THE LATEST ON PERSONAL DIGITAL SECURITY PROTECTION TIPS:
FROM REDDIT:
Its important to remember that Bulk Data Collection is just one aspect of the sprawling security state that he been revealed over the course of the Snowden leaks. Anyways, this list of NSA capabilities and whistleblower statements is important and might offer some insights into the reasons that actual reform of the NSA is unlikely to come from within. The NSA/GCHQ can…
Collect the domestic meta-data of both parties in a phone-call. Source
Set up fake internet cafes to steal data. Source
Has intercepted the phone calls of at least 35 world leaders, including allies such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Source
Can tap into the underwater fiber-optic cables that carry a majority of the world’s internet traffic. Source
Tracks communications within media institutions such as Al Jazeera. Source
Has ‘bugged’ the United Nations headquarters. Source
Has set up a financial database to track international banking and credit card transactions. Source
Collects and stores over 200 million domestic and foreign text messages each day. Source
Collects and has real-time access to browsing history, email, and social media activity. To gain access, an analyst simply needs to fill out an on-screen form with a broad justification for the search that is not reviewed by any court or NSA personnel. Source
“I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”. – Edward Snowden
Creates maps of the social networks of United States citizens. Source
Has access to smartphone app data. Source
Uses spies in embassies to collect data, often by setting up ‘listening stations’ on the roofs of buildings. Source
Uses fake LinkedIn profiles and other doctored web pages to secretly install surveillance software in unwitting companies and individuals. Source
Tracks reservations at upscale hotels. Source
Has intercepted the talking-points of world leaders before meetings with Barack Obama. Source
Can crack encryption codes on cellphones. Source
Has implanted software on over 100,000 computers worldwide allowing them to hack data without internet connection, using radio waves. Source
Has access to computers through fake wireless connections. Source
Monitors communications in online games such as World of Warcraft. Source
Intercepts shipping deliveries and install back-door devices allowing access. Source
Has direct access to the data centers of Google, Yahoo and other major companies. Source
Covertly and overtly infiltrate United States and foreign IT industries to weaken or gain access to encryption, often by collaborating with software companies and internet service providers themselves. They are also, according to an internal document, “responsible for identifying, recruiting and running covert agents in the global telecommunications industry.” Source
The use of “honey traps”, luring targets into compromising positions using sex. Source
The sharing of raw intelligence data with Israel. Only official U.S. communications are affected, and there are no legal limits on the use of the data from Israel. Source
Spies on porn habits of activists to discredit them. Source
Possibly the most shocking revelation was made on February 24, 2014. Internal documents show that the security state is attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with “extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction.” The documents revealed a top-secret unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Unit, or JTRIG. Two of the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in an effort to discredit a target, and to use social sciences such as psychology to manipulate online discourse and activism in order to generate a desirable outcome. The unit posts false information on the internet and falsely attributes it to someone else, pretend to be a ‘victim’ of a target they want to discredit, and posts negative information on various forums. In some instances, to discredit a target, JTRIG sends out ‘false flag’ emails to family and friends.
A revealing slide from the JTRIG presentation.
Read the whole JTRIG presentation by Greenwald, just do it. Here
Now, consider the words of former NSA employee turned whistleblower Russ Tice:
“Okay. They went after–and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things–they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial.
But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of–heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials.
They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people. They went after antiwar groups. They went after U.S. international–U.S. companies that that do international business, you know, business around the world. They went after U.S. banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after NGOs that–like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few antiwar civil rights groups.
So, you know, don’t tell me that there’s no abuse, because I’ve had this stuff in my hand and looked at it. And in some cases, I literally was involved in the technology that was going after this stuff. And you know, when I said to [former MSNBC show host Keith] Olbermann, I said, my particular thing is high tech and you know, what’s going on is the other thing, which is the dragnet. The dragnet is what Mark Klein is talking about, the terrestrial dragnet. Well my specialty is outer space. I deal with satellites, and everything that goes in and out of space. I did my spying via space. So that’s how I found out about this… And remember we talked about that before, that I was worried that the intelligence community now has sway over what is going on.
Now here’s the big one. I haven’t given you any names. This was is summer of 2004. One of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with, with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator from Illinois. You wouldn’t happen to know where that guy lives right now, would you? It’s a big white house in Washington, DC. That’s who they went after. And that’s the president of the United States now.” Russ Tice, NSA Whistleblower
Help spread the word! Feel free to click source, copy and past this comment anywhere on reddit when relevant, without attribution. Regardless of the best methods to affect change, everything starts with raising awareness
Head over to /r/NSALeaks to stay updated, particularly the wonderful wiki
GCHQ intercepting random webcam images:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo
NSA tracks the location of 5 billion cellphones:
the locations of five billion cell phones:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nsa-collects-data-revealing-location-of-five-billion-mobile-phones-every-day-8983957.html
US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a “back door” in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans’ communications.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/nsa-surveillance-loophole-americans-data
PERSONAL WEB SECURITY
We live in a whole new world!
YOU ARE GOING TO GET HACKED AND IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME!
How many tens of millions of dollars have you spent on your personal web security?
What’s that, you didn’t spend tens of millions of dollars on your personal web security?
Sony Pictures did, Target did, Home Depot did, JP Morgan did, The White House did, PF Chiang did.. and they all got hacked!
What do we learn from this? You are more at risk than you realize!
There are a few problems that have caused all this:
First there are the “backdoors”. Spy agencies had companies like Cisco, Intel, Juniper and others, put hardware and software backdoors in all of their network equipment so that spies, and law enforcement, can get inside any network if there are “bad-guys” on it. The hackers got ahold of the keys to many of those backdoors. In many cases, they only need to get past one door to be inside your whole network. The problem is, many of the backdoors are in the hardware of the devices and those devices are distributed all over the Earth. None of these companies want to shoulder the cost of pulling out and upgrading all of those devices. Many users believe the companies should be liable for any break-ins via their backdoors. There is a big legal discussion around all of that.
Next we have bad IT. If you, or your network provider, are using funky, simple, passwords; then the hackers are auto-testing all of the ports and will eventually get in via computerized trial-and-error. They will just point $35.00 worth of software, that they downloaded off some Russian site, at your IP address and let it run for a few weeks until it gets in and texts them that they can now scrounge through your life. Some of these hackers are just bored teenagers in Thailand, the Ukraine or other impoverished areas where they can’t find work. They have plenty of time on their hands. Other’s are state agencies with $100M budgets and orders to “get as much as they can find” from the competing nations.
Third we have non-distributed networks. Networks are just too big. There are wide open football sized file repositories that should only be ping-pong table sized.
Fourth we have a glut of Silicon Valley companies who made their business model revolve around harvesting and manipulating your activities and personal information. Not only do they make billions doing this, they also get paid by federal and third party marketing groups to do it. They have every incentive to do it and no incentive to not do it.
“Internet security” means keeping your assets from getting stolen or abused. What are your “assets”?
They are:
Your money
Your credit
Your identity
Your privacy
Your intentions (ie: what you might do online and how to trick you into doing specific things)
Your activity history
Your time
Your brand
All of these things have monetary value. They are worth money to someone. Other’s can make money off of these things that you own.
You may not be an evil bad guy with dark intentions, but to marketing companies, you are going to get tracked, monitored and manipulated just as much, if not more. The thought that you “have nothing to hide” is the biggest falsity on the internet. You have everything to hide from the hackers and harvesters.
Here are the latest rules and tips from Krebs, Kommando, Reddit and other internet insiders. They may sound extreme or totally different than what you were used to, but, we live in a totally new world now:
## Never log in to anything without using a disposable email address. Never sign in to anything without using a disposable email address. Only use Apps and sites that do not use a login and keep you anonymous. Do not let the internet know that you are using the internet or you will instantly be targeted. EVERY government network has already been broken into at least a dozen times. Every retail network has been broken into nearly a hundred times.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Never send unencrypted email. Always use GPG, or other encryption, and change your password weekly.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Never backup or save files on “the cloud”. When you put files out on the web on other services you quadruple the ease with which your files can be broken into and stolen. It is like leaving all of your notebook computers on the curb every night. The “Fappening” is thought to come from cloud-based autosaves.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Don’t buy any hardware unless it is open-source certified, globally, to be “back-door free”. Many companies built spy door gates into their hardware but now all of the hackers have the keys to those doors. If you have un-certified servers, routers, wifi, etc. then the gates of hell are wide-open to any hacker these days. A large number of popular Asian electronics were found to have foreign spy back-doors in them to steal technology.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Never buy anything online with an account that has more than $200.00 in it. Have one account only for buying things online and never connect it to any other account and never put more than $200.00 in it. Expect your accounts to be hacked and your money to be stolen.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Always remember you are 3 CLICKS FROM DISASTER any time you are connected to a network. These days, ANYBODY can take everything of yours off of ANY electronic device with just 3 clicks of most modern hacking software. BE CAREFUL!
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Always use fake ID, Disinformation and a false name if you must log-in to a service like NETFLIX or other subscription service. You will be tracked, tagged and used like this if you don’t. Set up disposable email and phone number accounts for internet use. EVERYTHING you type into a search window or form field on the internet is recorded, archived and psychologically analyzed.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Never post your picture online or you will be processed with imaging comparison software by third parties. Some big dating sites sell your image, but hundreds of others run image comparison software on every image on the internet and abuse them for marketing too.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Never keep ANY files on your computer! Keep your Outlook .pst files, your photos, your documents, your movies and EVERYTHING you create, on an external encrypted hard drive. NEVER connect that hard drive to your computer unless your internet connection is physically unplugged and your wireless connection is removed or turned off in a way that you can check that it is turned off. If your mobile device is “always connected”, ANY kid can take EVERYTHING off of it, with just two mouse-clicks, any time they want to. It IS OK to keep fake files on your computer to keep hackers on a wild-goose chase.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Tape over any camera on any device you own. ANY kid can secretly turn your camera on and watch you taking a shower, getting undressed, cheating on your partner, having sex or writing your secrets, with just two mouse-clicks, any time they want to. Beauty contest winners are constantly finding that their PC or phone camera has been secretly watching them shower for months.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## Don’t use the CONTACTS and CALENDER in OUTLOOK, ICAL or on your device. ANY kid can now download all of your contacts off of your phone and computer and watch them as well. A business competitor can download all of your calendar appointments and bug your business meetings or get your business meetings cancelled. An ex-lover and see who your new lover is and mess with that. Foreign countries can EASILY steal your technology
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## ALWAYS, ALWAYS pull the battery out of your device when you are not immediately using it. ANY kid can now download all of your contacts off of your phone and computer and watch them as well. A business competitor can download all of your calendar appointments and bug your business meetings or get your business meetings cancelled. An ex-lover and see who your new lover is and mess with that. Foreign countries can EASILY steal your technology. You device may appear to be turned off, you may have even seen it “turn off” but it is still on and pretending to be off.
Otherwise: “Over 42 different countries spy agencies, thousands of hackers and thousands of marketing manipulation services will be all over you and your ID, money and life will get stolen”
## If it absolutely, positively has to be secure, send it via Fed-Ex. Burn the info on an encrypted CD. Put the CD in multiple envelopes with all of the seams of each envelope sealed with security tape which leaves a red stain if it was tampered with, and Fed-Ex it from an unrelated address.
To go into more on the current issues, let’s first look at data harvesting.
All of these companies, (most you probably never heard of), are panning for digital gold in your private records: White Pages: Address.com; Google; Spokeo; Marketo; Been Verified; Facebook; Peek You; Intellius; ZabaSearch; US Search; inBloom; Salesforce.com; IBM Data Services; People Finders; TWITTER; Veromi; US People Search; Private Eye; Public Records Now; Addresses.com; People Smart; Advanced Background Checks; People Lookup; TalentShield; BeenVerified; GIS BackGround Checks; CVCertify; Conair; Social Intelligence; Dun And Bradstreet; EquiFax; Infortal; Kroll Backgrounds; Onesource; Checkpeople. Most consumers would not recognize the names of the large data brokers that constantly collect detailed information on their finances, medical, legal, sexual and other personal information. It’s safe to say most people probably have no idea this is happening at all. Those who are aware should be shocked by the extent to which their online and offline behaviors are being sifted through for profit. Axciom openly stated that they sell your information to government agencies. They got in trouble for selling your sexual, drinking, STD, abuse and mental issues to third parties.
In 2013 Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) issued a scathing report about the role and unchecked power of data brokers. Said Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill: “Your smartphones are basically mini tracking devices that supply the kind of information that really talks about who you are on a day-to-day basis.”
“In 2012, the data broker industry generated $150 billion in revenue. That’s twice the size of the entire intelligence budget of the United States government — all generated by the effort to detail and sell information about our private lives,” Rockefeller adds.
“I think most people have no idea that it’s being collected and sold and that it’s personally identifiable about them, and that the information is basically a profile of them,” Brill says. “Consumers don’t know who the data brokers are. They don’t know the names of these companies.”
There is another awful abuse you could be subjected to this way. Your enemies can have you attacked using these “data-mining” services
Every time you touch a keyboard, you hand your opposition the tools of your own destruction!
There are a group of Data Mining, privacy harvesting companies that can: find your kids for any stalker, kill off any chance you have of ever getting a job, destroy your credit, destroy your chances of getting a home, anticipate what you might do tomorrow, make you buy things you would not have otherwise bought, tell spammers and junk phone callers where and when to find you, tell everyone what your political affiliations are, and millions of other things that you never thought you were actually showing to the internet.
They grab every mouse move, hand twitch, the direction of your mouse travel, every word, password, page and link that you engage in. They know how long you looked at something, when you back-spaced, how many stories about sex you looked at and in what order.
OR… do YOU have an opinion that conflicts with certain politicians? BANG! Push a button and you are TOAST via a “data burn”! You saw what happened to the character Michael on the “BURN NOTICE” TV series, Right?
If someone does not like you, they can get input data to these services that will wipe you out and there is nothing you can do; there is no way to know if they data really came from you, an attacker or a mistake. When you fill out that apartment credit application, you just handed your enemies a knife to stab you in the privacy with.
So you wonder: “hmmm, If all network devices are now hacked! How can I have a NETWORK-FREE LIFE!
Touching any device connected to a network is the same as asking the Russian mob to “keep an eye on your stuff while you run to the store”:
You might as well leave your unlocked safe deposit box at the curb of your nearest ghetto.
Do you ever take off your clothes? That camera on your cell phone, tablet, PC or appliance is recording you in secret. All those nude photos of all of the starlets that are online from “The Fappening”…you could be next…
Hundreds of millions of consumers are having their personal data hacked from most big retailers.
The White House, NASA, The CIA and all those other sites you thought were super secure.. nope..not so much: Hacked!
The Snowden, Assange and Manning leaks, along with the CIA Torture report, show, more than anything else, that all nation states lie to each other and they have played a one-ups-man-ship game of you-hack-me-I’ll-hack you, that now every single network has been broken into hundreds of times.
CBS news revealed that the U.S. and Israel built the STUXNET virus to take out Iran’s nukes but Iran got ahold of it, and has passed derivatives of it to every anti-U.S. group.
Now nation-state-class regenerative virus attacks are running daily against U.S. corporations with complex viruses that self-mutate like the T3 Terminator in the famous sci-fi film franchise.
Want to see all of Hollywood’s secret movie contracts and all of the movie star’s social security numbers? Say hello to “Sony-Pocalypse”! The Koreans appear to have gutted all of the personal records and private communications of the whole studio system. Now we know that Sony’s own staff think that Adam Sandler is a Dick!
The USB connector, on all USB devices, has high odds of having a hacking virus built into the USB connection itself.
The sad thing is that there are hundreds of ways to solve the problem but those ways involve making networks hacker-proof and the spy agencies won’t allow that.
A large group of public organizations and consumer companies, who have brought hardware and software forward that is actually hacker proof, have been attacked for doing so.
Even famous companies: Apple and Google were just attacked by the FBI for adding a slightly stronger encryption to their phones.
Think you are a boring, non-attractive target? Think again! Ever take your clothes off? ..have sex? ..Buy stuff? Got a credit card?
Technology can absolutely fix the problem. Technologists are being blockaded from fixing the problem because of certain person’s over-whelming need for “control”. Where will it end?
How can you survive as a company, agency or individual in the mean-time? Since the “mean-time” could last for the next 20 years, at the “pace-of-politics”, you need to be ready to make a big commitment:
To be truly NETWORK FREE:
– You cannot own anything with a built-in hard drive. Boot any device from an external drive and try to never connect the drive when the device is on a network. Have a USB nub to put things on when you need to email or go online. Disconnect the main external hard-drive when you must go online. Use the external operating system on a USB drive called: TAILS from the people who brought you TOR.
– Consider having a tablet that is only for surfing the web. Set up ALL accounts on it with the universal login that all web users default to: John Doe. 1 Main Street, Anytown, USA, 91111. Never take any download off of it and never connect it to your home network or any other device.
– Buy old typewriters, paper file cabinets and 1990’s flip phones. Use pre-hack technology. The Russian’s have now switched to this.
– Don’t write anything on a social network.
Companies now realize that sending their design plans, CAD, campaign plans and electronic layouts by email, or FTP, is the same as handing them directly to Chinese and Korean copycat factories. Hackers can get into anything on-line with two mouse clicks, these days. Your personal assets are just as valuable to the hackers.
Stay safe. Be Aware. Once you adopt security techniques they will, eventually, become second nature.
TAGS:
Personal privacy, web security, Sony Hack, Hacker protection, internet privacy, web privacy, protecting your privacy
Filed under: TOP NEWS Tagged: Hacker protection, internet privacy, Personal privacy, protecting your privacy, Sony hack, THE LATEST ON PERSONAL DIGITAL SECURITY PROTECTION TIPS:, web privacy, web security 
