How Paranoid Are You ?

[509322]

Poll is self-explanatory.

 

[XhenEd]

I voted "Not Paranoid - I have little concern; my protections are sufficient."

I have AppGuard, so why would I be paranoid? I don't fully trust myself, though.

 

[Viking]

Paranoid - I have occasional concerns and doubts about security\privacy protections

- data mining

 

[Deleted Member 3a5v73x]

No paranoia from me, I've become pretty confident which also resulted in more healthier everyday digital life. Privacy is never totally archievable on Windows, I was crazy with all these O&O Shutup, WPD, etc tools, then I realized it's delusional to think data collection started only with Win 10. So basically only telemetry tweak I use in gpedit is set security (0) since I use Edu.

 

[FrFc1908]

I am ultra paranoïd when it comes to my privacy and data mining. Getting hit by a ransom is in second place...

 

[Deleted member 178]

Paranoid? me? hahahahaha no way ! ummmmm....why this process connect and use such CPU...wait, i have to check...

 

[Tiny]

I'd say I was paranoid before joining this forum, but after all I learnt from the discussions and a lot of reading, plus boring browsing habits, I'd say I am pretty much happy with what I have too.

 

[shmu26]

I am both paranoid and perfectionist. It's a brutal combination.

 

[Black Wings]

Paranoid.
Maybe that's why I spend more time on Linux than on Windows.
I'm not saying I'm safe on Linux, I'm saying I'm less paranoid in this system. but that damn partition with Windows 8 ...

 

[roger_m]

I'm not even the slightest bit paranoid.

 

[SHvFl]

Not paranoid at all honestly. I am the least risky user one can probably find as i download nothing.

 

[JiSingh12]

I would say I used be to be very paranoid, once I saw how much fraud and malware etc. were going on now.

However, now I would say im in between not paranoid and slightly paranoid. Thanks to this site )
Reason being I do download games and apps and music etc. & I'm curious and will visit random websites, lol, but I'm happy with my current protection though considering it was all free and recommended mostly through MWT

 

[DeepWeb]

Very paranoid. To me, Windows is swiss cheese. Absolutely no guarantee of security. I run my own local resolver because I don't like the idea of DNS cache poisoning, change my VPN servers regularly, my passwords are at least 32 characters wherever they can be, in my free time I google about post-quantum cryptography and get mad that we haven't switched to those technologies yet. It can never be too early. grrrr I just want the latest and best encryption that I can. I don't look at malware writers as my enemy but the surveillance state. I know I can't do much but I will do the most to make it harder to collect my data. I check for security updates more than twice a day. I rolled back to 1803 from 1809 because my local DNS resolver AND my VPN refuse to work because Microsoft is forcing us to adopt IPv6 which allows them to track us more easily AND then there's the little fact that the latest version of Windows stores your clipboard history. There is a button to disable it but can we know for sure that your clipboard history is truly disabled and not traveling all over the Internet? Now I'm paranoid about how to transfer passwords from my vault to the password field, thank god for auto fill BUT autofill exposes me to the risk of filling in invisible username password fields that have been detected on several websites. And what happens to sample files that these great cloud antiviruses collect? Are they stored in an encrypted way and then discarded?
And then there is the mic and camera on our laptops and phones and hidden chips the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, American spy agencies implant into our devices and CPUs (hello Intel ME). My paranoia is justified, let's not call it that. I would call it healthy skepticism and resistance to surveillance by government and corporate entities without consent.

 

[shmu26]

I am actually getting kind of sick of being a paranoid. Today I installed Bitdefender Internet Security 2019 trial, and I have no other real-time security solutions running, just some OS hardening, thanks to Hard_Configurator and SysHardener.
I am hoping that the reassuring, solid, square Bitdefender icon in my system tray will give me enough psychological security to stop fretting needlessly about digital security. I am a careful user, and that's what counts.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Considering articles I have read, I am ultra-paranoid, that is why I gave up on trying to achieve max privacy.
Instead of trying to be a black sheep amongst white, I try to hide in the croud, like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Just a bunch of news I have read: You can listen to what is being typed at the distance, max was around 500 meters, even behind the wall. You can spy on computer not connected to the internet by monitoring its EM field (it is like ones and zeroes). And lets not get me started on a browser, there are 50 known techniques, how to track users, including mouse movement, yes, you can disable scripting, but that alone produces an unique fingerprint too.

 

[Jimbo791]

Im not paranoid , but I do have a good VPN and AV.
It should be understood the amount of information been gathered about you as you use the web.
How you type ,common spelling mistakes, how you use words, what speed you write at, and how the speed changes as you type.
How you move the mouse, also how fast you click it
What web pages you use
How long it takes you to read something
What level of "protection" your PC has.
All this info and a lot more can ID you as you use the web
All in all with this info not too hard to find who you are.
So if TPTB want to find you nothing will stop them, TOR gives very little protection because of all the info they have collected about you.

 

[Jimbo791]

I just got a note from a friend who uses windscribe VPN ( I also use this VPN ) . They say that they checked with ipleak.net 3 or 4 times a day for 4 weeks( they are on the net 8 to 10 hours a day for work) and twice there true country and ISP was shown, however when they reran the test after it showed the "leak" the VPN worked a 100%. ( they are using all the windscribe apps).
To be honest I think they are mistaken, but has anyone else found this "random" leak with windscribe ??

 

[Deleted Member 3a5v73x]

has anyone else found this "random" leak with windscribe ??

Yes, it's there.

 

[roger_m]

I just got a note from a friend who uses windscribe VPN ( I also use this VPN ) . They say that they checked with ipleak.net 3 or 4 times a day for 4 weeks( they are on the net 8 to 10 hours a day for work) and twice there true country and ISP was shown

I've ran two tests at ipleak.net tonight and there was no leak, Of course, the results from just two tests don't mean a lot. This is what Windscribe themselves, have to say about leaks.
Windscribe

If you are testing for DNS leaks on sites like dnsleaktest.com, ipleak.net or dnsleak.com and it shows you that there is a DNS leak (especially on the last one), it usually does not actually mean that there is a DNS leak. If the DNS server IP is in the same country as the location you're connected to, but the IP itself is not equal to the IP that you're actually assigned, that's not an issue.

When you connect to a Windscribe location, you get a random IP address, however the DNS server for each location runs on the same IP, so they usually will not match. All DNS queries are made over the tunnel, which eliminates the chance of an IP leak entirely, since you won't be able to resolve DNS if there is an issue with the tunnel. You can verify this by running the nslookup command in your Terminal / command line.

 

[Jimbo791]

Yes, it's there.

Hmm I shall change VPNs till this is sorted out. I will e-mail windscribe and see what they say