What Are Digital Shadows and Why Do They Matter?
"Your data for our free services" has become the maxim of most digital services and tools we use today. How risky is this for activists doing work others in power might not want them to do? How do we resist and challenge this fast-growing 'data norm'? Some ideas and insights.
Your Digital Shadow: Being Present, but Safe
One online password and username across multiple accounts makes your life easier. And the job of anyone who wants to hack your account. Find out how to change this and test the strength of your passwords in the Password Meter.
How Secure is Your Twitter Account?
Millions of tweets are generated every day, who cares about yours? Your tweets could be telling more than you think - about your activities, location and movements. Even protected Twitter accounts can expose you when data from Twitter is shared with other social networking tools like Youtube, Google+ and the FourSquare check-in service.
Trace My Shadow – new and improved!
Our tech team have improved the interface to our interactive 'Trace My Shadow' tool, making it even easier to figure out what data is being shared and stored when you use your mobile phone, shop online or use social networking sites.
Instagram fan? Read the small print!
In the 'Lost in Small Print' section we look at the End User License Agreements we click "I agree" to when signing up for a new service. Visualisations reveal what we are really agreeing to. For example, the popular photo service Instagram collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged in users and for users leaving comments.
Pack your toolbox
In the shadow tracer's kit we present all kinds of tools you can use to explore your traces, resize (change) them and find out how easy it is for others to find out about yours. In recent weeks we've added many new tools including Ghostery, Please don't stalk me, Adblock Plus, Click&Clean, NoScript and the Tor Browser Bundle.
