Why it is important to keep Your Communications Private and Confidential!

Identity theft, hacking of financial accounts, and even illegal surveillance by governments are major concerns to anyone who is informed regarding electronic security. Our political ‘leaders’, as usual, go about bragging how their ever-greater control of everything will make you safe… and that you should just trust them and just go back to sleep. And, as usual, their solution is generating some very nasty unexpected consequences.

Although globetrotting (both in real life and in the virtual world) opens up many opportunities, it also has its own set of unique problems. At Do Business in Panama, we frequently consider these issues, together with high-tech but user friendly solutions designed with two simple things in mind: the privacy and security of our clients.

To find a solution, first analyze the threat

Computer crime used to be the province of angry, nasty hackers, who stole credit card numbers and sold them on eBay-type platforms. But, those days are mostly gone. The growing attention of banks, police, consumer saviors, and credit card processors drove the hackers to the mafias, and forced them to work together.

Today, the goal for stolen data is quality. The payoff comes in massive credit card frauds, operating illegal businesses, emptying bank accounts, blackmail, and associated organized criminal activities.

Stolen data is seldom traded anymore. Instead it goes to data refineries, where large blocks of data are upgraded by using additional data for cross referencing. Then, specific persons or firms are targeted for additional data theft if they look interesting.

The critical factors here are cross-referencing and unique identifiers (for example Social Security Numbers). In other words, the mafias need verified data. And the best verified data comes from… you guessed it… Governments! Government data is fantastically valuable to the mafias. It is very accurate, seldom outdated, comes in large packages, and it comes with unique identifiers.

By fighting against privacy and for “consumer protection,” the governments of the world have created a system that is prone to high scale, high volume, coordinated attacks, which are perfect for mafia groups. And, make no mistake, this is big business. The 2007 SANS report pegged the profits from cyber-crime at $180 Billion! (Illegal drugs came in at only $140 Billion.)

A Coming Windfall for the Cybercriminal Mafias

If you think cyber-crime is bad now, just wait until government control-freaks get their new ID schemes into place. Things like Biometric Passports, Real ID in the USA, or the National ID card scheme in the UK. It will get much worse.

Biometric ID is the ‘Holy Grail’ of cyber-crime… the dream of hackers everywhere. With it, the crooks will become ultra-rich, buy up all sorts of assets, and quite possibly even crash the entire consumer credit system in the USA.

By optimizing central control, governments have created a perfect environment for cyber-crime.

Tools for Protecting Your Identity Online

The cost is some in the range of one dollar per day. But before we get to solutions, you really should understand the situation you face.

Probably the biggest single threat is your email. Your emails are like an open book. They contain many details of your business and your family life, and are notoriously insecure. For that reason, they are a prime target for people who want to spy on you. Who you communicate and do business with are no one’s business but your own. Because of this, you should set up your email to be truly secure.

There are three primary threats to e-mail privacy:

1. Outsiders being able to read your messages.

2. Outsiders being able to see with whom you are communicating, even if they cannot read the messages.

3. Outsiders and Recipients of your mail being able to see your physical location or other non-public personal information.

All of these can be addressed.

The Single Global Standard for Encryption is PGP

There is just one standard, serious encryption program used almost universally by everybody who is concerned with Internet privacy. It is called PGP, short for Pretty Good Privacy. This is a program which can be downloaded from www.pgp.com or www.pgpi.org and is relatively simple to use. PGP has a track record that goes way back before Windows® even existed, and it’s trusted by the most hard core privacy geeks. We highly recommend it. There are free versions floating around the web, which work perfectly for most applications, as well as GnuPG, a free (Open Source) equivalent.

We advise you to take an hour or two to visit www.pgp.com and/or www.gnupg.org Download the software and install it. There are versions for Windows, Mac, Linux and other operating systems. In case you are wondering how to use it, it comes with quite comprehensible instructions. It’s easy.

But PGP doesn’t solve the whole problem

There is a flaw, or shall we call it a limitation, with using simple PGP encryption. Yes, the message may be encrypted so that nobody but the intended recipient can read it. But anyone who intercepts the message can still see who it is going from, and who it is going to. And not just that, but anyone who intercepts the message can also see where the sender is geographically located, right down to your local Internet company (who have records which are traceable directly to where you are connecting from).

This is due to the IP address (Internet Protocol address) Every single computer connected to the Internet has an IP address, and on normal e-mail that address is shown in the headers (that you won’t not normally see.)

Internet companies have a habit of storing all the e-mails you send and receive. PGP encryption will stop them from reading these mails, but they will still have copies of all the headers which can reveal who and where you are.

The Cryptohippie service which we recommend below has a feature that strips all of the identifying information from your emails. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Our Recommended Solution to Secure Your Web Browsing

Besides email, the other application people use most on the Internet is web browsing (for computer dummies, that’s what you are doing now!) To remain safe here, you have to buy access to a secure network.

But first, you should know this: All websites log each and every access. Even if you just view an introductory home page such as this one, your ‘IP’ (Internet Protocol) address is logged. Your IP address can be traced back to your real world home address. Most site administrators do precisely nothing with this information they have on you. It is mainly used for statistical purposes, such as “from what part of the world are people visiting our swell website?”

But if someone is watching either you, or a particular website you have logged on to, that information is out there. Who knows when one of those mafia data refineries may link it to some other bit of info they have picked up on you.

A good secure network acts as your proxy. In other words, it takes your instructions (such as “get me the homepage of www.offshorebank.com”), executes them for you and sends the pages you request back to you. To the machine on the far end, where the information you are viewing is actually kept, only your proxy’s information appears. You are anonymous!

As with email, free, anonymous proxy services are always available on the net, but, DO NOT USE THEM. You want someone who has something to lose by providing bad service or stealing (or maybe just “losing”) your information.

We recommend Cryptohippie. The protection is simply superior to any other provider, at any price. Over the years we have tried and tested many similar systems. Some of them we have recommended to our clients. If you need a privacy solution right now, Cryptohippie is the best out there. The cost is just €199 for a year’s subscription, or under a dollar a day. A small price to pay for privacy and security.

You will have to install software on your machine, but the process takes only a few minutes.

(C) 2008 Q Wealth Limited

This article is reproduced with kind permission of The Q Wealth Report. Visit The Q Wealth Report today to download a free sample of their newsletter dedicated to creating, preserving and growing wealth in a secure offshore environment.