How to shield calls, chats, & browsing from surveillance.

If you have followed the startling revelations about the scope of the U.S. government's surveillance efforts, you may have thought you were reading about the end of privacy. But even when faced with the most ubiquitous of modern surveillance, there are ways to keep your communications away from prying eyes.

First, instead of browsing the Internet in a way that reveals your IP address, you can mask your identity by using an anonymizing tool like Tor or by connecting to the Web using a Virtual Private Network. Additionally, you can avoid Google search by using an alternative like Ixquick, which has solid privacy credentials and says it does not log any IP addresses or search terms or share information with third parties.

When it comes to sending emails, if you are using a commercial provider that has been linked to the PRISM spy initiative, you can throw a spanner in the NSA's works by learning how to send and receive encrypted emails. PGP or its free cousin GPG are considered the standard for email security, and these can be used to both encrypt and decrypt messages — meaning you can thwart surveillance unless you are unlucky enough to have Trojan spyware installed on your computer.

More here: http://www.njeffersonnews.com/community-news-network/x120730585/How-to-shield-calls-chats-browsing-from-surveillance