Just a quick post about privacy as I’ve been meaning to share these links for a while but just haven’t gotten around to it. Privacy seems to be a buzzword lately with all the talk of loss of privacy due to social media, GPS, etc. So if you have library users who are curious about how they can better protect their privacy, you can send them the sources noted below. They are also helpful if you have questions about maintaining some semblance of privacy in your life.

Lifehacker, of course, often has great posts on privacy and technology. For example, do you use the incognito browsing in Google Chrome? If so, Lifehacker warns you to not trust private browsing modes for true privacy. Luckily Lifehacker also provides some alternatives to help you browse in secret. (A good thing too with the holidays coming up so your family and friends can’t tell what you’ve gotten them!)

Also, this is a great tip to securely overwrite files with a built-in command line trick.

And, if you really want to have privacy on your system, check out Lifehacker’s guide on how to encrypt and hide your entire operating system from prying eyes.

Oh, and don’t forget to protect your passwords too so you don’t end up in this situation, as Leonard did in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. (Sorry, the embedding feature was disabled for this video, so you’ll actually have to go to YouTube, but it’s worth it.)

Enjoy! And The Waki Librarian will be back soon with more fun stuff.