Archives

All posts for the month January, 2008

We all have information we want to keep private. If you look at the links on the left of this blog, you will
notice a growing list of tools which can help.  I would like to collect resources and write a
number of tutorials on the technical and social steps you need to take to secure
your data with minimal technological experience.

So, what would you like to know first?  Secure instant messaging?  Private email?  Keeping the data on your hard drive from private
eyes?  Anonymous publishing on the web?  Steganography? Anonymous web surfing?  Anonymous digital currency? 

Are you knowledgeable on any of these subjects?  Please consider writing a tutorial or
contributing links.

Adam Liptak reveals the digital privacy we can expect from the state:

While “one lonely voice” argued that

“Electronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory…They are capable of storing our thoughts, ranging from the most whimsical to the most profound.”

The consensus seems to be that

“a computer is just a container and deserves no special protection from searches at the border.”

The implications are quite ominous, according to the EFF:

“Under the government’s reasoning,” the brief said, “border authorities could systematically collect all of the information contained on every laptop computer, BlackBerry and other electronic device carried across our national borders by every traveler, American or foreign.”

The question of whether you can be punished for refusing to reveal a encryption key is far from being settled, yet several lessons are clear:

One is that the border [and your car/person/digital communications] seems be a privacy-free zone. A second is that encryption programs work.