Thanks guys,
I recently tried gufw firewall but it was never on when I checked, so I went back to using the standard vasm firewall, stock (enabled at boot). I will have to learn how to use iptables, I suppose.
As to encryption, I use, but don't much like, kgpg and it seems ok, but I wish it would delete the original. I am told that kde took out the "shred original" for some reason. So, the unencrypted file is still on my system, at least, if I take the time to remove it, til I empty trash.
Anyway, Bigpaws, I especially appreciated your suggestions. I will encrypt now when saving to dropbox. I doubt there is anyway to encrypt google docs, so I have reduced my use of it.
I used to worry a bit about hackers. Now I have added government to the list.