What is Security Quest?

I don’t know about you guys, but between the FBI’s new “domestic terrorism” surveillance center and the DHS demanding Instagram hand over the names and numbers behind anti-ICE activist accounts, I’m starting to get a little paranoid about my search history. I’ve spent most of my stupid Zoomer life on the internet, and I haven’t exactly kept my feeds MAGA-friendly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning on cleaning house, or shutting up. But I should probably go about my alleged domestic terrorism a little bit more carefully. The time to get serious about digital security is nigh.

I imagine there are a lot of other people out there in my position—using the same one or two passwords for as many accounts as possible, handing out email addresses to free trial after free trial, reflexively refusing to set up 2-factor authentication, choosing convenience over security more often than not. That’s why I think I make a good case study to learn from. You can’t be much more of a novice than me!

I’ll be updating the Security Quest blog with the steps I make towards getting Big Brother off my back. You’ll get reviews of tools I’m trying out, tips for managing cookies and passwords, plus a litany of my many security mistakes (and how I’m correcting them).

This page will act as a backgrounder and episode guide. I’ll compile my research on exploitative tech companies below, and tell you which Security Quest post will help you vanquish the foe that hath beset you.

Follow and learn along with me, and hopefully, we’ll start to take our data back from the Trumpian surveillance state. Bit by bit.

Google

Episodes: II, III

Google’s business is surveillance. Most of the tech giant’s revenue (67%) comes from auctioning off ad space in Google searches, affiliated webpages, and in YouTube videos. Advertisers are willing to participate in a competitive bidding war because they’re competing for something much more valuable than a simple ad slot on a page—direct access to you. Google uses your data (searches, interactions, digital habits, email subscriptions, location data, and movements) to build a consumer profile. Advertisers can select the type of profiles they want to target and bid for the ad spaces that those specific individuals will see.

And once you’ve been profiled, there’s no guarantee that Google will keep your information to itself. The company has a history of retracting and breaking security promises. It has turned over users’ data to ICE without warning, it’s been charged with ignoring privacy settings, and it has provided its AI models to the government in apparent violation of its own pledge to not apply AI in “surveillance violating internationally accepted norms.”

Google’s motto used to be “Don’t Be Evil.” In 2015, the motto changed with the formation of its parent company, Alphabet. In 2018, almost all references to the old motto disapeared from Google’s code of conduct. And in 2021, three software engineers were fired after they organized an employee protest against Google “doing evil.”

Apple

Episodes: III

Apple has worked hard to cultivate an image of security, and I certainly trust it more than I trust Google. But Apple is a mega-corporation like any other—loyal to profit above anything else, including its own customers. For years, the company has been accused of inflicting pointless proprietary tech (like Lightning charging cables) and planned obsolescence on its user base. Its “walled garden” of products is designed to trap you, your messages, your photos, your fingerprints, the last known location of your loved ones, in the iCloud ecosystem. Apple promises this system is private and secure, but it gives itself access to your data by default (you can turn on Advanced Data Protection, but not for email, contact, or calendar info stored in iCloud). And even encrypted, when the sensitive data of millions of people falls under the control of one company, it becomes an easy target for government surveillance efforts. Besides, Apple has demonstrated that it is willing to bend over backwards to make the Trump administration, and particularly ICE, happy.