Surveillance Self-Defense

Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) is a guide to protecting yourself from electronic surveillance for people all over the world. Some aspects of this guide will be useful to people with very little technical knowledge, while others are aimed at an audience with considerable technical expertise and privacy/security trainers. We believe that everyone's threat model is unique—from activists in China to journalists in Europe to the LGBTQ community in Uganda. We believe that everyone has something to protect, whether it's from the government or parents or prying employers, stalkers, data-mining corporations, or an abusive partner. There are many privacy and security guides on the Internet that teach users to use a specific set of tools, such as password safes or VPNs or the Tor Browser Bundle. SSD includes step-by-step tutorials for installing and using a variety of privacy and security tools, but also aims to teach people how to think about online privacy and security in a sophisticated way that empowers them to choose appropriate tools and practices even as the tools and adversaries change around them. Please note that the law and technology can change quickly, and portions of SSD may become out of date. This guide acknowledges that some especially powerful and sophisticated threats may be difficult or impossible to protect oneself against. We hope that this guide teaches users to be skeptical of sweeping claims that any particular tool offers complete security or privacy. Strong privacy and security practices are still worthwhile even if they are not guaranteed to be effective 100% of the time against every adversary. These practices increase the cost and effort of surveillance—and they may increase it to the point where an adversary feels that surveilling you is no longer worthwhile. Key Words: Surveillance self-defence, basics, tool guides, further learning, security scenarios, risks