One critical factor that many people seem to forget when they go house hunting is privacy. They don’t look at the privacy features of their new home and are often shocked by how little privacy their new residence has.

Everybody who tries to rent or buy a new place to live should definitely take its privacy into consideration before making a decision. You should remember that there is no such thing as absolute privacy but there are some things that you can do to ensure that your new home has a reasonable level of privacy.

Make Sure Peeping Toms Can Not See What You Are Doing
Walk around the new house or apartment and see if there is anyway that peeping Toms can see right into it. It is surprising but there are many homes where people can see everything the residents are doing from the public street. Make sure that nobody has an obstructed view of your living area.

In many older neighborhoods, some homes have windows right on alleys. Alleys are public streets so anybody can loiter in them and look into your house. In many cases people can also see right into backyards and garages from alleys as well.

Also look to see if there is anyway that neighbors can see right into your potential home. Is there any home in the area including apartments that has an unrestricted view of the interior of your residence?

Something else to consider is the trees. Don’t depend on leafy trees to provide privacy because the screen the leaves provide falls off in the winter and fall. Make sure that your privacy doesn’t vanish when it gets cold outside.

Sound Privacy
You should also make sure that your new residence has sound privacy. This means that the neighbors can’t hear what you are saying or doing through the walls. Brick, stone and concrete walls are the most soundproof but they don’t always extend all the way around. Older structures with brick firewalls between apartments may be more soundproof.

Also listen to hear what your neighbors can from the outside. Will they be able to hear your phone conversations if the window is open? You may need to take added steps such as a white noise machine to mask sounds.

Although most of us do not want to admit it our homes are not nearly as private as we think they are. Most of us feel secure in our homes because the vast majority of people respect other’s privacy, not because our homes are actually security.

Unless you plan to move to a private underground fortress there is no way to ensure total privacy in your home. There are many excellent steps that you can take to increase and preserve your privacy at home.

Check Your Windows
The first thing you should do is walk around your home and check to see if anybody can see what you are doing by simply looking in your windows. Pay the most attention to the areas where people are most likely to walk or drive such as the street but also look at alleys, sidewalks trails etc.

If there’s part of your house you don’t want people staring into put up blinds or curtains so they can’t see in through the window. Another way to prevent peeping Toms is to simply rearrange your furniture. Sitting your TV set with its back to the window can prevent your neighbors from seeing what you are watching for example. Putting your computer monitor’s back to the window can keep others from seeing what is on the screen.

Sound Carries
Remember that people can also hear what you are doing and what you are saying. Turn down the volume on your phone and use a headset instead of a speakerphone so people can not hear your conversations.
Keep your TV set and radio turned down so others can not hear what you are listening to or watching.

If you are really worried about privacy seriously consider sound proofing your home or installing white noise to reduce the chance of sound carrying. In addition to increasing your privacy the lower noise level could make your neighbors like you better.

Be Careful on the Deck
Finally remember that what you do on the deck and in the yard is more likely to be seen by your neighbors. Don’t engage in any activity that you don’t your neighbors to see on the deck, the patio or in the yard. Instead do it indoors or in some other private place.

Despite what some people think there is only one good way to ensure your privacy at work: own the company yourself. Unless you are self employed or own your own business your privacy at work is very limited.

The reason that your privacy at work is limited is that your workplace is probably owned by someone else. You are only there at their invitation so you are more like a guest than a renter or a property owner. This means that you have a very low expectation of privacy at work.

You should never bring any paperwork or anything else that you don’t want your boss or coworkers to see to work. Never leave anything that you don’t want anybody else to see in your cubicle, desk, work station or locker. Even if it can be locked because your employer has the right to search it any time he or she wants to.

The same goes for any computer that is owned by your employer including your take home laptop. Never receive personal e-mail on a work computer, do work for your own business on one, or check bank accounts or anything else you want to remain private. This includes online shopping and sending resumes out.

The owner has the right to monitor your internet use and to block any website he or she does not like. If you work for a large organization such as a big corporation or the government this means that there are lots of people there who could potentially be monitoring your computer use.

The same goes for the company’s phone system. A person needs a warrant or court order to tap into your private phone. All they need to listen in on company phone conversations is the company’s permission.

This means that you should never treat your space at work as your private space. Don’t do anything there you don’t want your coworkers to know about. Don’t store anything there you don’t want others to see or handle. Never use lockers, closets or other spaces at work for similar purposes.

Something to remember is that lots of people enter your workspace even when you are not there. This includes the cleaning staff, maintenance workers and security guards. Even if you trust your coworkers there is nothing to stop such people from going through your stuff.

Never rely on your employer to keep anything private, take steps to do so yourself.

Even though we supposedly live in the digital age most of us still have a lot of paper documents lying around. Unfortunately many of those documents contain information that we want to keep private. Fortunately there are lots of things that you can do to keep the data on those documents private.

Document Destruction=Privacy
The first and most important step you should take is to limit the number of paper documents that you have lying around. Go through them on a regular basis and destroy any document that you have no reason for saving. This includes every document with potentially sensitive information such as bank account or Social Security numbers on them.

When you do destroy documents never just pitch them in the trash. Contrary to popular belief, most identity thieves get information by taking from documents in the trash can or dumpster. Instead shred, burn or simply rip up the documents.

Also seriously consider scanning your documents and storing the images on a digital device such as a flash drive. These are easier to hide, move and store than paper. As long as they are not connected to a computer there is no way to hack them. Once the documents are scanned destroy the original.

Keep Documents Locked Up
Any document that you want to keep private should be kept in a safe, strongbox or locked file cabinet. A good means of ensuring privacy is to hide containers with documents that you want kept private. Look for out of the way places such as attics, basements, crawlspaces and hard to get to places. Be leery of traditional hiding spots such as under the bed.

You should seriously consider storing documents in a storage locker or safe deposit box away from your home or business. This keeps them safe from catastrophes such as fire and from peering eyes of those who know where you live. Many banks have safety deposit boxes and there are vault companies that have them. One advantage to safety deposit boxes is that the number of people who have access to them is limited.

If you have a storage locker, a low cost alternative to a safety deposit box is to put a safe in it. This isn’t as secure as a storage locker but it is a good way to keep your documents private.

Maintaining privacy can be difficult enough but next to impossible online. Unfortunately almost everybody has to go online at some point these days. Fortunately there are some good methods of maintaining your privacy online.

Tip 1 Be Careful What You Put Online
The first and most important online privacy tip is not to put anything that you want to keep secret or personal online. If you don’t want your picture or address spread around online don’t put it online. Try to keep anything but what you absolutely have to offline.

Tip 2 Use Different e-mail addresses.
Another excellent tip is to have several different e-mail addresses. If you want to send letters to the editor or online comments create a second or third e-mail address that doesn’t have your name on it. You can also e-mail from a website. Sites like hotmail will let you do this fairly cheaply. An excellent tip is to have one e-mail account for your business and another for your personal use.

Tip 3 Do it Blind
There are many websites and other venues including some big ones like Craigslist that let you set you up blind e-mail accounts. You can use these to get responses without revealing your ID. This can be a great method of preserving privacy yet still taking advantage of tools such as a online want ads.

Tip 4 Facebook is not required
Despite what a lot of a lot people think there is no law that says you have to go on Facebook or use it. If you don’t like the idea of posting every about yourself on Social Media don’t use it. Only set up a Facebook page if you really want to. If you want one or feel you need one be careful what you put on Facebook.

Tip 5 Screen everything at least once
Screen every sort of online communication you get including Twitter, texts, e-mail etc. at least once. Only respond to what you really want to and only let those you want to communicate with have e-mail addresses, etc. Another is to have once source of online contact such as a Facebook page. Then carefully screen everything that comes through it.

Tip 6 Be Careful what computers you use
Do not send personal e-mails or do anything else you don’t want others knowing about on your computer at work. Many companies monitor these. Instead bring a laptop for such personal communications and use your WiFi to connect to the net. Or simply check your e-mail at home. Also be careful when using your laptop in public and try to avoid public computers like those at the library or internet case.

Google has recently released a new update of it’s Chrome Browser. The new 9.0.597.107 version has fixed some major security issues that were reported before.  Many of them are serious issues, more like 16 of them.

Google payed a good number of the green ones to the security experts who reported the vulnerabilities.  Among them was Sergey Glazunov who earned a cool $3,000. The total amount paid by Google to the experts comes to roughly $25,00, not a bad decision on Google’s part to ensure more security for users( Microsoft are you listening??).  The Chrome security team mentioned that the total rewards for their program has now reached $100,000 since its inception in 2008.

If you are interested in looking at the reported bugs and the amount Google paid to the researchers then click here.

The move comes at a time when the Pwn2Own hacking championships are about to take place. Google has agreed to pay $20,000 to any contestant who hacks Chrome during the first day of the event and $10,000 on the second day.

The twitter birdie is on fire again. A new scam has startsd making the started making the rounds on Twitter duping users to click on a link that claims to reveal how many hours they have spent on Twitter. A similar scam has been seen on Facebook that seems to reveal how many users have seen their accounts.

The scam relies on the unsuspecting users to share the link with other users and spreads through a message that reads” I have spent 11.6 h hours on Twitter, how about you?” The app will have access to your username and password once you set it up and constantly start bombarding your followers.

If you have fallen to this scam or other similar type of scams , make sure that you log into your account and delete the application and notify Facebook or Twitter.

Many small privacy related companies have come up on the web that are finding a huge number of users over the past few months because of the growth of privacy related concern among users, so it wouldn’t surprise anyone that the big wigs like Microsoft, McAfee and Symantec are also providing new services to users that lets them clear their footprints on the world wide web.

Some of the companies have gone a step ahead and are starting to pay people a commission every time their personal information are used by marketing companies online.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S only accounts for $ 26 billion in online advertising revenue, and its showing a trend where marketing companies are collecting more and more personal information about users.

If you don’t mind sharing your personal information on the web then it’s time you got paid for it. There are a number of online sites that lets you share your personal information and pays you a commission for the sales they make.

Andrew McAfee, a technology researcher has recently revealed that thereis a loophole in Apple’s iTunes Store that allows others to view what music, videos and apps you have downloaded from it.

McAfee suggested that Apple follows a feature like that of Amazon.

Security breaches happen when you least suspect it!

In the next few quarters of this year, we are expecting a lot of security issues to happen and at the same time, we are looking at possible new regulations and technological changes that will be implemented in small businesses. If you’re running a small business, it is important to know the possible security threats that may occur in your establishment; and you have to know what possible moves to take and stop security breaches. Let’s look at some key areas where laws in security, vulnerability and protective moves will be needed.

First, there will be an increase in small scale breaches in establishment to get personal information. Healthcare establishments will mandatorily report breaches that affect hundreds of people. When companies implement data security moves, audits will most likely bring to everyone’s attention some older overlooked breaches that happened recently. Then you’ll have an idea regarding how rampant it is in your establishment.

Second, people who rely too much on mobile devices will become more vulnerable to loss and data theft from their gadgets. The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 24% of reported data breaches happen on laptops than in any other device.

Third, there’s a need to minimize data gathered from patrons. The more information you keep about your customers the more you increase the chance of possible data breach. The bulk of information you keep attracts more hackers.

Fourth, there’s a need to minimize transfer of data. When data is in transit, it is in risk. The lesser you transfer information from one destination to another will minimize your security breaches.

Fifth, there should be an increase in privacy awareness. Technology in itself will not help in avoiding privacy breaches. The unaware user will still make some careless moves that will make them unknowingly open up their information to strangers especially if they are on social networking sites. Proper education to these people will make the users more aware of it and will contribute to minimize security risks.