Note: Part 2 will appear soon.
As with the USA and elsewhere, the UK Govt Home Office has said that they have the technology to look inside HTTPS. It’s likely they will do this via SSL snooping boxes. However, it’s not fool-proof and your browser will pop up lots of warnings to let you know that Big Brother is watching. Similarly, in Australia new legislation is proposed to retain all phone and internet data for snooping purposes (see link below for more details).
Wherever you are, whether you are an investigative journalist, a citizen journalist, or simply someone who doesn’t like the idea that government or a private security company/investigator can snoop on you, there are a range of technologies available that can help keep these snoopers at bay. And you don’t have to be a computer whiz to install them. See below for details…
1. The ultimate solution (wherever you are):
Basically you can’t go wrong if you install Tor Bundle (see video above for a dummy’s guide to TOR).
2. Alternatives to TOR:
Try ProXPN
Or try Vaultlet suite from Autonomy.
3. Or try these half-way fixes:
A. Install ‘Certificate Patrol’ for Firefox
B. Install HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox
C. Install Collusion or Disconnect for Firefox
D. Install Ghostery for Firefox.
4. A nice package
Try Sandboxie… covers most if not all in Section 3 (above)
5. You can also protect your tweets from snooping
Click here to find out how.
6. Encryption:
To encrypt your files and even the whole of your drive, TrueCrypt is reckoned to be the best.
Or try Chaos Mash
7. Use encrypted email:
Try Hushmail.
Try Yopmail
8. Apps for androids (available via Play Store):
For secure Internet Relay Chat, use Gibberbot.
For encryption of files and emails, use PGP Manager or Box Cryptor.
For secure browsing, use Orbweb.
9. General Internet security resources:
Go to Epic for a comprehensive listing of Internet security resources and tools, by category.
Take a look at Security in a box resources/advice.
This Tools for activists is pretty good too.
See how to blog anonymously.
10. Finally, you can join the ‘parallel internet’: by going to Freenet to share files, chat on forums, browse and publish, anonymously and without fear of blocking or censorship!
Articles and documents:
A. On how to avoid Government snooping:
To see why you have a right to anonymity, click here.
To see how to remove your online identity, click here.
To see how you can prevent your ISP from tracking your every move, click here.
B. On UK phone and email monitoring:
Overshadowed by the SOPA and PIPA bills that went before US Congress, shortly before they were shelved, H.R. 1981 aims to keep track of Internet users’ activities in the UK for one year in case it proves useful for law enforcement – click here to see more.
To see the MoD cyber strategy this is based on click here.
Also you can download here the Intelligence Commissioner’s 2011 Annual Report.
How the UK Police grabs location data from your mobile phones.
Here is a link to the Communications and Data bill.
C. On Australian phone, email and Internet monitoring:
The telephone and internet data of every Australian will be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, under a suite of new proposals from Australia’s intelligence community. Revealed in a discussion paper released by the Attorney-General’s Department, the more than 40 proposals form a massive ambit claim from the intelligence agencies. To find out more click here and here and here.
Also, new legislation significantly expands the surveillance powers of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to monitor anyone overseas, including Australian citizens, considered a threat to “national economic well-being,” “security” or “foreign relations”. for more click here.
To see the proposed legislation click here.
Also, download recent Australian Govt doc, ‘Equiping Australia against emerging and evolving threats.
Have fun!
Posted from the darker net via Android.
Reblogged this on NonviolentConflict.
Posted by nonviolentconflict | July 26, 2012, 2:03 pmI imagine your hearts in the right place, but some of these “solutions” are really bad ideas.
Two immediate problems with your encrypted email recos:
1. Even before it was publicly revealed here (https://darkernet.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/breaking-trapwire-surveillance-linked-to-anonymizer-and-transport-smart-cards/) Anonymizer has been suspected of being a honey pot scam and a tool of the surveillance state. DON’T USE ANONYMIZER OR ANY OF THEIR RELATED SERVCIES!
Posted by Anonymous | August 13, 2012, 3:56 pmI imagine your heart’s in the right place, but there are some problems with a few of your recos;
1. Even before it was publicly revealed here , Anonymizer was suspected of being a honey pot scam and/or a tool of the surveillance state. DON’T USE ANONYMIZER! Or any of it’s related products.
2. Hushmail is also a no-go. Hushmail is not secure and never has been. Read their Terms of Service. Here’s a great synopsis .
I know free is appealing, but I am very leery of free, pass-through services that claim to be secure/private/protected because of the sheer volume of attention and users they garner. I use the term “pass-through” here to mean a service to which you submit your information, then they wave their magic wand over it, and deliver it to the intended recipient just the way you want them to. What’s their incentive to do that? If the pass-through service is free for you, how are they keeping their lights on and paying for all that super-secure bandwidth?
Look, I’m not a tech guy. I don’t pretend to know the code for how all this stuff works, but we owe it to ourselves to be more diligent in our use and recommendations of “secure” products.
Keep up the good work,
Wolf
Posted by Wolf | August 13, 2012, 4:15 pmYes, and sorry for the incomplete post above. I’ll just blame it on a fat-finger mistake like the flash crashes on Wall Street.
I just noticed the links I submitted with the post above did not come through. Perhaps they can be edited back in for clarity, especially the one about Hushmail. Thanks. Moving on…
I’m reluctant to recommend paid services because I don’t want to be accused of being a shill, but there are paid services out there that are 100% legit and do a far better job of protecting your identity, traffic, and physical location far better than any free service, including the vaunted Tor network. (Which I use, too, by the way.)
Cryptohippie https://cryptohippie.com/resources.php is the best of the best. In full disclosure, I have no monetary stake in the company, and receive no compensation from them. I am just a very satisfied customer.
The Cryptohippie VPN encrypts your traffic before it leaves your machine, so your wi-fi connection while your hacking from Starbucks, or whatever it is you’re doing, is completely secure. Your traffic is then routed through several different international jurisdictions with identifying IP info stripped off as it passes through each node before coming out on the other end at your intended destination. The link above does a far better job of explaining it that I can.
One of the most important things about Cryptohippie is the people who are behind the company. These are people who are on the front lines in the freedom movement. They’re out there fighting the good fight and spreading the freedom gospel right along with you. If you go to any of the freedom-fest-type happenings, they’ll likely be there and you can go up and talk to them. They write books about this stuff. They’re out there walking the walk.
I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m some kind of sycophant, but I just really believe in what they’re doing and I fully endorse their product. There is even a mobile version that comes with your account so that users can encrypt and protect their mobile browsing. The basic service comes with a secure email address (with seemingly limitless aliases) as well an encrypted chat service…all for less than a dollar a day.
To me, that is very cheap protection. Again, sorry if that sounds over the top, but it’s all the unvarnished truth.
I simply would never entrust communication that I need to be totally secure to any kind of free service.
-Wolf
Posted by Wolf | August 13, 2012, 4:53 pmThanks. All this is very useful. Be interesting to see what others recommend too.
Posted by anonymous | August 15, 2012, 8:48 am