[OT] Net Privacy

[Michael Hill]

Please recommend me stuff about modern net security and privacy. I am
step-by-step backing into a place where I wish everything I did or
said on the net were locked behind a privacy wall.

Thanks,
Hill

[John Stoneham]

Dude. This seriously demands some context.

--
John Stoneham
ly...@lyrically.net

[Michael Hill]

Hmmmm.

The more I learn about privacy and security on the net, from the point
of view of the naive user, the more I wish I knew about it from the
point of view of the serious geek.

That's all, really. I asked here cuz y'all so smart. Possibly a mug's
move, tho. :)

Seeya,
Hill

[George Dinwiddie]

Eternal vigilance. Think about what you're putting where. Think it's
all, more or less, public. Use tools to block tracking from place to
place. (I stick with Firefox for the NoScript plugin and the ability to
authorize cookies per site and per session.)

- George

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* George Dinwiddie * http://blog.gdinwiddie.com
Software Development http://www.idiacomputing.com
Consultant and Coach http://www.agilemaryland.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[RonJeffries]

As for me, I would be interested to know more "technical" stuff about how to protect myself.

That said, I assume that any governmental agency that wants to know what I'm doing on line can and will find out, and so I walk the line between not doing things and not caring.

Since nothing I do is illegal, and I'm not very paranoid, I'm not particularly worried.

Perhaps I should be. Anyway I am interested in how it all works and what one could do if one did want to be more secure.

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

If it is more than you need, it is waste. -- Andy Seidl

[Jon Kern]

Web app security, I presume is not your question, but rather one about
personal stuff?

i would guess one extreme is what folks like Anonymous (and their ilk)
do... trying to hide all of their anarchistic activity since it is
nefarious.

but for the typical user, you have an identifiable IP address, which you
can lookup and get pretty close to the geo-location.

and your ISP provider has a series of ever-increasing regulations from
government to track your activity.

same goes for email.

i would presume everything we do or say online/digitally can appear in a
court of law.

But I am also with Ron... for the 99.99%-ers, go ahead, read my emails :-)

Make no mistake, Governments will always try to encroach on our
freedoms, particularly under the guise of "helping" or "protecting" some
victim class.

jon

blog: http://technicaldebt.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA

Michael Hill said the following on 4/22/12 10:53 PM:

[J. B. Rainsberger]

I use a VPN service, but you might already do that. I don't use it
100% of the time, but I try to use it very close to 100% of the time.
I subscribe to the PersonalVPN service at Witopia. At a minimum, it
helps me feel better when using networks I don't own.

Beyond that, I don't have much for you that the others haven't already
mentioned: if you don't want someone else reading it, then don't say
it. I mostly don't mind; I think it's more likely to end up in a
Brazil-type situation than for the government to come after me for
anything I've actually done.
--
J. B. (Joe) Rainsberger :: http://www.jbrains.ca ::
http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com
Author, JUnit Recipes
Free Your Mind to Do Great Work :: http://www.freeyourmind-dogreatwork.com
Find out what others have to say about me at http://nta.gs/jbrains

[RonJeffries]

Hi Joe,

On Apr 23, 2012, at 9:09 AM, J. B. Rainsberger wrote:

I use a VPN service, but you might already do that. I don't use it
100% of the time, but I try to use it very close to 100% of the time.
I subscribe to the PersonalVPN service at Witopia. At a minimum, it
helps me feel better when using networks I don't own.

I really don't understand what using a VPN would do for me. More details, please?

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

If not now, when? -- Rabbi Hillel

[J. B. Rainsberger]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 13:18, RonJeffries <ronje...@acm.org> wrote:

> I really don't understand what using a VPN would do for me. More details,
> please?

I recommend budgeting 10 minutes to read at witopia.net.

I use the VPN to encrypt my traffic and hide my IP address on any
network. This mostly protects a bit more against snoopers on public
networks (coffee shops, hotels, &c) and it disguises a little better
what I'm doing, since that's mostly nobody's business but mine. I say
"a bit more" and "a little better", because the people who /really/
want to know what I'm doing can probably figure it out, so I think of
it like a lock on the door: it doesn't stop a determined thief, but it
encourages them to rob the house down the street.

[RonJeffries]

Hi Joe,

On Apr 23, 2012, at 12:26 PM, J. B. Rainsberger wrote:

I recommend budgeting 10 minutes to read at witopia.net.

Useful, thanks!

I use the VPN to encrypt my traffic and hide my IP address on any
network. This mostly protects a bit more against snoopers on public
networks (coffee shops, hotels, &c) and it disguises a little better
what I'm doing, since that's mostly nobody's business but mine. I say
"a bit more" and "a little better", because the people who /really/
want to know what I'm doing can probably figure it out, so I think of
it like a lock on the door: it doesn't stop a determined thief, but it
encourages them to rob the house down the street.

Sounds like I oughta git me one. Do you see any performance issues with it?

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

I try to Zen through it and keep my voice very mellow and low.

Inside I am screaming and have a machine gun.

Yin and Yang I figure.

  -- Tom Jeffries

[Jon Kern]

I remembered Corey Haines telling me about something, so I just DM'd him:

https://www.getcloak.com/about/features/

 

jon

blog: http://technicaldebt.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA

RonJeffries said the following on 4/23/12 3:03 PM:

[Jon Kern]

Or use this link: https://www.getcloak.com/accounts/sign-up/?i=D3452ADCD67B

jon

blog: http://technicaldebt.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA

RonJeffries said the following on 4/23/12 3:03 PM:

Hi Joe,

[Dave Rooney]

I use Cloak... worked fine as far as I could tell when I went to India, with no noticeable degradation of bandwidth.

Oh, during that trip my credit card number was compromised and someone used it to buy a bunch of furniture and >$500 of tickets in Sheffield, UK.

:)

Dave...

P.S. We suspect that the problem occurred at a restaurant at Heathrow where they took my card way to be processed.

[Ted M. Young [@jitterted]]

Which is actually the majority of cases, i.e., most credit card theft is when the card is handled physically (or at least it used to be, not sure how much the recent huge thefts from payment processors factors in).

;ted

[Mark Levison]

When mine was last compromised (last Nov.) the credit card people told me that its often stolen months before and only put into play much later. In part because it makes it more difficult to trace the theft and in part because the people who use them are usually not the people who steal them.

In my case I lost use of the card on a business trip - thankfully it happened in Canada where at least I had cellphone and data access.

Cheers

Mark

[Michael Feathers]

Mike, I know what your worried about, but seriously: no one is going
to judge you for looking at the photos I send you on twitter. Okay?

Relax,

Michael

[Keith Ray]

What I've heard is that not only are banks and other big institutions often keeping *all* fields in their databases in the clear, but the typical retail purchase process with a credit card is conducted in the clear through-out the system, often with a dial-up modem at retailer.

C. Keith Ray
http://agilesolutionspace.blogspot.com/
twitter: @ckeithray

[J. B. Rainsberger]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 19:03, RonJeffries <ronje...@acm.org> wrote:

> I recommend budgeting 10 minutes to read at witopia.net.
>
> Useful, thanks!

Very glad.

> Sounds like I oughta git me one. Do you see any performance issues with it?

Generally speaking, no. Sometimes yes. Sometimes in hotels I notice an
/improvement/, as the VPN gets around whatever throttling mechanisms
they might have in place.

[J. B. Rainsberger]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 21:03, Keith Ray <keit...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What I've heard is that not only are banks and other big institutions often keeping *all* fields in their databases in the clear, but the typical retail purchase process with a credit card is conducted in the clear through-out the system, often with a dial-up modem at retailer.

Stop it! We are much, much better off not knowing these things.

[Nayan Hajratwala]

On Apr 24, 2012, at 6:35 PM, J. B. Rainsberger wrote:
> Generally speaking, no. Sometimes yes. Sometimes in hotels I notice an
> /improvement/, as the VPN gets around whatever throttling mechanisms
> they might have in place.

On a related note, since switching to use OpenDNS, i've noticed improved performance. I speculate that there are a lot of slow/clunky DNS servers out there.

It's possible that the performance improvement you're seeing is due to the DNS servers that your VPN service uses.

[J. B. Rainsberger]

I'd buy that.

[George Dinwiddie]

Or, at least, no one who hasn't ALREADY judged you for those photos.
Besides, you don't have to look at them. The fact that they're addressed
to you is damning enough.

cheers,
George

[Lance Walton]

On 24 Apr 2012, at 23:36, "J. B. Rainsberger" <m...@jbrains.ca> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 21:03, Keith Ray <keit...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What I've heard is that not only are banks and other big institutions often keeping *all* fields in their databases in the clear, but the typical retail purchase process with a credit card is conducted in the clear through-out the system, often with a dial-up modem at retailer.
>
> Stop it! We are much, much better off not knowing these things.

For all of you have not worked in investment banks, I can assure you that it's far worse than you could possible imagine. The quality of software and systems, and the expectations about quality are very disappointing.