You may have noticed from time and time again from various spaces on the internet that they may have mentioned the fourteen eyes alliance or countries. You’ll also see it on blogs or forums that advertise streaming services, or security tools that allow you to unblock geo-restricted services.
In this short guide, I’ll be highlighting what the fourteen eyes alliance is, and they’re considered as a threat worldwide!
The fourteen eyes alliance explained
The fourteen eyes alliance is a group of countries under one oath that practice some extreme heavy surveillances online. They’re a group of fourteen countries tied together under one common cause. So, if you’re living anywhere within those countries, you better be extremely careful of all the websites you visit and the streaming services that you’re trying to unblock.
This alliance first started off with a total of 5 countries called the UKUSA agreement. This agreement comprised of:
The five eyes
- Australia
- USA
- UK
- New Zealand
- Canada
The nine eyes
- Australia
- USA
- UK
- New Zealand
- Canada
- Netherlands
- France
- Norway
- Denmark
The fourteen eyes
- All of the above, including
- Belgium
- Germany
- Italy
- Spain
- Sweden.
Why are they such a threat?
As mentioned above, you may have noticed that in most parts of the internet, you’ve probably seen warning signs regarding this or that government surveillance or online monitoring. This is because if you’re within any of these countries, be sure to understand that all your online activities are being monitored. Even if you’re living within the UK, the US government can take the reins in harvesting your information. This is because they’re all working together under one roof.
Have you heard of Edward Snowden? He revealed and leaked extremely confidential information on the NSA, which highlighted the enormous chunks of information that the US government was stealing, storing and sharing. That only goes to show the amount of information online surveillance in other countries in the same alliance.
What you can do to protect yourself
If you’re living anywhere within the alliance countries, make sure you’re taking all the precautionary measures possible. For instance, the number one way to make sure your internet service provider, let alone the government avoids spying on your activities is by using a virtual private network.
A VPN is not 100% secure or accurate in performance, but it does get the job done. There are many great providers that offer the best security, and other additional services to make an online experience worthwhile.
I know what you’re thinking, “But they’re expensive!”
Not really! You’ll sometimes find that the cheapest VPN offers the greatest security features and overall performance. It even offers a large network coverage with numerous IP addresses for you to connect to. By connecting to a server of a country outside the alliance, you’ll be able to hide under the radar and safely access unlimited services or websites, like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube etc.
To conclude
You’ll be shocked as to what extent mass surveillance prevails. You’ll even find that websites as small as art supplies are sometimes part of massive online monitoring. You need to be able to protect your online presence in any way you possibly can by adopting cybersecurity measures. A VPN is by far one of the best tools you can use, but you also need to make sure the provider isn’t located within a country in the alliance.
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