privacy
Promote free speech via Tor, earn a slapdown
[I wrote this a few years ago, but it is still relevant, perhaps even more so now -PD] I’ve been a privacy advocate for a long time; back in the mid-90s I’d wear my PGP ‘munition’ T-shirt while walking around the Boston common, both to support Phil Zimmerman’s defense fund and to enact my own […]
The Death of Trust
The tl;dr: Assume that anything you do online is being recorded by the government. I had a conversation this past week with one of my students who was interested in some of the operational aspects of anonymity; he wanted to know to what extent either Tor or a VPN or both would protect his identity […]
I still think WhatsApp has a security problem
Last week The Guardian ran a story that claimed a backdoor was embedded in Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service. Bloggers went nuts as we do when it looks like there’s some nefarious code lurking in a popular application, and of course Facebook is a favorite target of everybody. I tweeted my disdain for WhatsApp moments after reading […]
What I’m Using for Privacy: Cloud
This post is part of a series on technologies that I’m currently using for privacy, and my reasons for them. You can see the entire list in the first post. tl;dr: I don’t trust anyone with my data except myself, and neither should you. If you aren’t paying for it, you are the product I think […]
What I’m Using for Privacy: Email
This post is part of a series on technologies that I’m currently using for privacy, and my reasons for them. You can see the entire list in the first post. Email privacy is a tough nut to crack. To start, the protocol that’s used to move email around the internet, SMTP, is extremely simple and […]
Rethinking PGP encryption
Filippo Valsorda wrote an article recently on ArsTechnica titled I’m Throwing in the Towel on PGP, and I Work in Security that really made me think. Filippo is the real deal when it comes to PGP; few have his bona fides in the security arena, and when he talks, people should listen. The basic message of […]
Evernote changes privacy policy: ‘We might look at your notes’
The intertubes are lit up today with righteous indignation after popular note-saving app Evernote announced a change in its privacy policy that basically says, “One of our employees might take a look through the notes you trusted us with.” Here’s the official statement. I have several thoughts on this, especially since I’ve been using the […]
Which VPN Should I use?
Recently one of my students asked for a recommendation on a VPN app for his Macbook. I thought my rather long-winded reply might be useful to others wondering the same thing, and it’s appended below. There are two primary use cases for a VPN: You are away from your home network, possibly on an unsecured […]
Why FBI vs Apple is so important
On the face of it, the situation is pretty straightforward: The FBI has an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, it is currently locked with a passcode, and they want Apple to assist in unlocking the phone. Apple has stated that they don’t have that capability, and that to comply with the […]