Day One: Getting Set Up

Day One of the Cyber-Cleanse

Your assignment today is to read the introduction to the Cyber-cleanse and to make two investments that you'll need throughout the week.

1. Buy an external harddrive (for your data that you'll be retrieving)

2. Bookmark the Cleanse so you can follow along daily (I usually post at night).

1. Buy one or more external harddrives.

You are going to need these in a few days' time so go ahead and make the purchase, online or in person as you prefer. (Refer to my tips on shopping untraceably online or offline if you'd like, but don't make this step unnecessarily complicated.)

Some top brands for harddrives are Western Digital, Seagate, Lacie and Sandisk. Here is a Seagate four terrabyte drive that I bought recently (this is an Amazon link with no affiliate status or anything).

Where to pick one up? Go with something familiar for this one, preferably where you have shopped before. Everyone is familiar with Amazon and BestBuy. Walmart and Target will likely have them too. You might also consider B&H Photography, they usually have external drives for photo enthusiasts.

These are big stores, though, and there are issues with all of them. I'm putting these links here because we will take the Opt Out project one step at a time. I will get you to the point where you can choose to kiss Bezos goodbye! But if is something that concerns you off the bat, you can certainly locate a camera store in your area. 

Depending on how much email you have in gmail or photos you have online, you may need up to 10 terrabytes, but just get what you can afford for now (4TB or 5TB are fine). Remember, they lure you in with "free" services in exchange for systems that wreak destruction upon us at a different scale. So think of this as an investment in your freedom.

NOTE: If you're looking to get off Amazon, that is understandable! 

2: Bookmark THIS PAGE so you can return daily. 

Make sure you're signed up for my mailing list as I'll send periodic reminders there. 

Advanced move: download an RSS reader and subscribe to https://www.optoutproject.net/feed . This is a way to get your news fed to you without having to visit websites directly (where they feed off your user data). You can try Feedly, which delivers ads in their "free" plan but is privacy oriented, and NewsBlur which you could later run yourself if you'd like. (Here is more about RSS readers from Cory Doctorow).

Done, already? you can move to Day Two: Better Browsing!