Privacy for Linkedin

A few tips regarding privacy on using LinkedIn.

1. Click on your little photo on the Top-Right of LinkedIn page (after you have signed in)

2. When the Drop Down menu appears, choose "Privacy and Settings"
Then it will present on the bottom half of the page, four tabs on the left side:
- Profile
- Communications
- Groups, Companies & Applications
- Accounts

Choose Profile



3. Stealth Mode 
A.
After choosing Profile, then under the Privacy Control, choose:
"Turn on/off activity broadcasts"

This appears to be the best option if you are finding job, updating your profile, and don't want your connections to know about your activity.

B.
After choosing Profile, then under the Privacy Control, choose:

"Select who can see your activity feed".

I think this is also needed to be controlled, to be in stealth mode. Choose the "Only you" option.

"Your activity feed displays actions you've performed on LinkedIn. Select who can see your activity feed."




4. Blocking
After choosing Profile, then under the Privacy Control, choose:

"Manage who you are blocking"

Be careful with this because this will break your connection with another person. Although they are not notified, they will know that you are no longer connected if they check their connections list.

"Need to block or report someone? Go to the profile of the person you want to block and select "Block or Report" from the drop-down menu at the top of the profile summary. Note: After you’ve blocked the person, any previous profile views of yours and of the other person will disappear from each of your "Who’s Viewed My Profile" sections.

"

5. Manage your connections 

After choosing Profile, then under the Privacy Control, choose:

"Select who can see your connections."

Not sure how useful this is. The tip says:

"Note: people will still be able to see connections who endorse you and connections they share with you. (Don't want your endorsements visible? Just choose to opt out.)"

Hiding LinkedIn Job Hunting Activity from Your Connections
http://joehertvik.com/hiding-job-hunting-activity-linkedin/


How to Make LinkedIn Updates Without Showing It in the Stream
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/make-linkedin-updates-showing-stream-30625.html


Showing or Hiding Activity Updates About You
How do I control the updates I broadcast about myself?
https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/78/~/showing-or-hiding-activity-updates-about-you


5 LinkedIn Privacy Settings You Need to Know
http://www.cio.com/article/2413757/social-media/5-linkedin-privacy-settings-you-need-to-know.html

5 LinkedIn Privacy Settings For Job Hunters
http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/5-linkedin-privacy-settings-for-job-hunters/d/d-id/1111108?

LinkedIn Best Practices
https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/267/~/account-security-and-privacy---best-practices
Manage Account Settings
https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/66/~/managing-account-settings

Privacy - How To Cover Your Web Surfing Tracks and Internet Presence

When we go Web Surfing or Browsing the Internet with a web browser, we may think it looks like:

                Me  ->  Website

but in fact it is more like

               Me  ->  My Internet Service Provider (ISP)  ->  Website

When a web page appears on your computer, there is no magic - information is passed to and from Me, ISP and Website. Basically, anything about you that can be known, your IP (internet address), location, name you  sign up with, etc, can be obtained by ISP and Website and by others.


There are many valid and legal reasons why people would like to keep their privacy from their ISP and the Websites they visit. So there are ways to Not Reveal to your ISP which websites you visit, and Not Reveal to the Websites where your real location is.

Using VPN

Hotspot Shield - This software connects your computer via a VPN to the servers of HotSpot Shield which then visits the Websites. It looks like this:

               Me  --->           My  ISP              HotSpot Shield Servers -> Website
                              ----> VPN Tunnel ---->

So the Website thinks the visitor came from HotSpot Shield servers, instead of coming from you.
The ISP sees encrypted data and does not know which Website you are requesting to see.

Drawback: Theoretically your information is still known by HotSpot Shield servers. Well you have to trust someone in the end......

Here is a guide to set up VPN in Windows 7
http://www.pcworld.com/article/210562/how_set_up_vpn_in_windows_7.html

VPN Gate - An experimental VPN setup in Japan. Free to join.
http://www.vpngate.net/en/



Using Proxies

From a very high level, proxies work in a similar way to VPN. The key difference is that the traffics is not necessarily encrypted. However, the request to a website is send via another server in the middle, so that the destination website does not know it came from you. Since our information passes through a web proxies, we must trust those web-proxies that we use.

Here are some web-based proxies:
- Proxify - proxify.com

- Anonymouse - anonymouse.org
- Hide My Ass - www.hidemyass.com


There are manual proxy servers which require your browser to be configured to make use of the web proxy. The following sites maintain a list of proxy servers:
- Proxynova - www.proxynova.com
- Hide My Ass - www.hidemyass.com


Other Ways

There are many other ways to cover your tracks. This site http://www.how-to-hide-ip.info/hide-ip-tools/ has a collection of tools that cover a variety of ways, such as:

• Tools on your PC for hiding IP
• Using Proxy in your Web Browser
• Proxy Sites
• Proxy Lists
• IP checking sites
• VPN services

Covering Web Browsing activities: using Tor www.torproject.org

In fact TOR (The Onion Router) is an ongoing and mature project with a lot of features that enable anonymity on the internet. TOR comes with a Bundled Browser with TOR preconfigured. TOR also has something for smart phones (see below).

For Smartphone, Mobile, Android systems: 

• Orbot - this is based on the Tor technology but available to Android on smartphones.

Email Anonymity
Use the following to protect mask your identity when sending emails:
- Anonymouse - anonymouse.org
- Hide My Ass - www.hidemyass.com

When you go to any these sites, your browser security may flag some of these sites to be suspicious. This could be due to their nature to hide identities or the fact that they are suspicious. In any case, make your own decision before visiting these sites.