A.L.E.R.T.
(America Law Education Rights & Taxation)

09-28-2001
Your Computer Is Your Enemy

Foreword by Gordon Phillips --

Deep inside, people everywhere basically hate their computers. We've all become so totally dependent upon the infernal plastic boxes (Mac users are just smarter than the rest of us) that when they fail, our lives can come to a screeching halt.

There isn't a week goes by that I don't hear about someone somewhere suffering from a crashed hard drive, a virus they picked up, software that corrupted data files, etc. Of course, if I work closely with any of these folks in a particular project, when their world stops, so does mine. The solution of course is to have TWO computers ...

Tomorrow's A.L.E.R.T. will feature an American company that will ship you a screaming new Pentium loaded with all the extras (references required, but no credit check or SSN) on a rent-to-own basis. There's nothing like having a 1,000 MHz spare tire when you need it. Until then, I give you Sam ...

* * *

Your Computer Is Your Enemy -- by Sam Cyber

I'm frequently buttonholed for hot tips and suggestions about PC security, privacy and general 'good housekeeping'. The URL's below should prove useful.

COMPUTER FREEBIES -- Here are some Fun Freebies (as of 03/01/01) for your computer, bearing in mind that nothing in life is ever free. It's either prepaid or paid for by someone else. That's the TANSTAAFL principle in action.

* Go to http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html and download FREE PGP encryption software (PGP and PGP Disk) to protect your data -- for a few more years (weeks?), anyway. That is, until current key sizes can be cracked (the 512K RSA key was cracked in the summer of '99). 

* Go to http://www.evidence-eliminator.com and download their hard drive sanitizer. It's FREE during the trial period. You won't believe what it finds (if the IRS only knew ...)

* Go to http://www.zonelabs.com for their Internet firewall program, permanently FREE for non-business users. Prevent unauthorized access to your machine. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out unless you say so.

* Go to http://www.vecdev.com for their FREE 'Guideon' GUI scrubber. You mean you didn't know that every single Word doc contains a secret, embedded Global Universal Identifier (GUI), so the author can be traced back to the machine it was written on? 
You do now. Sanitize those word docs! Go fish, FBI.

* Go to http://www.grc.com for their FREE 'spyware' scrubber. This is nasty marketing junk that gets planted deep in your machine so that your travels on the Internet can be tracked. Run 'deep scan' on your hard drive and be amazed.

* Go to http://www.anonymizer.com for FREE anonymous browser redirection (30 sec delay imposed). With your Internet browsing redirected, the web site you're going to can't tell who you are. But your local ISP could see where you're going. When you sign up and pay (you can mail in a money order), you also get URL encryption, so your local ISP can't tell where you're browsing to, either. 

* Go to http://www.safeweb.com for FREE anonymous browser redirection with NO delay. 

* Go to http://www.winmag.com for a FREE cookie washer. Other good utilities there as well. 

* Go to http://www.hushmail.com for FREE cloaked e-mail (content encrypted and therefore hidden from ISP's on BOTH ends, yours and the person you're corresponding with). This is handy in case the feds flip a badge at your local ISP and ask what kind of e-mail you're writing and receiving. 'Geez, I don't know. All I see is gibberish.'

* Go to http://www.ziplip.com for FREE cloaked e-mail (content hidden from ISP's on BOTH ends, yours and the person you're corresponding with). Again, wouldn't you rather stick your e-mails in an envelope?

* Go to http://www.jfax.com, http://www.hotvoice.com or http://www.onebox.com for FREE anonymous voice mail. Voice messages are forwarded to an e-mail account as audio (*.wav) files. Have your anonymous voice mail account feed into your hushmail account and you're fairly private. Of course, the FBI could always sniff data packets and find the transmission source anyway. Unless you use a Cyber Café, library or pay-as-you-go computer store or rental location and provide phony ID to use their computer, then never go back again. But I digress.

* Go to http://www.jfax.com, http://www.efax.com or http://www.onebox.com for a FREE anonymous fax number. Faxes are forwarded to an e-mail account as fax image (*tiff) files.

* Go to http://www.icq.com for FREE anonymous instant 'buddy' messaging. ICQ is a handy way to communicate instantly with others who are online, and you don't need your e-mail program open to use it, which means it probably isn't visible to your local ISP. Don't use your real name or other information when signing up for ICQ, or for ANY of the above for that matter. Who you really are is none of their business. Be Henry Bowman. Be Henry Kissinger. Be 99 years old, unemployed and from outer Mongolia. When asked for your e-mail address, use <bogus@bogus.net>. Whatever.

STUFF YOU GOTTA' PAY FOR

* Go to http://www.mcafee.com and download their antivirus software. It's FREE during the trial period. Before the free trial expires, scan your entire machine and all drives and disks (including your backups) for viruses and worms. After the trial expires, you can buy it if you want. Update virus and worm definitions frequently. 

* Go to http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/ and get Norton Utilities to keep your machine humming like the government accomplice that it is. 

While I'm at it, here are a few other pointers. 

BACKING UP DATA -- You will need a ZIP, JAZ, rewriteable CD-ROM or other external drive to back up data to. Lacking such, go to http://www.xdrive.com and sign up for free storage on their server. Always -- ALWAYS -- back up your data BEFORE ever installing ANYTHING! Once installed, your computer will treat virtual drive 'X' just like any real drive on your machine, so you can copy and move files to and from Drive X: with ease. As a plus, if you collaborate (conspire) with others, you can share the xdrive user name and passcode and upload files for each other to retrieve. Do this from your local Cyber Café using your anonymous FREE e-mail account and you, too, can be an instant anarchist.

YOUR DATA IS EVERYTHING -- It's important to remember as you drool over your shiny new XL2001 super-tower with 8 acres of hard drive, a googolplex of RAM and matching Maserati joy sticks, that, when unplugged, it's really just another 'Bill-In-A-Box' -- a useless lump of plastic, an ugly doorstop. YOUR DATA IS EVERYTHING. When (not if, when) your computer craps out on you, you can always run down and buy a new one and have it back home, plugged in and running in two hours flat. But how long will it take you to reconstruct EVERY PIECE OF DATA you have entered, saved or downloaded since your last backup? Let's chant the mantra together: YOUR DATA IS EVERYTHING. Enough said.

As you work, save frequent copies of your work-in-progress to your 'A:' drive or other external media for 'quick-and-dirty' data recover when (not if, WHEN ) your PC croaks. Whenever you step away from your computer, take the disk out of the drive and stick it in your underwear. If you get raided, only gay feds will frisk you there. Of course, if you're happy yourself, you won't mind.

And always -- ALWAYS! -- keep at least one current (i.e., recent) backup set OFF SITE in an anonymous, fireproof location in order to thwart fire, theft or surprise Elian Gonzalez-style visits by INS, IRS, FBI, BATF, DEQE, NSA, CIA or your choice of 'We're here to help you' alphabet soup agencies. If all of your backups are ON-site and disaster should strike, you're SOL. Remember too, if you work in close e-collaboration with others, the computer disaster that renders YOU paralyzed will do the same to THEM, so be responsible and always keep your machine healthy and happy! 

NOW HEAR THIS! YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL FAIL -- Getting nervous yet? Hey, I'm just getting warmed up. Never forget: your hard drive WILL fail someday. Not may, WILL. Count on it. Plan on it. Live by it. Expect it any second. You WILL eventually get the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) with a pulse-pounding message like 'Unable To Access Drive C:'. You will break out in a cold sweat. Your eyes will bug out. Your stomach will flop over. And you will spend well over a thousand Babel bux to have some data recovery company take a couple of weeks to scrape the bytes off your hard drive and ship them back to you. During this period of deep depression and anxiety you will be out of business. Down for the count. How many hours (days, weeks, months, years, decades) are YOU willing to reconstruct entirely from memory (and other faulty records) because you have no recent data backups to restore from? Can you spell 'agony'?

TRIANGULATE FOR PRIVACY -- The following is fodder for a future article, but let me briefly suggest here that, for real privacy, you obtain a new Internet dialup service (ISP account), one that is NOT in your own name and which reflects NONE of your personal information, including your actual address, phone number, SSN, retinal eye scan, mother's maiden name or whatever other crap every nosy Tom-Dick-and-Harry routinely asks for (for a restful night's sleep in an encroaching police state, it's always a good idea to simultaneously be someone else, anyway). This goes for your local telephone service, long distance, cell phone, electricity, fuel delivery, cable hookup, trash pickup, etc. If you want real privacy, none of these accounts should be in your real name. 

Personally, I wouldn't dream of such a thing. A unique privacy service provider which I will abbreviate as the 'A' Company offers a 'Virtual Move' service which 'moves you out' on telephone and utility records, then 'moves in' some company for which 'you' ostensibly work from home (not under your real name, of course), with your living accommodations provided as a job 'perk'. The bills go to their address, not yours. They pay the bills out of your anonymous escrow account. It's a beautiful thing. Trust me, American Express will not be offering this service anytime soon. No more telemarketing calls. Ever. And no more junk mail. Total privacy. Voila! Interested? Tell the handsome editors of the Privacy Alert to put us in touch.

By the way, never get suckered into registering software online. Actually, don't bother registering anything, ever. All you ever really need is a receipt anyway. Of course, for true anonymity, never buy anything really IMPORTANT yourself. Have a third-party proxy agent buy it for you (like 'A' Co. mentioned above). This principle is called 'triangulation' (another good future subject). 

Finally, bear this maxim in mind: YOUR COMPUTER IS YOUR ENEMY! If it were carted out of your office right this second, what could a snoop find on it that you would never want known? Better get busy and sanitize that hard drive. And while you're at it, remember this: Absolutely NOTHING you send across the Internet is truly private. Which is why I use the mails. I don't even own a computer. Until next time, happy computing.

-- Sam Cyber, Custodian at Private Arena (http://www.privatearena.com)