This is part 3 of a series. See: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 With ECHELON up and running, the NSA was free to provide intelligence support for other agencies trying to hunt down Muammar Gaddafi following a Berlin bombing in mid 1980s. They even spied on allies in Europe to steal industrial … Continue reading “How the NSA Spies on Us All – Part 3: The 80’s & 90’s”
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What is HTTPS? Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of the standard Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) originally created in 1994 for the Netscape Navigator web browser. HTTPS is extensively used to secure connection over the internet. It protects data between a website and a visitor. HTTPS is secured by a Transport Layer … Continue reading “Why Using HTTPS is so Important for Your Website”
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Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a pretty good way to encrypt your files and emails. It works on the public key-private key method. Let’s say you have a mailbox in your home. Anybody can drop envelopes in the slot as long as they know your home address. But only you have the key to open … Continue reading “What is Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)?”
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The short answer: No. The long answer: Noooooooooooo. If you haven’t had a primer on what a quantum computer is or does, Kurzgesagt has a fantastic crash course introduction here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHMJCUmq28 For over a decade now, cryptographers, security experts, and researchers have been talking about Quantum Computing and how it will impact internet security. Quantum … Continue reading “Quantum Computing – Is the World of a Secure Internet Over?”
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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most important – and controversial – privacy law passed in recent years. Despite its origin in the EU, its reach is truly global, since it affects anyone storing the personal data of EU citizens, no matter where the organization is located. In part because of a flurry … Continue reading “Beyond the GDPR: here comes the EU’s ePrivacy regulation – but not yet”
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Today, a global coalition led by civil society and technology experts sent a letter asking the government of Australia to abandon plans to introduce legislation that would undermine strong encryption. The letter calls on government officials to become proponents of digital security and work collaboratively to help law enforcement adapt to the digital era. In … Continue reading “Coalition calls on Australia’s government to reject plans to undermine encryption”
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VPNs are an indispensable part of online life, and they protect many aspects of privacy. But there’s a class of threats that VPNs can’t defend against: crypto backdoors, which allow even the strongest encryption to be bypassed. That’s why it’s important for everyone who cares about their privacy and security to be aware of any … Continue reading “Crypto backdoors are in the news again, and as bad for privacy as ever”
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Email is one of the most ubiquitous forms of online communication around. According to Statista, there are over 3.7 billion email users in the world currently. Unfortunately, it’s likely that the vast majority of email users do not understand email encryption. Not even five years ago, the majority of internet users did not send or … Continue reading “Why You Should Use End-to-End Encrypted Email to Increase your Privacy”
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Governments all around the world hate encryption. Unless they are being incredibly cunning by pretending they can’t break strong encryption when they can, this seems to be because crypto really does keep messages and data safe from prying governmental eyes. Banning strong encryption is clearly a non-starter – even the most clueless politician knows by … Continue reading “Good news on the privacy front: no more EU demands for crypto backdoors”
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The encrypted messaging app Telegram continues to have a tough time in Russia. Having previously been threatened with blockage for not providing operational information, Telegram has now been hit with a significant fine – and ordered to hand over the encryption keys that led to the fine in the first place. Early on Monday, a … Continue reading “Telegram is preparing to fight the Russian authorities over crypto keys”
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