Jim:
I've done a lot of experimenting on this and offer my take:
Rule Number One: The U.S. Government is monitoring domestic internet
traffic. Anybody visiting Survivalblog is already suspect by the
government because of it's very subject matter. Assume that you are
being monitored.
Let's not be naive here please.
Anonymizer is obviously monitored by the Government because it maintains
logs of in/out IP Addresses.
Tor...the Onion Router is the best way to go if you have DSL or Cable
high-speed internet connection because there is no central logging.
I use it.
CCleaner [Cache Cleaner] at http://www.ccleaner.com/ is
the very best way to keep your computer free of what snoops want. It
is FREE, tiny,
fast,
easy,
and
I click on it after every internet surf. It instantly removes all
tracking cookies. It also instantly removes all those useless internet
temp
files that clog/slow your computer. Download it FREE right now. -Book
James:
You mentioned that your readers might be interested in
a brief write up of privacy on the Internet and how to keep yourself off
of
the radar.
I'll try to oblige.
First some background: My company and I do Information Security for
small businesses, so we and I have experience in keeping private things
private in the real world. What I'm doing is basically putting into
text the Security Speech that I give any client who I consult for (and
will sit still long enough to hear it). I'll stay away from technical
terms and specific products/'solutions' until the very end where I'll
describe a few different levels of 'security' in real-world examples.
Specific privacy stuff is further towards the end.
Rule Number One: There Is No Such Thing As A Secure Computer (or Anything
Else)
Perfect security is impossible. Computer security researchers are fond
of saying that the only secure computer is one that's unplugged from
the network, turned off, sealed in a vault and protected by well-paid
guards, and they're only partially joking. (Yes this is what passes
for humor in the computer security profession.) No matter what steps
you take to keep your stuff secure, someone, somewhere can break into
it and steal them; given sufficient time and money all computers are
vulnerable. The only thing you can do to an attacker is slow him or
her down. All of modern security is devoted to slowing attackers down.
This has two effects: it makes you less appealing to casual attackers
and it frustrates determined attackers.
In WWII the Germans used
an encryption device called "enigma" to
send secret messages to their troops. They thought it was unbreakable.
The allies broke it. The moral of the story is that what we think is
'secure' today will be as tough as tissue paper in fifty years.
Rule Number Two: Security Is Not A Product.
What I mean by this is twofold: one, anyone who sells you a "secure" widget
is lying. Widgets, computers, servers and networks are not secure or
insecure by their nature; they are merely tools. Any tool can be used
for good or ill, just think of the climate concerning guns. This is
a continuation of the first rule; not only is there no such thing as
a secure computer, any steps that have been taken to create a more
secure computer can be blown away by the mentality of the user. This
rule probably should read Security Is A State Of Mind, but this way
I can combine two rules into one. In a nutshell, every system is only
as secure as the users of that system are willing to make it.
The canonical example of this is a hospital. Hospitals have insane
oversight in terms of confidentiality of patient information and they
can get in real trouble for letting the Wrong People see certain files.
So the natural step is to make each level of access have a separate
password and each user must login to separate authentication levels,
blah blah blah. Its a 'very secure system.' End result? Nurses get
tired of remembering so many passwords and write them down on sticky
notes on the monitor. Security that is too hard to use will be defeated.
Rule Number Three: Your Computer Is A Castle.
Traditional security is a good analogy to computer security. Things
that people would never do in the real world they don't think twice
about doing online. When you open an attachment you're not expecting,
its like licking your neighbor's doorknob. When you blindly click 'OK'
on every pop up window, its like walking around in a bad neighborhood
with a roll of hundred dollar bills poking out of your pocket. Remember
the Trojan Horse? Trusting everyone online will get you in trouble,
just like in real life.
Likewise, when you evaluate a system for security the first place you
look is the place where security is the weakest. If you double-encrypt
everything and lock your computer in a safe but your password is 'secret',
you're not really secure. Always look at the big picture and don't
lose the forest for the trees. Likewise, if you have an uber-secure
locked-down machine but its in an office where the cleaning staff have
physical access, you're not secure.
Rule Number Four: Security is Boring
This is the hardest thing to get right. The best way to be secure online
is to do the little things all the time. Boring things like keeping
your security updates up-to-date and getting an anti-virus. Being paranoid
about your email and choosing the right software go a huge way towards
keeping your stuff safe. Have a legal copy of all your software, especially
your anti-virus. Pay for it. If you don't want to pay for it, AVG anti
virus is free and damn good. More detail later.
That's it for the theory, there will be a quiz on Thursday. Now the
practice. There are a few things that you can do to keep yourself secure
and protect what little privacy you still have.
The first thing to know is that email is not secure. Think of email
as sending a postcard, there's nothing to stop anyone who touches
it from reading it. Email is hard but not impossible to anonymize, but
there are few remaining anonymizers left. Any old Hotmail or other
free account will work for certain values of 'anonymous' but they
probably will not stand up to a legal search warrant unless you are very careful.
Gmail is not a good provider for anonymous email because of the invite
system. Unless you can get an invite anonymously anyone tracing it
can simply look up who invited you and compel them to spill the beans.
Another thing is that any site you visit on the web can get a huge
amount of information on you that your browser just sends out on its
own. Things like your IP address which can be traced to a rough location
and if the government gets involved can probably be traced down to
whoever pays the bills. This can be mitigated by using anonymizing
proxies, Tor and privoxy. More detail further on
Yet another key facet is that anything that is on your computer is
something that you are trusting fully. If you follow good protocol,
you are trusting Microsoft with all of your data, and you are trusting
whoever makes your anti-virus or firewall with all your data. There
is precedent for law enforcement using the anti-virus update to compromise
the computer of a group that was holed up in their cabin to prevent
them from emailing out. In case I wasn't clear, this has happened and
will happen again.
Now for some details and the all-important links:
In terms of an operating system, Windows is the default and there's
no budging most people from it. With good practices and by keeping
up to date you can keep windows tolerably secure. I would trust it
for mildly embarrassing data but not critical data. Please upgrade
to at least Windows 2000. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 is best. I
know its expensive, but Windows 95, 98, and ME are outdated and not secure.
Since no one has access to the code that makes Windows tick, there
is no way to determine for sure that there is not an easy back door
that could be leveraged against you. I cannot recommend keeping
mission critical data on a Windows machine. If you have
a bit more freedom about what you run, I heartily recommend getting
a
Macintosh. The new Apple OS X
is built upon a very secure BSD base
and it strikes an excellent balance between usability and security.
Any version of Linux or BSD can be
made secure, but if you're running those you probably know how to
secure it.
Web browsers: There really is only one. Firefox is the best that has
come along yet. It can be setup for decent everyday browsing and keep
a good rein on your cookies and history. In the firefox settings,
you can exercise very fine control over what sites are allowed to set
cookies on your machine and when to expire them. Please do
not use Internet Explorer on ANY OS. It is not secure in any
way. A good addition is Privoxy and/or Tor.
A must-have extension for Firefox is Adblock Plus and "Filterset.G"
Email client: I recommend either Mozilla Thunderbird, but basically
anything but Outlook (Express) is acceptable. Outlook is massively
insecure, Please do not use it.
Anti Virus: They're all equally mediocre. I use AVG which is free
for personal use. Pick one and keep it updated.
Firewall: Again, the windows firewall cannot be trusted. I recommend
Kerio Personal Firewall, and I use it myself. Tiny Personal Firewall
is good too. Zone Alarm is less powerful and Black Ice is worthless.
Proxies: Privoxy is a nice semi-anonymizing proxy that runs on your
local machine. It can't hide your IP but it will strip out a lot
of identifiable information. Its pretty easy to set up too.
Tor is a very clever
onion routing network that passes your traffic through a few levels
of other machines so that theoretically not only
does the site you're visiting not know who you are, nobody could
trace your connection back to you. An added benefit is that Tor servers
are
encrypted so your traffic is harder to snoop on as well as being
more anonymous. The disadvantage is that this is SLOW.
Encryption: BestCrypt can create secure images that can be viewed
on Windows and Linux.
Below I'm going to outline three levels of security and what they
should be reasonably protected against.
The first is an easy to use everyday machine. You will be protected
from most common automated and non-directed attacks but a determined
attacker will still be able to penetrate as will a governmental entity.
If there is demand I can work up a similar profile for a Mac.
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP.
AVG anti virus or similar.
Kerio Personal Firewall of similar.
Firefox, Adblock Plus and Filterset.G set to only allow same-domain
cookies.
Privoxy
The second is more anonymous but it sacrifices speed. You will use
this if you want to do something that you wouldn't want broadcasted.
The same as above except Firefox is set to expire cookies on close,
and keep no disk cache or history. Privoxy is also connected to Tor
for anonymization.
For email, Thunderbird and Enigmail can be setup to encrypt your
email to a very strong degree, as long as the recipient has a similar
setup.
New Enigmail versions are very user-friendly in this regard.
Also, it is possible to have two different "profiles" of
firefox on one machine, one that simply browses normally with sane
cookie rules, and another that passes through Tor/Privoxy and keeps
no history or cache and clears cookies on exit. This is simple to do
and a good mix of usability and the ability to be more anonymous if
desired.
One note: Remember that today's "uncrackable" will be a joke
in fifty years. Also, encrypted traffic will probably raise a certain
level of awareness among those doing the spying. Legally this poses
no problems but if you're doing something you wouldn't like discovered
sending encrypted e-mails to osama@alqaida.com it is probably a bad
idea.
A Proviso: The above two systems rely on closed
code and trusting updates. They would be very vulnerable to any form
of
governmental intrusion
and nothing can be done to mitigate this. IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO
SOMETHING ILLEGAL, DON'T USE ANYTHING CLOSED-SOURCE TO DO IT WITH.
If you
do intend to do something illegal, or even if you're just paranoid
like
me, a good idea would be to have a second machine. This is similar
to what the NSA does internally: Classified machines cannot talk
to Top Secret machines, and none of them can talk to Unclassified
machines.
A good Classified or Top Secret machine might look like this. This
machine should be reasonably secure against anything but a direct,
physical attack.
BSD or Linux OS, properly configured (details are outside the scope
of this article. I will be happy to provide further information upon
request).
A solid, encrypted file system or BestCrypt for any user data.
Not connected to the network. Use a USB flash keychain/thumb drive
for getting data off of it.
Again, none of this is any good at all if your master password is
your birthday.
I hope someone finds this useful and I'm happy to answer any more
detailed questions either via SurvivalBlog or directly. - Paedrig
Hawkwing (PaedrigHawkwing-at-gmail.com--change
the "-at-" to an @ symbol)
JWR Adds: Our web statistics show that 19% of our readers now use the Firefox browser, up substantially from the 16% when we started SurvivalBlog back in August of Aught Five. My advice: DUMP that back-door ridden, data mining Microsoft Internet Explorer. Firefox is free!
Hi Jim,
Another option for anonymous web browsing is to install
Tor, an "onion routing" package that sends your data
through 'layers' of different servers before reaching your desired
destination.
After
I first installed Tor, I visited Google and was surprised to see
it looked a little different -- Google detected that I was coming
from
Austria (since the last server 'layer' was located there) and presented
me with "Google Österreich"! Tor is free and easy
to setup. The EFF has instructions for Windows ( http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc-win32.html)
and OSX (http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc-osx.html ). Regards,
- MP