So my school recently informed us to be careful about what we do online because everything we do online is being monitored. So that got me wondering, they can’t possibly be monitoring services like Google Hangouts can they? I thought that would be a breach of Google’s privacy policies. But for example If i’m on my laptop and my friends on his laptop (both laptops our own, not school provided) and were on the school’s network and were both on hangouts and I send something like “Hey” to him can the monitoring party (in this case the school) see that i sent “Hey”?
If you do not own the network, especially if it's a school or business network, assume you are being monitored. That's just best practice when it comes to security questions like this.
I understand but more of what i mean't i guess are services like Hangouts encrypted?
Google Hangouts, as far as I know, is utilizing a secure channel (a.k.a. HTTSP) so it is save to assume, unless your machines accept certificates that are issues by the sourvailince means of your school, they should in theory (by now) not be able to intercept the traffic.
If you use hangouts in chrome, chrome will pin the certificate of the HTTPS (ssl) session and alert you if its not a valid google cert.
If you realy want to be sure you always could get wireshark (tool to sniff network traffic) and than see if your macines only communicate via https or any other encrpted protocol.
tl;tr: is it https? - they know you use it, but they don't know what you do on it
-Google could watch you, analyze your data and sell it to shady companys.
-Microsoft could access your webcam via Skype and watch you at all times. They could transmit all your keayboard entries to oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net or
pre.footprintpredict.com or
reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
-Facebook could monitor your position by having WhatsApp transmit your GPS-position to a server in desert.
-Apple could have the smartwatch on your wrist monitor blood oxygen and skin fat.
What are you willing to give up to use a service and how bad do you need it?
10/10 advice.
If you would like to stay safe, try a VPN or a strongly encypted chat service. Some networks, like the one I use such services on have a VPN blocker, but some VPN providers have ways of bypassing those, such as VyprVPN’s Chameleon. For chat CryptoCat, and even Telegram is good. Any Tox client would be great, that’s what me and my coworkers use.
Personally, I use Antox for my phone and µTox for my laptops/desktops.
I'm more worried about the school seeing what im doing or trying to track me down.
Again, if the connection (from your pc to the service you use) is encrypted, and you can make sure you have not been man in the middled they wont be able to see the content of the conversation but the metadata is there.. e.g. what service, when, how long.
And as DNS (domain -> IP) is not encrypted still they always will know what service you access. as the request is always in the clear, and even if DNS was encrypted one could still say that the IP belongs to google... so they always will know that you are on some google service.
Only safe way is buy tablet with cash, then use free Wi-Fi. Make sure you have a cap and NEVER look up. Use mass transit cash only.
I love when the gov builds some 17 pflop monster and put in oak ridge to claim it's to study something they have studied for 50 years. China needs a 33 pflop monster, more people to spy on
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