal integrity and treating people the way they want to be treated. This service owes its existence to all those who abuse everyone for personal gain, and or plain ignorance.