Archives for September 2024

Update Date: January 25, 2025

The following provides an index to all posts in the series: Going Digitally Green – Reducing Your Digital Exhaust.

I’ve ordered the posts from earliest to latest. Later posts reference earlier posts and I’ve put the most important information up front. As I publish new material, I will add them to the index and change the update date. I hope this will make it easier to navigate to the new material.

Preliminaries:

• Introduction
• Caveats
• The Threat
• Your Privacy
• Show Me the Money
• It’s a Jungle Out There
• The Roadmap

Securing Your Digital Devices – Backup and Recovery:

• Backup and Recovery (1 of 6)
• Backup and Recovery (2 of 6)
• Backup and Recovery (3 of 6)
• Backup and Recovery (4 of 6)
• Backup and Recovery (5 of 6)
• Backup and Recovery (6 of 6)

Securing Your Digital Devices – Password Management: Updated January 2025

• Password Management (1 of 4)
• Password Management (2 of 4)
• Password Management (3 of 4)
• Password Management (4 of 4)

Securing Your Digital Devices – Virus and Malware Protection

• Virus and Malware Protection (1 of 3)
• Virus and Malware Protection (2 of 3)
• Virus and Malware Protection (3 of 3)

Securing Your Digital Devices – Additional Security Configuration:

• Full Disk Encryption
• Enable Automatic Updates
• Secure File Deletion

Securing Your Digital Devices – Managing Privacy Permissions:

• Managing Privacy Permissions in Windows (1 of 3)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in Windows (2 of 3)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in Windows (3 of 3)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in macOS (1 of 2)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in macOS (2 of 2)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in iOS (1 of 2)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in iOS (2 of 2)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in Android OS (1 of 2)
• Managing Privacy Permissions in Android OS (2 of 2)
• Managing Privacy Permissions: Alice and Bob

Securing Your Digital Devices – Interludes:

• Freeze Your Credit
• Don’t Get Scammed
• Social Networking
• Tracking a Lost Device
• Locking Your Phone Account

Securing Your Digital Devices – Well Done:

• Congratulations and Well Done

Accessing the Internet – Virtual Private Networks:

• Virtual Private Networks (1 of 2)
• Virtual Private Networks (2 of 2)

Accessing the Internet – Private Web Browsing: Updated January 2025

• Private Web Browsing (1 of 2)
• Private Web Browsing (2 of 2)

Accessing the Internet – Private Web Search

• Private Web Search

Accessing the Internet – Private Text Messaging

• Private Text Messaging

Accessing the Internet – Private Email

• Private Email (1 of 2)
• Private Email (2 of 2)

Accessing the Internet – Interludes:

• Securely Donating or Selling a Device
• Managing Metadata in Photos
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Virtual Credit Cards
• Privacy-Focused Social Netw0rking

Accessing the Internet – Well Done

• Congratulations and Well Done (Again)

 

“Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.” Miracle Max in The Princess Bride.

And there’s a big difference between mostly deleted and all deleted.

Deleting a file in Windows using the File Explorer, or an application, does not delete the file. It moves the file to the Recycle Bin. From there, you can restore the file to its original location unchanged. Emptying the Recycle Bin will not erase the file contents from your internal disk drive. You can still recover the file until a new file overwrites its contents on the drive. If the file contains sensitive content, this could present a privacy risk. The same is true on macOS. Sending a file to Trash does not delete the file contents.

To completely and securely delete a file, a secure file wipe is required. A secure file wipe overwrites the physical location of the file on the disk with random characters obscuring the original contents.

To securely delete a file in Windows, I recommend Bleachbit. It’s free. You can find it at: https://www.bleachbit.org/ .

In macOS, use “Secure Empty Trash” to wipe file contents.

No special actions are required on iOS or Android.

During normal operations, your internal disk will accumulate bits and pieces of files in what is called “free space”. Until the operating system writes to it, the “free space” remains unaltered, allowing for recovery of old bits of data. To remedy this vulnerability, it is prudent to occasionally wipe the free space and overwrite the old data.

Bleachbit provides this capability on Windows. On macOS, use the Disk Utility to wipe free space. Note that on a large disk drive, wiping free space can take some time.

If deleted files containing sensitive data, make sure they are completely and securely wiped from your disk drive.

Information provided in this post is subject to the disclaimer in the first post of this series.