Blog Archives

5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe & Anonymous on the Internet [Infographic]

9/25/2018

In the past month we've discussed the internet's pension,
both technologically, and culturally, to out you.

But the internet's not doing this because it's bad. It's because all the people who architect the websites and social channels you frequent think they're being helpful. If they learn everything about you before you talk to them, they can better serve your needs.

But we know here at RESCQU NET, that your number one priority as a questioning, closeted, stealth, or under-resourced LGBT+ person is to be safe, secure, anonymous and in control while searching the internet for LGBT+ resources that are vital to you.

So today we've whipped up a handy Infographic that turns our current blog, How to keep your LGBTQ+ identity hidden online, into 5 steps.

Quick Note Though: be sure to check in on the blog because we continually add to it and put a few more tricks up your sleeve (lookin' at you, teens).

1. Create A Separate Email Address

With all of the personal information the internet can view, the safest place for a closeted individual is in their private email inbox, but even that's worrisome.

Create a seperate, secure, non-gmail related email to collect resources.

2. Use Private Browsing Modes

The second you leave your inbox, visit a website, or fill out a form, the internet uses data-tracking systems to record your presence.

To prevent this, find and use your browser's private or "incognito" mode.

3. Remove Yourself From History

Even in private mode, people can peak at your computer's search history if they gain access to it. Remember to always log out, clear files you've downloaded...

...and delete your search history with a program like CCleaner.

4. Find The Right Times AND Places

The old adage, "hide a tree in a forest", applies here. If your spaces are not safe, consider using library computers, cafe Wi-Fi, or public resources, to access ours.

Interact with us when you feel safest, and know you're ready.

5. Anonymously Collect Resources

Learn more about the community and safely acquire information, support, & LGBTQ+ resources on the living, blog post below; How to keep your LGBTQ+ identity hidden online.

Learn more Cool Tricks to Stay anonymous

Author & Illustrator: Samantha V. Logan

Samantha is the Executive Director of RESCQU.NET, an online Community Manager, and full-stack marketer. She launched Trans* Youth Channel in 2013 to record her transition and help other transgender people online transition safely. She saw a need to protect people who weren't out yet, and transitioned the organization to make the site you see today.

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How many conversations does it take to convince people you’re bisexual?

9/15/2018

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4.1% of the US population (minimum) consider
the following questions every day:

When did you know that you're [insert gender here]?
When did you know that you liked [insert gender(s)
you're attracted to]?

If you feel you may be one of those 4.1% I want you to know, up front, I am here for you. This blog is intended to provide you
support, friendship, and the resources you need. You’re not alone.

For the other 95.9% of the population, I’d like to ask:

Have you ever considered having to defend your
sexual preferences before now?
How much thought did you really have to put into it?
Have you ever had to carefully word your answers in fear
of someone responding negatively to them?

“When did you come out?”
...is a frustrating question for a lot of people, including myself and contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t just happen once. As a bisexual woman engaged to a man, this question is never-ending. I usually answer via memorized script:

“I guess I technically came out in the eighth grade to my best friends, I came out in the ninth grade to all non-family, and to my parents my junior year of high school, when I got my first serious girlfriend."

After being “out” for eight years, this is still the best response that I plan to come up with.

I am exhausted from having to think about it so much. It’s like being in one class and having a teacher call on you ten times in a row to answer the same question. Then the teacher is disturbed by your anger the tenth time around when you snap.

I am comfortable with my sexuality, but you need to be comfortable believing that.
Everyone else seems to need more information before I am allowed to call myself “bisexual.” I’m in a relationship with a woman? Clearly, I’ve just chosen a side. I’m in a relationship with a man? Welp, I’m clearly not LGBTQ anymore.

I am not a book to be analyzed or a film to be critiqued, yet everyone seems to have their own opinion based on my actions, rather than just believing how I feel.

This constant parade of questions is mentally exhausting, and emotionally deteriorating.

Blogger McKenna Ferguson explains the effects of this constant doubt best in her piece, “If You’re Going to Mislabel My Bisexuality, Just Don’t Call Me Straight.” She goes through, in excrutiating detail, her problems gaining access to LGBTQ spaces because of being mislabeled.

So, to be clear: I am the B in LGBTQ+, and I need these spaces, too.

It is embarrassing and disheartening to go to a support group and have to defend my right to be there. It’s a place I go for safety and comfort, but it’s almost worse than explaining my sexuality to straight people because there is this sense that I’m trying to invade and even steal away people’s “safe space.”

This problem tends to arise because of people’s understanding (or lack thereof) of bisexuality.
You see, there’s this new phrase floating around: “practicing bisexual.”

It was probably made most famous in an interview between Larry King and Anna Paquin. [the bisexuality comment happens around -11 min]. If you’d rather not watch the clip, here’s the short version:

King insists that Paquin cannot be a practicing bisexual because she’s married. She is clearly uncomfortable with this definition and sticks to her guns that she can be married and bisexual. I am totally with her.I would say that I am a “practicing bisexual” because I am actively alive and bisexual.

I’m not saying that Larry King invented this idea that bisexuals are irrelevant once they're in a monogamous relationship, but he did give it a word and made it more real for people who already were in that mindset. So now, we as bisexual people, have to deal with it.

All of this has added up to one ongoing hurdle bi/pan people deal with: the “out” questions.

To a lot of people, after answering the questions, I am too straight to be gay and too gay to be straight or confused or lying for attention. I am certain that I am not alone in this hurdle.

So if you’re...
questioning your sexuality, if you experience bi-erasure, feel you have no support because people think you don’t belong in the community, or you or someone you know has struggled with this, I have a resource for you:

Consider joining the online support group: Bittersweet. We started it specifically to solve this problem. I sooo wish I had this group when I was discovering my identity and I’m glad you have it now.

You can sign up here. The next meeting is LITERALLY TONIGHT! I'll likely see you there <3

About Erin Tschudi

Erin is the volunteer with the largest tenure here at RESCQU.NET because it allows her to keep connected with the LGBT+ community. As a bi woman who is soon to be getting married to her future husband she feels deeply for the community and wants to keep that connection. So she works to train our volunteers, welcome our new community members, and keep the wheels turning.

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Why I Started Bitter/Sweet & How Our First Group Went

9/10/2018

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Hello, my name is Lane....

And despite my constantly busy life, I've never stopped trying to find ways to give a little bit more of my time to under-privileged communities.

I’ve worked as a counselor for troubled youth, I’ve participated in local LGBTQ+ support groups, and in college I ran a queer identified women's' support group called QWEEN (it's still running actually).

And as a married bisexual woman I've experienced more bi-erasure than I could wish on anyone - from both straight and queer communities. Even during my time running QWEEN at college, I can recall more than one instance of being questioned for allowing bi/pan individuals as regular members.

Much of why I feel tension exists within the community about bisexuality is because we do honestly have the privilege of living under the radar. At the time same time, however, that means our identity is usually not acknowledged or given a safe space to exist. It’s a Bitter / Sweet experience.

So about a month ago, Samantha, RESCQU NET's Executive Director, contacted me about a new support group program we're now officially launching next week (18th)!

Based on my previous support group experience, facilitating seemed like a role I could easily step into and a great opportunity to help support the community. I was happy to join the newly formed team.

During our initial talks, we tried to narrow down what direction this group would take and the one that stood out to me personally was leading a group for bisexual individuals who feel their identity is more often than not swept under the rug.

With this group, Bitter / Sweet, I can support Bi and queer people like me, and help the straight individuals in their lives who don’t understand.

As a married bisexual woman I've experienced more Bi-erasure than I could wish on anyone - from both straight and queer communities. ~ Lane Ramsay

As the day of the first meeting grew nearer, my anxiety was building up. I wanted to make sure that this group was successful and that those who reached out would feel secure and safe coming back to each meeting. The hour before the group I was pacing across my living room. My husband had to calm me down and force me to take a few deep breaths.

The group officially began and after some nervous introductions, we jumped right into members detailing stories about their experiences.

There was point about halfway through the meeting when things started to flow more naturally and members felt more comfortable with one another. Questions were asked, advice was given, and thoughts and personal experiences were shared between the group members.

Each person seemed more than willing to open up and I started to see the members form bonds out of their shared experiences. I felt relieved, and happy to see the potential of Bitter / Sweet.

So, can you do us a quick favor?
In an effort to make sure Bitter / Sweet continues we are doing all we can to reach out to the larger community. We need your help to spread the word to those who could also benefit from this space.

The resources shared between members will benefit each person who attends and serve as a reminder that they are not alone, they do exist, and they need resources just like everyone else.

Help us out by Sharing this article, and if you believe in this group like I do, donate $10 dollars to fund our next group!

How to keep your identity hidden online

Why the web is built to out you

Author: Lane Ramsay

Lane is the Facilitator of the newly formed Bisexual / Pansexual group Bitter / Sweet. She's spent most of her life counseling troubled youth and the LGBT+ community. She's recently married her husband and experiences the same Bi-erasure she is counseling for with us now. Join her group!

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Why the Web is Built to “Out” you, and How You Can Avoid It

9/6/2018

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Since the internet discovered how to monetize social media, websites have become increasingly focused on you - the consumer - and your data as the product.

This has put capturing your data front-and-center for business and the ways it captures that data is rarely clear.

Still, the Facebook real-names policy and the Cambridge Analytica scandal have proven that blindly providing data without consent, is extremely dangerous if you’re an LGBTQ+ person who hasn’t come out yet.

In this blog we’ll explain why the internet is so hungry for your data and at what point capturing your data becomes intrusive. And of course, we wouldn’t be responsible if we didn’t offer some ways for you to handle it at the end.

Before we start, I’d like to say we are not focusing on the technical aspects of your safety.
We have an entire blog dedicated to keeping you safe online.

Here, we’re gonna focus on the marketing tactics that convince you, to hand over your identity.

Most data is actually fine. It’s just used wrong.

To start off, let’s say it straight. Not all data collection is bad - far from it - but you need to know how and when your identity gets into the hands of people who can “out” you.

This starts with intent.

The first thing that pops into people's heads when they hear about others abusing their online data, is the hacker. Humped over their computer, looking at their screen in a dark room, with your bank account information in their “sites”. This is a stereotype, and it’s very wrong.

The notion of a hacker collecting and abusing your data is a stereotype.
In reality, it's really well-meaning companies trying to cater to your consumer needs.

Hackers serve a lot of different roles on the web. Their intent is defined by the "hat" they are wearing when they work. There are white hats, grey hats, and black hats (and yes, you can think of them like Jedi, Grey Jedi, and Sith Lords). Marketing is the same.

Virtually all online fields break down into these categories.

White hat marketers are people who are trying to market to you online with good intentions and ethics at the top of their mind. These people tend to prescribe to the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) who believe that ads done right, mean ads you care about and want to see, are all you see.

These marketers, and the programmers who build their sites, are geared toward helping you seamlessly attain what you need to go from point A - you need something - to point B - you have it.

To do that, marketers use a variety of “tactics” to get what they need from you without being annoying. Most of these involve the "collection" of “harmless data” called “behavioral tracking”.

To understand how this works, let’s consider the Marketing Funnel.

This is a strategy that suggests you need time to understand what you’re buying. You need to feel comfortable with who your purchasing it from, and make the decision to purchase it.

The idea is:

They will first get your attention,
Then offer a way to stay in contact in exchange for an email or subscription.
They’ll provide a low-ball offer to get you on board and excited,
And hen they’ll provide some information on what they sell.
If you want it, you’ll buy it. And then, hopefully, you'll talk about it.

Each step of the way you provide just a little more data and they'e getting consent to have your data every step of the way.

And this isn't bad.

Our Bisexual/Pansexual support group requires enough information to ensure security for others when you join the group. We have to prove you are who you are, but you are anonymous.

So instead we:

Get your attention to let you know you're traceable online, and show you how to hide,
Offer a weekly digest that provides you all of our resources in exchange for an email,
Publish blogs and deliver content to you with suggestions to join our support groups,
And eventually get you to come to one, enjoy it, and share it with others as a resource.

This works for us as a vetting process for us, and it gives you resources you need without feeling negative about it.

Much of the information websites collect involve this “white hat” level of marketing. A lot of it improves your user experience on the internet, but things get dicey as people begin to follow you around, either to personalize your ads or more devastatingly, sell information about you to ad agencies.

You don’t have control over data collected or it's use

Now let's back up a second.

There’s nothing inherently bad about a website installing a cookie on your computer.

But if that cookie is used by other agencies to identify you, it can be devastating.

A 2014 Time magazine article identified a pregnant woman whose ads discovered she was pregnant before she could tell the father. This is daily life for closeted LGBTQ+ people now, and even with the greatest of precautions...

The internet’s current architecture is built to out you.

In that same Time article, the author tried to remain anonymous on the web about her own pregnancy for all nine months. She didn’t succeed because companies who were tracking her data, were providing that data to companies who had nothing to do with her. She “opted-out” of data collection for one business, but the other businesses she had no idea were watching her, outed her anyway.

This woman was careful. She took greater precautions than we ever recommend, and still, the marketing practices attempting to sell her products she would need, over-zealously outed her as an expecting parent to her friends and family.

According to Andy Yen, “the business model of the Internet today really isn't compatible with privacy. Just take a look at some of the biggest names on the web, and you see that advertising plays a huge role. In fact, this year alone, advertising is $137 billion dollars, and to optimize the ads that are shown to us, companies have to know everything about us.”

So what can you do about it?

So what’s to be done about it?

The answer to what we can do about this is hard. RESCQU NET has been working since 2013 to keep you safe on the internet, but those efforts could only be found in “technology”.

It made sense because it was the only thing you as a closeted, stealth, questioning, or under-resourced LGBT+ person had control of - the device in your hands. You can keep yourself safe by following these rules on our blog about anonymity but we're quickly finding, that's not enough.

As with the reporter who failed to stay anonymous, even after making herself look like a criminal,
this is not everything we can, should, or even must do.

“The business model of the Internet today really isn't compatible with privacy. To optimize the ads that are shown to us, companies have to know everything about us.” ~ Andy Yen

If we are to ensure your safety

we need to be a website that helps you remove your presence from the internet,
by reducing your reliance on the internet.

We will help you move your interactions with LGBT+ resources away from websites, marketing funnels, and emails, and toward unrecorded private channels.

Our online support groups allow you to attain resources in an unrecorded environment. We just started our bisexual/pansexual group, bittersweet, availble September 18th, and it's working well.

We are also committing to changing the way people collect your data by working with our partner organizations to make them more closet-friendly and amenable to anonimity on our resources page.

If you feel lost, need a little extra help, or someone to talk to, consider joining one of our support groups at support.rescqu.net!

Our facilitator Lane created Bitter / Sweet because she was tired of Bi-erasure throwing her into the closet constantly, and she wants to support you too.

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Author: Samantha V Logan

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How to Keep your LGBTQ Identity Hidden Online

9/4/2018

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The Internet holds a wealth of information for people questioning all kinds of things about themselves.

In most cases the internet is extremely helpful - sometimes even lifesaving.

Unfortunately however, every click on a web page, every questionnaire you fill out, every time you give out personal identifying information, you risk “outing” yourself in potentially BIG ways.

To get the information and support we need to understand ourselves, we often have to trade our own identity as a sort of “ticket” to the show.

Your information is highly valuable to other people and you need to protect it.

The key to security, safety, and anonymity is minimizing how much information you provide for what you need. Minimize what leaks out of your own computer or other device, your local network, and the Internet, for others to collect.

This blog covers the basics you can do to cover your tracks on a purely technological level - ranging from the easiest ways, to advanced techniques. It’s not exhaustive and following this doesn’t guarantee 100% protection, but it will help in most circumstances.

I'm also planning to continually update this, so it’s going to get big. Every month we'll ask a new expert in online security to add their own take to this blog post. We'll also order this post from easiest to do, to hardest.

In preparation for that gradual expansion, I’m adding a quick table of contents here. You can check back every month to see the new parts, and I'll be in the comments below to answer questions:

What We'll Cover:

Net-Safety 101:

Net-Safety 201:

Protect your "Location" IP Address using Tor - the onion browser.

**= new!

Use Incognito/private mode and clear your history

Ironically, if you’re reading this and you haven’t done these things below, you’re already at risk. Every major browser has a private or incognito browsing session that you can start.

Before you start doing any searching, exploring, clicking…start a private/incognito session.

You can either click around to find it or use a hotkey to open an incognito or private browsing session
(Ctrl + P for Firefox and IE, Ctrl + N for Chrome, for example).

If you happen to forget to browse privately, you can alternatively clear your browser’s history. Realize, however, if you do have someone looking over your shoulder, seeing an empty history will raise suspicions – usually you can delete history back to a specific time: an hour, a day, etc.

When you clear the browser’s history, clear EVERYTHING. Cookies, and cache store way more information than you will be comfortable with anyone seeing, check every box you can.

Remember, private browsing and dumping your history aren’t silver bullets. Being in incognito mode and logged into those platforms does not protect you from people looking over your shoulder. I've provided some links to the five major browsers' private mode and clearing browser history information:

Firefox private session and clearing history
Chrome private session and clearing history
Edge private session and clearing history
Opera private session and clearing history
IE private session and clearing history

You can Learn more about the importance of private browsing to stop cookies here too!

Out-links are risky. Beware.

Some resources you use will take you out of the platform you're on and over to Facebook, YouTube, or some other platform. Each platform has ways to protect your information, but it’s tricky and they all handle it differently.

For example, if someone else has access to your account on those platforms (say you leave it on all the time on your mobile device and someone else looks through that device), they will still be able to see what you were doing, even with all the privacy settings in the world turned on.

Limit where you go and consider where you are browsing to all the time – I'd like to reiterate that private browsing and dumping your history aren’t silver bullets. There are tools you can use to track how sites use your information but we'll go into those in a later blog as they are a bit complicated.

For now, just remember that different platforms treat your information differently, so be careful when you click on a link that takes you to another site.

How do they do this? Well, they use Cookies so you should know how they work in this blog.

Email isn’t as secure as you think

Companies, schools, and parents all usually have access to official and personal e-mail accounts. If you have to correspond with someone or use an e-mail to gain access to resources or services, you may want to consider, in a private browsing session, creating a new e-mail account that you can use explicitly for research and contacting resources, that is less likely to be compromised.

Signing up for a new Gmail or Hotmail account can work well enough for most people, but these services request personal information, and usually request some way to get back to you, an alternative e-mail and/or phone number. There's also a lot ofother problems with privacy to beware of too.

If you choose to create a new e-mail account, don’t provide any alternative contact information and limit what information you do provide. Keep in mind though, if you forget your password, you will be locked out of that account with no way to recover.

There are alternatives to regular e-mail accounts that allow you to be even more anonymous. Guerrillamail.com, and Fastmail are good examples. Here you get a disposable, one-hour active e-mail account before all the information is GONE.

Get in the habit of logging out and deleting yourself.

On the surface these seem like no-brainers, but convenience is quite the enchantress. Look at how Facebook Messenger took over texting apps by asking you to provide it your whole contacts book.

Logging out:
When you are done accessing your e-mail, or any other resource, be sure to log out of each resource as you finish using it and before closing your browser. Clearing your history or using a private browsing session will help keep prying eyes out, but if your email session stays active, it can still be accessed without knowing your password…so, again, log out!

Deleting files:
If you download any files, including viewing PDF documents, for example, or take notes in a program like a notepad, be sure you delete these items if you think they could contain information that would give up what you’re trying to protect if someone saw it. Downloads are not protected by private/incognito sessions and the file itself is not cleared alongside your browser's download history.

If a document isn’t on a web page, like a Word-format document or a PDF, it has to be downloaded to be viewed. Here are the ways to view what you downloaded in each browser:

How do sites record documents? They use Cookies so you should know how they work in this blog.

Know what your network knows

This one takes some knowing of how the internet works but it could probably save you the most.

Most networks you access are vulnerable to monitoring. Any time you have to log in to a computer, your activity is subject to being recorded. At home, some people use different home network monitoring tools like Disney’s Circle, which will collect things like browsing history from each device in the home in addition to your device's recording. Schools and businesses also often track browsing history. Even more advanced anonymity techniques like using Tor, won’t prevent this kind of tracking.

If the monitoring is sophisticated enough, it’s safer not to use any devices on that network.

Coffee shops and libraries with hotspots or public computers will help protect you if you think your home or office network is being monitored. However, these open networks are often monitored themselves, by people that want your credit card or banking information.

Still, these people are very unlikely to be interested in your searches, so search for the information you need, and don’t buy anything, or access anything “secure” (like a bank account) in public.

Net-safety 201: Hide your net "location"
with Tor - The Onion Browser

Now we're getting to the more "complicated" part of this blog and the first "full-blog" addition. This is more complicated, but can save your parents or ISPs from seeing your activity.

If you'd like to read more on this, we have a full description here.

One of the more advanced ways to protect your identity on the internet is to hide your IP Address - basically the envelope that carries your data to and from so the internet knows your computer is asking for the data and can send what you requested back to you. It works just like snail mail. You send a request and your IP address includes a "from" address. They save that address to their address book and send what you requested back to you.

Tor, the onion browser puts several other senders between you, and the destination, which anonymizes your IP address under several layers of protection (hence the onion metaphor).

Read the full article on Tor to better understand Tor's benefit to keeping you safe

So Let's Recap:

Net-Safety 101:

Net-Safety 201:

Protect your "Location" IP Address using Tor - the onion browser.

To Conclude:

As it stands, these steps will usually be enough to keep you from outing yourself unintentionally. There are more advanced steps you can take to move your anonymity to the next level if you feel you need to do that, such as using Tor, Virtual Private Networks, GPG, etc.

A couple of checklists you can follow to utilize these more advanced techniques are here and here for further protecting your privacy, but require more technical prowess.

Stay safe. We're here for you but can only do so much. Let me know if you have any questions.

This Article is curated by Jerri P

Jerri joined RESCQU.NET to assist in attaining secure and safe technological systems. Jerry did their masters in computer technology on computer languages and enforcing SSL documentation. They now help us with the closet-friendly partner organization program, and inform you of the dangers of searching the internet unprotected.

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Good Stories are Powerful Lifelines.

5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe & Anonymous on the Internet [Infographic]

1. Create A Separate Email Address

2. Use Private Browsing Modes

3. Remove Yourself From History

4. Find The Right Times AND Places

5. Anonymously Collect Resources

Author & Illustrator: Samantha V. Logan

How many conversations does it take to convince people you’re bisexual?

This constant parade of questions is mentally exhausting, and emotionally deteriorating.

About Erin Tschudi

Why I Started Bitter/Sweet & How Our First Group Went

Author: Lane Ramsay

Why the Web is Built to “Out” you, and How You Can Avoid It

Most data is actually fine. It’s just used wrong.

You don’t have control over data collected or it's use

So what’s to be done about it?

Author: Samantha V Logan

How to Keep your LGBTQ Identity Hidden Online

What We'll Cover:

Use Incognito/private mode and clear your history

Out-links are risky. Beware.

Email isn’t as secure as you think

Get in the habit of logging out and deleting yourself.

Know what your network knows

Net-safety 201: Hide your net "location"
with Tor - The Onion Browser

So Let's Recap:

To Conclude:

This Article is curated by Jerri P

Community Voices

Categories

Archives

Good Stories are Powerful Lifelines.

5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe & Anonymous on the Internet [Infographic]

1. Create A Separate Email Address

2. Use Private Browsing Modes

3. ​Remove Yourself From History

4. Find The Right Times AND Places

5. Anonymously Collect Resources

Author & Illustrator: Samantha V. Logan

How many conversations does it take to convince people you’re bisexual?

This constant parade of questions is mentally exhausting, and emotionally deteriorating.

About Erin Tschudi

Why I Started Bitter/Sweet & How Our First Group Went

Author: Lane Ramsay

Why the Web is Built to “Out” you, and How You Can Avoid It

Most data is actually fine. It’s just used wrong.

You don’t have control over data collected or it's use

So what’s to be done about it?

Author: Samantha V Logan

How to Keep your LGBTQ Identity Hidden Online

What We'll Cover:

Use Incognito/private mode and clear your history

Out-links are risky. Beware.

Email isn’t as secure as you think

Get in the habit of logging out and deleting yourself.

Know what your network knows

Net-safety 201: Hide your net "location" ​with Tor - The Onion Browser

So Let's Recap:

To Conclude:

This Article is curated by Jerri P

Community Voices

Categories

Archives

3. Remove Yourself From History

Net-safety 201: Hide your net "location"
with Tor - The Onion Browser