Privacy Rating Scale (PRS)

In addition to discussing various current events affecting privacy, I also plan to develop actionable ways for you to maximize your privacy.  For ease of discussion I will call these Privacy Action Plans (PAPs).  Privacy Action Plans will be actual things you can do to maximize your privacy.  Some of them will be simple, some will seem very difficult.  The point of developing these plans is to offer privacy options for those who are concerned about it.  Each option will have a different perceived level of difficulty depending upon each individual's desire for privacy.  If you really want absolute privacy, it may not be a big deal to run a wired communication line down the street over to your neighbor's house.  Other people may think, 'that's way too much trouble.'  The thought behind presenting all ideas is to give you options and make you think.

As part of developing ways for you to maximize your privacy, I also have developed a Privacy Rating Scale (PRS) to give an indication of how private a particular PAP is.  I reserve the right to adjust these as we move forward in our discovery of ways to enhance our privacy, but here is my initial scale:

Level 1 - This PAP will offer only slight privacy, such as protection from your spouse, children or other family members.

Level 2 - This PAP will offer a little more protection than Level 1, such as protection from people doing a cursory search for you on the internet.

Level 3 - This PAP will offer a substantial protection from anybody who isn't deliberately tracking you.

Level 4 - This PAP will offer nearly guaranteed anonymity from anybody and everybody, even those deliberately tracking you.

Level 0 - There is no level of privacy available legally.

I also plan to have an index of all PAPs with a link back to the post discussing the PAP as well as the assigned PRS number.

Why Privacy is Important to Me

Like many Americans, I read George Orwell's novel "1984" in high school.  The entire book is available here for free.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.  The surveillance state depicted in the novel was frightening, but seemed so far fetched to my 16 year old self that I dismissed it as impossible.  We would never find ourselves living in such a world.  I still remember vividly the imagery of Winston and Julia, who escaped into the woods to be alone and intimate together out of sight of the cameras.  The whole book was drab and disconcerting, except for the parts when they were out of sight of 'The Party'.

I never really thought much about the book again until the recent Edward Snowden revelations about all of the spying that has been happening by our government.  Even after learning of the spying and thinking about all of the ways that our information is being collected, analyzed, cataloged and stored, I didn't fully appreciate it until I was having lunch with a friend of mine and I found myself eerily content in our mundane conversation.  It wasn't the delicious sandwiches.  I realized that everything that we were saying to each other was totally private.  Nothing I said was being recorded, analyzed or stored.  We were two random people, sitting in a restaurant talking quietly.  It felt free.  And I felt happy.  By the way, this would be an appropriate time to reveal that I am not the criminal type at all.  I don't have a mind for crime and I don't condone any sort of criminal activity.  I have no record except for a few traffic citations over the years.  So my conversations with my friends always revolves around family, politics, money, work and other things that would bore non-stakeholders to tears.

But ever since I felt free having that 'private conversation' over lunch with my friend, I have been paying attention to everything that I do.  Of my daily activities, most everything is tracked, from paying for groceries with a credit card, to buying things at warehouse clubs where they scan your membership card to ATM withdrawals to going through a toll booth on a road.

When I find a little piece of something that isn't trackable, like simply going for a walk or paying cash for something I need, I get that same excited feeling as Winston had when he was out of view of the cameras in 1984 and the feeling I had with my friend at our anonymous lunch.  It nurtures a primal instinct inside of me that longs for freedom.  It makes me smile.

I hope this blog helps you discover and enjoy that feeling as well.

Welcome to Uncommon Privacy

Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite.
Marlon Brando
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/privacy.html#TKZkMOs6VqkjgRv1.99

This blog is for people who cherish their privacy and are concerned about losing it.  Each of us already does things to maintain our privacy and protect ourselves.  We seal our mail before we send it.  We close the door before using the restroom.  Many take care when entering our PIN at the ATM.  Some of us guard our social security numbers by asking 'why do you need this' when someone asks.  Privacy makes each of us an individual and is necessary for our own individual well-being and freedom.

If you have been paying any attention to the news lately, you have probably heard news stories about how our privacy is being lost to hackers, websites, IP cams, big box stores, cell phone apps, internet service providers, RF chips, corporations and even our own government.  There are numerous news sources and blogs out there detailing what is happening and many political blogs reflecting why this is happening.  I am not creating this blog to rehash those points.  I am creating this blog to discover answers about exactly what the privacy minded among us can do to maximize our privacy.

This blog cannot succeed with only me looking for solutions.  I hope to gain privacy minded readers who can contribute to the conversation by suggesting ideas of their own, challenging my ideas and or delving deeper into solutions proposed by myself or others.  I would also like to have a dialogue about how someone can get something done privately.  For example, perhaps you want to have Chinese food delivered to someone who lives across the country and you don't want anyone to know who you are, not the Chinese food place and not even the credit card company.  Is this at all possible?  If so, how could it be done?

I will publish guest posts for anyone who writes something up.  Sort of like a guest host on a television show.  If you have ideas and would like them discussed here, please submit them to uncommonprivacy@gmail.com and I will publish them on your behalf, even anonymously if you would prefer.

Everything I plan to post on here and recommend will be legal as far as I know (I am not a lawyer.  I am in the State of Florida so check with your own state to make sure any of these suggestions are legal there).  Anything I believe to be illegal will be indicated as such (such as stealing someone's credit card to order the Chinese food discussed above - obviously a criminal act).  I hope to offer simple, legal, common sense solutions that most anyone can use to protect themselves against the growing number of privacy threats we face each day.

I do not plan on moderating any comments except for three things:

1.  Spam - obviously
2.  Political opinions - there are plenty of political opinion websites out there.  I don't care if it was Bush's fault or Obama's fault or what.  I do care about salient points as to why something is happening but as soon as the conversation turns political I will stop it and ask that it carry on someplace else.
3.  Opinions about Google - I know the company was implicated in the Snowden leaks but they are hosting this blog and I would like for them to continue to do so.

In the coming days I plan on developing a privacy scale rating for recommendations.  The lowest level may offer privacy from your spouse or children, for example, while the highest level would provide privacy from everyone up to and including the government.

Welcome to Uncommon Privacy.

"Privacy is not something I am merely entitled to, it is an absolute prerequisite."  ~Marlon Brando