Prediction: The new hot thing in our future will be anonymity. To be un-famous. To be Googled — and to not be there. No link. No Wiki. No tube, space or face. No nothing.
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Category: Privacy
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Top 9 Apps To Help You Avoid The CIA
**Technology On Crack once again provides a Top 10 countdown focusing this time on keeping your information from prying eyes. What makes these freely available applications interesting is that 9/10 of them may be strong enough to help you avoid serious government organizations.**
Warning: The possession of such tools can destroy you if you ever find yourself in court. You are looking for Plausible deniability by destroying or hiding as much questionable data or actions as possible, but the very possesion of such tools can give you a WORSE sentencing than what you were originally charged for. (see Simple Nomad – www.nmrc.org/pub/pdtk/)
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The ID Chip You Don’t Want in Your Passport
“If you have a passport, now is the time to renew it — even if it’s not set to expire anytime soon. If you don’t have a passport and think you might need one, now is the time to get it. In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips. And you don’t want one of these chips in your passport.”
Governments REALLY want to track outsiders. Where is the love.
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The Dark Tangent Says we are all DOOMED!!!
The Dark Tangent (Jeff Moss) president of the DEF CON hacker conventions is interviewed on CyberSpeak podcast and talks about the change in venue from Alexis Park to the Riviera Hotel and Casino. In response to the question, “who will protect our privacy from big business?”, he responds, “we are all doomed!”. Great interview!
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6 Tips to Protect your Internet to Real world Persona
“Craigslist posters robbed at gunpoint in Walnut Creek
An advertisement on the Craiglist.org Web site led to an armed robbery in a Walnut Creek Target store parking lot Sunday night, Lt. Mark Covington of the Walnut Creek Police Department reported.” – found via digg.com
This kind of thing is sure to become worse as more and more of the criminal element get online and see how easy it is to exploit people doing business on the Net. I suspect that eventually bloggers who are too open with their names’ and address’ will eventually be big targets for all manor of deception. There are many services online that you may be completely exposing yourself on: ebay, flickr, craigslist, myspace, your blog, a website, google (via a website), yahoo! just to name a few. I’m not saying you should not use them. I’m just suggesting you give yourself a buffer for the more insane and evil parts of humanity who seek to harm you.
Here are 3 steps to protecting your Internet Persona:
1) Google yourself. Corporations and business’ are starting to do this prior to hiring new employees. So why not google yourself and make sure you don’t have pictures on myspace of that wild St. Patrick party you were at last year? Don’t wait. Do it NOW. Check Yahoo!, MySpace, Altavista, dogpile and visimo.com. Even if you don’t do much of anything on the Internet, remember many of your friends do. They might have post pictures of you with your full name and DOB!
2) Use a Pseudo name. With only your real name and a past or present address, anyone can get all kinds of very personal information for about $7 on sites such as:
– PublicRecordNow – http://www.privateeye.com
– People Finder – http://www.peoplefinders.com
– AnyWho – http://www.anywho.com/
For more money they can also get extremely personal data (divorce papers, marriage, mortgage documents ect.). The laws in the U.S. which offer almost ZERO protection for personal privacy make all this totally legal. A psuedo name will give you a little bit of what is called “Security through obscurity”.3) Use a private domain. If you have registered domain, you will notice that most domain sellers (such as godaddy) offer a way to make your new domain private for a small additional fee. Get that privacy! If you don’t your address, will be put in a database as a primary point of contact for that domain. It is made publicly available all over the world via Arin.net.
*One of the first steps any security hacker uses is Arin.net to get more information on there target. Tools like SamSpade make it even easier to get information from registered domains and IP addresses.
4) Use a P.O. box. Instead of your actual home address go to your local post office and get a P.O. box. It only costs about $25 bucks a year (depending on what kind of box it is). If your really parnoid get it in another county.
*If you set up a corporation or non-profit this is also important as a corporation is treated just like an individual and is almost immediately advertised all over your local area to other corporations and eventually finds its way on the Net with your full home address and possibly your full name.
5) Use an 1-800 number. If you absolutely have to give a phone number out on the Internet, use an 1800 number. They are great because it can be thrown away or changed easily if it gets hit with telemarketers and political lobbyists.
*If you use your real number and it gets in the hands of Bangalore, India call centers, be prepared to get tons of caller trying to sell you Viagra. Trust me, it is NOT fun. Your real number is also easier to trace directly to your real name and real home address.
5) Don’t publish your primary e-mail address. A great way to get lots and lots of spam is to put your real email address on a webpage or blog. Spammers have tools that allow them to automatically scoure the internet and gather email address (this is also easy to do with a search engine). The best thing to use is a throw away email account such as the following:
- Gmail – gmail has one of the best spam filters and offers 3 GIGS!!! of space (it is actually worth making into a main account.)
- tons of throw away accounts.
What many people do is “elamb [DOT] security [ AT] gmail.com” to fool the automated systems, but I suspect this won’t be enough in the near future.
6) Don’t meet anyone you just met online. This should be common sense but as you read in the example above some people still don’t see how dangerous the Internet can be. Do NOT do meet up with people you just met on the Internet. Just be aware that there are a lot of predators on the Internet.
Are you on the Internet?
Here are some good places to look:
Search engines: google, yahoo!, dogpile, altavista, msn, metacrawl, visimo (search top 5 pages)
http://dexonline.com (go to residential tab | enter your name, city and state)You’ll have to send these people mail to get out of their database. You may want to check your local Yellow pages (online) as well.
Publicly listed information sold to the highest bidder:
Dex Media, through its Dex Direct marketing division, sells two types of lists:
Publicly available name, address and telephone (NAT) listings that Dex Corporation’s customers agree to have published in White and Yellow Pages, and
Additional marketing lists – beyond name, address and telephone numbers – that are provided to Dex Media by other companies not associated with Qwest, and then resold to Dex Media customers.Here is a good reason to use a pseudo name, untraceble phone number, private domain and a P.O. box on the Internet.
While it is important to establish a good connection with your customers and readers by being open and honest about who you are it is more important to protect yourself and your family from the likes of crazies, criminals and shameless solicitous spammers who have no respect for themselves let alone any for you.
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Defeating China's "Great" Firewall
“I guess it is not so “great” anymore!” – Digg User
The blog “Lightblue Touch Paper” explains how to get around the “GREAT” firewall of China.
I've heard of other ways to search around it as well. Here are some comment from Bruce Schneier.com.
I believe that the Chinese government will ultamitely not be capable of supressing the Chinese people's thirst for unrestricted knowlege. Although, it is human nature to do what is easiest and follow the heard like sheep, it is also human nature to resist repression.
There is only so much human beings can take. I'm reminded of Shawshank Redemption in wich the title character mentions “time and pressure”. Time and pressure is all it takes for a person to break. Time and pressure.
I'm sure the Chinese government would not call what they are doing “repression”. They'd probably called it “protection”. Or maybe they don't call it anything! Internet censorship is not restricted to China. The U.S. government also has restrictions on certain pages and content on the Internet. Do enough searches about “terroism” and you might even get contacted by the FBI. Fear is the driving factor for security in this country. Blanket censorship is something I definitely DO NOT support.
I guess only individuals can be free and only truly free in their own heart, souls and minds. With all the breaches of privacy (or should I say complete lack of privacy) between the individual citizens in the US and the US gov't, how “free” and different is the U.S. government from the China govenment at the fundamental level?
The is a difference (freedom of speech for example) no doubt, but it seems as China moves toward freedom (with its entrance into the WTO and movement toward capitalism) the U.S. seems to be moving toward more control over its citizens as it seeks to sift though its sheep to find the wolves in sheeps clothing.
See what the International Current Affairs Society had to say:
“A group of intrepid H4X0rz have discovered how to easily bypass the Chinese governments censorship of words like 'democracy'.”
From a Chinese perspective of the GFW
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Your Social Security Number is sent all over the world
From SmartMoney.com:
Outsourcing to IndiaOnce a county's records are digitized, it's very easy — and incredibly cheap — for data compilers like Axciom and DataTrade to purchase the files and sell them to information brokers like Choicepoint, says Bloys. That's because under most states' Open Records laws, counties cannot charge more than the cost of copying the documents — which means a computer disk containing 10,000 records can be had for as little as a few dollars. What's more, Bloys explains, the companies that actually scan the documents for the county — the so-called wholesalers — often ship the images to foreign countries, like India or China, where outsourcers index the records much more cheaply than could be done in the United States. “[Our public information] is being distributed instantly all over the world,” says Bloys.
Smartmoney did an article featuring B.J. Ostergen. I've been trying to get an interview with B.J. But she is no doubt busy with the big boys.
Ostergren has made it her full-time job as the founder of Virginia Watchdog to alert legislators and the general public about what's out there. “It's dangerous, and it's just reckless of those clerks to have these records online,” she says. According to a November 2004 report by the Government Accountability Office, as many as 28% of U.S. counties post their records — including people's Social Security numbers — on the Internet.
No cries of outrage, not even a peep from the American public about this. More than likely it is because they don't know about it. I guess they'll find out when someone steals their Identity and destroys their credit.
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U.S. Privacy Commissioner
I am not a big Hilary fan, but I can get behind this. Senator Clinton urged creation of a “privacy bill of rights” Friday to protect people's personal data.
Dr. Ann Cavoukian is the Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and Jennifer Stoddart is the Privacy Commissioner of Canda. Why don't we, the American people, have someone like this protecting our right to privacy?
What does a Privacy Commissioner do:
Digital Right Management (DRM) issues
Challenging privacy laws (sucha as Ontario's Adoption Information Disclosure Act)
Issues involving ID Theft
*ID Theft is America's fastest growing crime.
The U.S. is Governing Against the People
The people we elect into office are supposed to work for US. The officials that we have elected are being wreckless with our rights. There is no representatives to argue on our behalf. There are a few organization that have stepped up to the plate such as the ACLU and EFF.
Unchecked laws, such as the USA Patriot Act, allow agencies to have complete free run of over our civil liberties. Even though there are helpful aspects of the Patriot Act (such as the ability of domestic and internationally focused agencies to communicate with each other), it does have provisions that seemed to slip through the cracks. Frankly, with the current world wide hate of the United States (brought on by the current administrations foreign policies) some sort of action must be taken to protect U.S. citizens. But I don't believe this must be done at the expense of freedom. And if it is, the very thing that we fight for has been successfully removed… if our liberties are taken away, we have already lost all future wars to 'protect our freedom'.
Our country is run with checks and balances. But there is currently no governing body in the way of special interest group lobbyists and policy makers who do not seem to care about our rights to privacy. Elected officials seems drunk on greed fueled by the money that they get from lobbyist.
Government Want Search Engine/ISP records
Net Neutrality (Verison and other ISP lobbyiest want to kill the freedom of the Internet)
Local American Counties Putting Personal Data Online:
http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?story=20050303
I repeat it over and over on what Ben Franklin said centuries ago about the balance of freedom and security:
“The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.”
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More of your information might be online than you think
“If you are worried about a thief stealing your identity, it's not your wallet that needs guarding — it's your state and local governments.”
The “Virginia Watchdog” has raised security/privacy consciousness 10 fold. Her name is BJ Ostergren she runs www.TheVirginiaWatchdog.com
She is a heroine for modern privacy concerns. The Virginia Watchdog is attempting to save what is left of our privacy by getting in the face local politicians.
Check out her interview with CNN and the Washington Post.
While there are some reactive and proactive measure that you can take to guard against ID theft, it is a bit disconcerting to think that no matter how many bank statements and bill invoices you shred all your data can be stolen from an office like the DMV or VA that has all of your personal information.
It is bad when government employees lose a database of personal records but in my opinion it is much worse if they make your social security number public on purpose.
“Public records laws were designed to shed the light on government activities, not our personal information,” said Kerry Smith, an attorney with Public Interest Research Groups, a coalition of state consumer advocacy organizations. States are “clearly not striking the right balance when they release our Social Security numbers — the key to our financial identity — to commercial data brokers and anyone with access to the Internet.”
The major move of hard copes to softcopies came from a string of laws that were set forth in the 90's:
Federal, state and local government agencies have complied the paperless government laws. Now those electronic documents are finding their way on Internet. These documents include mortgage, tax and property anything you might find as the County Clerks office. The data (a portion of your digital signature: name, DOB, SSN) is (in some cases) being bought and sold to the highest bidder.
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Stolen VA data may have been erased
Stolen personal data for 26.5 million veterans and military personnel may have been erased by teenagers who sold the computer equipment, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Thursday.
I hope this is the case. But the real problem is that it could happen again. If the VA doesn't make an example out of someone, it is hoped that they will at least tighten up their policy. Its the least they can do for the Vet who have served.
The secretary of veterans affairs, R. James Nicholson , in the spotlight because of a breakdown in data security, called yesterday for tougher penalties on federal employees who mishandle sensitive information.
Nicholson told the House Government Reform Committee that it is “too hard, in my opinion, to discipline people in the civil service — it's too hard to impose sanctions.”
Man, that is the truth. I've worked closely with civil servant for about six years now and the stuff these guys get away with is insane. The ones that are prior military are usually pretty cool, but a few that I've worked with seem to be completely above policies that guard against discrimination and sexual harasment. It seems the worse they are the more they get promoted. Don't get me wrong. I've worked with some brilliant civil servants as well. Its just that when they are bad… they are REALLY bad.