Business Insider: 5 Quick And Easy Ways To Encrypt Your Life Safely In Less Than An Hour.

The use of mobile and computers’ become so common that we probably don’t even know our personal information secretly leaks to others.

Just try to recall how many public figures’ personal information or photos leaked to the public over the last 10 years. And look at what’s just recently happened to Emma Watson and Amanda Seyfriend with their private photos on the phone got hacked.

In fact, the leakage of personal information has become so easily that even the FBI director covered his personal laptop’s webcam with a piece of tape. He suggested us to cover our in-computer webcam with a tape because this is an essential security step that everyone should take.

Director James Comey said during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,^[1]

“There’s some sensible things you should be doing, and that’s one of them. You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen. You do that so that people who don’t have authority don’t look at you. I think that’s a good thing.”

So, how what do we do to protect our privacy and encrypt our life?

Doubling up the safeness – Use two-factor authentication for your email account.

Lots of our social media or online tools accounts are connected with our email account. If your email account gets hacked, besides having your email information and contact list leaked, all the other connected accounts will be affected too.

So, to enhance the security of your inbox, turn on two-factor authentication for your inbox. With it, you have an extra layer of security to protect your account information.

If you’re a Gmail user, just activate your 2-step verification here .

If your device will go online, always encrypt your hard drive.

For Mac users, follow these steps to turn on the encryption:

1. Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, and click Security & Privacy.
2. Click the FileVault tab.
3. Click the Lock Locked button, and then enter an administrator name and password.
4. Click Turn On FileVault.

For Windows users, you’ll need to make use of BitLocker to turn on drive encryption, find out more here .

Want a private and secure chat with your friends? Use Signal instead of Whatsapp!

Why Signal? Because it’s recommended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as one of the most secured messaging app.^[2] It’s also free, worldwide, encrypted text messages, photos, videos and voice calls for iPhone and Android devices.

You can install Signal here and invite all your friends and family to join and you no longer need to worry about leakage of private messages.

Browse in private with Tor because incognito isn’t as safe as you think.

Do you know that even if you use Chrome’s Incognito Mode, the internet service providers, system administrators who are in charge of your network and the browser companies like Google can still pry about your browsing activities?

For private browsing, use Tor. Tor stands for “The Onion Router” and it actually has the meaning of having many layers like an onion for better protection of the core — your privacy.

Install the Tor app on your iPhone here or Android phone here and browse the internet with privacy assured.

If Tor isn’t enough for you, try DuckDuckGo.

Besides internet browsing, you can also keep your search private with DuckDuckGo.

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn’t track you. The search engine may not be having as many items available for searching, but you can just prefix your search with !google and get encrypted Google searches.

You can add DuckDuckGo to Chrome for free here. Or simply install the DuckDuckGo app on your iPhone or Android phone.

Anna Chui

Anna is a communication expert and a life enthusiast. She’s the editor of Lifehack and loves to write about love, life, and passion. Read full profile

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