How to Say No to Trump's Billionaires
Best practices for personal cyber security - and for democracy!
I’m the average American woman of my generation. Whatever I’m doing or thinking, so are millions of others.
For example, in the mid-1960’s in college I wore jumpers with turtlenecks. In the 1980’s when I had a job, I got a mutual fund, and then in the late ‘90’s I got rid of it. Last October when The Washington Post failed to endorse Harris for President, I was one of a quarter million subscribers who cancelled their subscriptions. These are historic facts.
And now I’m one of millions of Americans who are looking for a ways to say NO to the new administration’s savage assault on human rights.
The billionaires who serve the new president are connected to huge enterprises like World Wrestling Entertainment (Linda McMahon, Education Secretary), the Intercontinental Exchange, which owns New York Stock Exchange (Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the SBA Small Business Administration; “small business”, think about this), and the Shift4 Payments processing company (Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator).
And then there’s Google CEO Sundar Pichai, also a billionaire and special guest at Trump’s Inauguration. This one strikes home for me. I’m ready to say NO to Pichai and to Google’s Gmail. And I actually can.
But ending a Gmail account isn’t as easy as unsubscribing from the Washington Post. It’s cutting off a life-support system. But I’m determined to live my values as best I can, so I asked a friend for help. He said,
Yes, I have many suggestions for people to change their online behaviors that increase their security, privacy, and independence.
Here is the information he generously shared with me and with Postcards readers.
Proton Mail for email (and also shared drive / alternative to Google drive, plus rock-solid password manager, and more). Has free capabilities but the paid subscription services really unlock amazing capabilities including more storage.
Also, I like the Proton VPN (Virtual Private Network). There are many VPN providers out there that basically act like an encrypted (shielded) tube direct from your device to any other website or server in a way that cannot be monitored by hackers, or ad trackers, or data mining sites, etc.
The Proton VPN comes as part of the Proton Suite, along with your Proton Mail, Proton Drive, Proton Calendar, and Proton Pass password manager. It’s very easy to set up and move your existing information into. (And each of these Proton tools has its own app for your phone, too.)
I choose Signal for text communications. (It’s like WhatsApp, but is not owned by Meta and was the preference of pre-Trump national security and intelligence agencies).
People must know that conventional SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging through your cell phone provider is easily hackable. People must also know that all texts between an Android User and an iPhone User should be presumed to be actively monitored by Chinese hackers backed by Chinese intelligence (source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2024/12/06/fbi-warns-iphone-and-android-users-stop-sending-texts/). This is why an encrypted texting app like Signal is essential.
DuckDuckGo is fine for an ad-free privacy-focused search engine.
Switching your browser from Chrome or Safari to Mozilla Firefox is the best for both built-in privacy and security but also is nonprofit and open-sourced through the Mozilla Foundation.
Putting certain extensions into your browser, whether Firefox or otherwise, including: AdBlock Plus, Privacy Badger, and the Proton Pass extension to simplify use of your secured passwords across different sites.
I need to add to this essential internet security guide, above, that it’s really worth your time to understand how these applications fit together, and to become familiar with all the details before taking action.
My friend went on to describe the reality of personal online privacy. He said,
It’s so, so, so important that people practice password best practices: Never use the same password for more than one site. Make sure each unique password a mix of numbers, letters, symbols, spaces, and/or strings of different random words separated by symbols or spaces.
And keeping track of all of these is why a password manager like Proton, which is a company started by the CERN scientists in Switzerland, and which houses tightly-encrypted servers in vaults deep in the Swiss Alps, is key to both increasing your security and simplifying your life at the same time.
I know that the CEOs whose platforms I’m thinking of switching to, are probably extremely wealthy. But they are in the business of protecting their customers, whereas Trump’s billionaires exploit us.
This week Thomas Mills of Politics NC said,
Elon Musk is trying to steal confidential information about most Americans.
In the end, I hope that I really am the average American, and that there are millions of us looking for meaningful ways to say NO to Trump’s billionaires.
Remember, Kamala Harris organized us last October— and we’re ready to go.
Permission to post to my Bluesky account? @luv2pwd
Thank you, Deda. Extremely important info! I will work on transitioning to more secure options too.