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BJMendelson.com episodes
- Start Practicing Good Privacy Hygenie Now, Or ElseIn this week's episode of Stupid Sexy Privacy, we explain how and when the American government started spying on its citizens, and why you need to practice good privacy hygiene to keep fascists & weirdos from accessing your Internet connected devices.13 min
- Get Yourself a Privacy Notebook Right NowDo you have a privacy notebook and a password manager? No? Then WTF are you doing dude. You're not safe from fascists and weirdos without them13 min
- Last Words
What are the answers? What kinds of things should go into a privacy bill of rights? This book doesn’t have those answers. However, there are at least two things that I would like to convince people of.
One: you should have the ability to make a profit from your data when it’s collected and put to commercial use.
Two: Terms of Service contracts should be explicit and clear about who is getting your data, what they’re going to do with it, and who the data is going to be shared with. In this episode, I’ll talk more about those two points.
Highlights of this episode include:
- Companies who collect and sell your data make a profit. Why shouldn’t you be included in that?
- You should have the ability to pay social media sites for an ad-free experience
- Why you don’t really have a choice when it comes to Terms of Service contracts
- Terms of Service that require you to agree to convoluted terms to use their services are a form of bullying
- Readers who text the word “sheetrock” to BJ will get a free PDF of his last book, Social Media is Bullshit
Links and Resources:
Text BJ at (646) 331-8341
Email BJ at [email protected]
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
11 min - Then Again, So What?
As we’ve learned over the course of this book, privacy really hasn’t existed since 1917. The question is, what are we going to do about it now? If left to their own devices, companies are going to continue to collect data in creepy ways, and data breaches are going to occur due to poor security. In this episode, I’ll talk about what we can do going forward, as well as about some good news.
Highlights of today’s episode include:
- Changes to Apple’s Safari browser
- Changes to Google Chrome
- The increased availability of tools you can use to protect yourself
- The section on privacy in Washington’s state constitution
- Privacy laws in New York
- How state attorney generals can help enforce privacy laws
- How grassroots organizing can help
- How the threat of changes at the state level could inspire companies to police themselves
Links and resources:
Signal
Tor Browser
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
12 min - What to Know About Your Rights
At this point, you may be asking yourself whether you have any rights when it comes to privacy online. The answer is complicated. Children under 13 are somewhat protected by COPA (the Child Online Protection Act). Celebrities are somewhat protected because of the value of their images and likenesses. However, everyone else is in murkier territory.
You may also wonder what you can possibly do about protecting data privacy. It’s easy to feel apathetic about this issue, or to think that it’s not a big deal if it doesn’t seem to be affecting your daily life. But if the problems with data security are allowed to go on, they could get much further out of control before anything can be done about them.
Highlights of today’s episode include:
- How state representatives can help get laws on the books to protect your privacy
- How independent or non-profit groups could help oversee companies and hold them accountable for their security
- Organizations that are working to address privacy and data protection issues
- How attitudes toward data security and privacy mirror attitudes toward climate change or voting
- How apathy can allow problems with data security to grow
- What the future may look like if data security issues are not addressed
Links and Resources:
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Privacy Coalition
American Civil Liberties Union
United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
Federal Trade Commission
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
13 min - What Happens When My Data’s Stolen?
What happens when your data is stolen? This is a question that everyone needs to consider, because the chances are good that it will happen to you eventually. Remember, your data is valuable not just to companies, but also to criminals. In this episode, I’ll talk about what needs to be done to protect your data.
Highlights of this episode include:
- How the EU’s GDPR regulations are a blueprint for how companies could be held responsible for poor security management in the US.
- How lax security is often responsible for hacks and data breaches
- How common it is for ex-employees to be involved in data breaches
- How phishing is often used to pull of serious data breaches
- An explanation of phishing
- What to do if you get hit with a phishing scam
- What can happen if your identifying data is stolen by a criminal
- Why you should take password management seriously
Links and Resources:
Credit Monitoring by Mint
Annual Credit Reports
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
13 min - Stealing Your Stuff
How are hackers, like those behind the Sony Pictures hack, or the hackers associated with Anonymous or LulzSec, able to do so much damage? The answer is simple: lax security measures, and a lack of interest in spending money to update security features. It doesn’t help that many people are still not good at creating strong passwords and safeguarding them. In this episode, I’ll touch on some aspects of hackers, security breaches, and how they should be handled.
Highlights of today’s episode include:
- How Sony had a file labeled “Passwords” that enabled the hackers that breached their security to do much more damage than they would have otherwise
- How Sony claimed that they had updated their security prior to the hack
- How Yahoo and Equifax faced no consequences for their security breaches
- What kinds of consequences companies should face for being irresponsible with users’ data
- How Wikileaks ended up publishing the personal emails of the Director of the CIA
- An explanation of the deep web
Links and Resources:
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
9 min - In-Store Tracking
What does it look like when brick and mortar stores violate your privacy? How can retail stores use information like your phone number or data about how you move through a store? In this episode, I’ll talk about how retail stores are collecting and using data about their customers and give you some tips for how to prevent them from doing this if you don’t want them to.
Highlights of today’s episode include:
- How your phone’s Wifi broadcasts your location and phone number to other Wifi networks
- How stores can use the movements of their customers through the store to help them determine store layouts
- The possibility of stores sending push notifications to customers while they’re shopping – or even before they decide to go to the store
- Why you should consider turning your location settings, Wifi, and Bluetooth off before going shopping
Links and Resources:
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
12 min - Bonus Episode: DuckDuckGo’s Gabriel Weinberg
In this bonus episode, B.J. Mendelson interviews Gabriel Weinberg from DuckDuckGo about how you can better protect your privacy online.
Highlights of today’s episode include:
- Gabriel’s tips on how to you can protect your privacy right now
- Why you should care about your privacy
- The benefits of using DuckDuckGo, and other privacy tools, instead of Google products.
Links and Resources:
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
You can visit DuckDuckGo here.
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
11 min - They’re All in on It
Online shopping is often blamed for killing brick and mortar retail. It’s true that a lot of brick and mortar stores are closing. But is online shopping really what’s causing them to struggle? In this episode, I’ll talk about what’s really causing the decline of brick and mortar stores, and how some of them are adopting the practices of tech companies.
Highlights of today’s episode include:
- Real statistics about online shopping vs. in-person shopping
- How and why the media contributes to the misconception that online shopping is replacing retail
- How erosion of the middle class, distribution pipelines, and other factors are contributing to the decline of brick and mortar retail stores
- Strategies that some stores are using to track and gather data on customers
- The importance of building relationships that rely on factors other than data to ensure customer loyalty
Links and Resources:
To purchase the book, visit YourPrivacyBook.com
This podcast is powered by PodcastMotor
11 min