Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

I am not talking about collecting hunting decoys for needy hunters.  I am talking about swapping out a sensitive laptop hard drive with a hard drive that has no sensitive information (a decoy drive) to protect your privacy from snoops.

Privacy Tactics

A great tool for protecting privacy is misdirection. Misdirection can make others believe you have nothing of value, reducing your risk of theft, invasion of privacy, etc. Misdirection can also include using decoys. Privacy predators that find a clever decoy, of no value to you, will be prevented from invading your real privacy and they won’t even know it.

Misdirection does not mean lying or committing fraud. Such tactics actually reduce your privacy because when a lie or fraud is discovered your affairs will be even more closely scrutinized, possibly by law enforcement.

Misdirection Helps People

To illustrate the difference between lawful misdirection and fraud, take the case of a celebrity who would like to go out in public without being recognized. A simple misdirection tactic that they might use would be to wear frumpy clothing, a hood and cheap sunglasses. This obscures many of their features so that, hopefully, they can pick up some toilet paper at the store without being hassled by hundreds of fans.

If that same celebrity were to use a fake ID to carry their disguise even farther, they would potentially be committing a crime.

As an example of effectively using a decoy, I turn to the wisdom of Mel Brooks. The folks in Blazing Saddles used a decoy town to protect their real town from the ravages of savages.  If they were to use a decoy town in some settings, such as when selling the real estate,  they might be committing a massive fraud.

Using A Decoy Drive With A Laptop

Us common folk can apply the principles of legal misdirection and decoys with the data on a laptop. Removing the hard drive of your laptop and replacing it with another hard disk is a great way to use misdirection to protect your data privacy.

There may be a million reasons why you would want to use a decoy drive to prevent access to your main laptop hard drive. You might be crossing a border where you and your data will be searched.   You are not required to provide encryption keys, assuming you have encrypted your data, to enter the US, but other countries like Great Britain will require you to disclose those encryption keys.  Only by removing a sensitive hard drive before traveling to Great Britain will your sensitive data be protected. Maybe you suspect a keylogger has been surreptitiously installed and you want to access an online account without tipping off the snoop.  Or, you are just a fan of personal liberty and you want to try out a cool tactic.

Decoy Drive Steps

First, make sure you are fine with the consequences of swapping out your hard drive. Some warranties might be voided if you do it yourself.

Second, purchase an appropriate hard drive for your needs.

Third, follow the instructions in your user manual to remove the hard drive. Make sure to remove the battery so you don’t get zapped.

Finally, install the new hard drive and you are in full decoy mode.

Advanced Strategy

If some snoop were to discover your decoy drive, would they believe it was the only hard drive you have? If your decoy drive has no activity on it, a snoop might realize that they have not truly uncovered what they were looking for. Upon realizing you have used a decoy, they may be even more interested in finding out WHY, leading them to investigate you even more than they would have.

Just like deer hunters spray their decoys with scent, you need to do more than make your decoy drive look like it is the real thing.  Please do not spray your computer with anything. To make it look like your decoy drive is your main drive, engage in some meaningless activity on your decoy drive regularly.  Save some innocuous documents there, save some harmless family photos, do some meaningless web surfing or play solitaire once in a while.  This will help you sell your decoy as genuine.

Conclusion

Swapping out your sensitive hard drive with a decoy drive at the right times can help protect a lot of your data privacy.  Snoops will have to be very sophisticated to recognize what you have done if you are doing a good job selling your misdirection. To learn more about this and other ways to protect your privacy, check out the book How To Vanish.

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Secret Weapon To  Protect Medical Privacy

Medical information is among the most private personal information.  New healthcare laws in the US essentially require doctors to make all of their records electronic and store them in government databases.  This poses a serious threat to patient privacy rights.  There is one way to find private hospitals where your information will not be entered into US databases and you may even get better health care for much less.

Risk to Patient Privacy Rights

Having detailed medical information housed in one massive database makes it one of the most lucrative targets for hackers.  It will not only contain health information (potentially worth its weight in digital gold to the highly ethical pharmaceutical industry), but it will also include demographic information, like race, ethnicity, primary language, and gender.  This information is golden to marketers.  And that says nothing of its value to identity thieves.

Government databases are well known as extremely poorly protected.  They aren’t even capable of protecting classified and top secret material.  I hate to think how well they will protect our medical data.  It may only be a matter of time before our medical histories are public information.

There Is Bound To Be Abuse

The law permits use of the data for clinical research, even if the subject objects to the use of their data.    North Carolina sheriffs have already asked to browse prescription records to look for potential pain medication abusers.  With even more data available, who knows what kinds of crimes they think your medical records might be evidence of.

About 12 million people will have to have access to such a health system, from heart surgeons to grocery store pharmacists.  It is inevitable that one of those 12 million will be able to accidentally or purposefully leak massive amounts of data.

And, if the US social services system becomes anything like the UK system, the government will be able to take away people’s kids for being overweight or for a learning disability.  Having all medical records searchable means that many more innocent people with unfortunate genes could be the target of overzealous social workers.

Protect Patient Privacy Rights

To prevent medical procedures or conditions from showing up in US medical record databases, use offshore medical facilities.  Seeking treatment in private hospitals in other countries is often called medical tourism and can be far more beneficial than just protecting privacy.  Many hospitals in places like New Zealand, Thailand, India, Mexico and Costa Rica, cater to wealthy foreigners.  In many cases the doctors are trained in the US.  They offer as good, or better, health care than any US facilities and they are usually 50% to 90% cheaper, including all travel expenses like airfare and hotel.

Risks

Before seeking medical care abroad, be sure to do extensive research.  Although some private hospitals may cater to wealthy travelers, not all hospitals in those countries will be the same.  Some will offer substandard care in unhealthy facilities.

Most other countries will not protect patients from medical malpractice, like they do in the US, and pharmaceutical companies may not be liable for injuries from medications like they are in the US.  Also, medical information in foreign countries may not be protected as private.

Protect Yourself From Risks

There are several companies that help arrange offshore medical visits to make sure you select the best facilities and doctors.  There are also voluntary organizations that certify medical facilities such as the JCI to promote quality care.  A considerable amount of research should be done before seeking medical treatment away from home.

Conclusion

Seeking medical treatment abroad can help protect patient privacy rights.  Information about those visits will not be automatically entered into the US electronic health record database.  Additionally, seeking care offshore can be far less expensive, it can be as good, or better than US care, and you may even have access to many treatments, drugs and procedures that are not permitted in the US.  Don’t forget to check out the book How To Vanish for more ways to protect your privacy.

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Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

What What Happens If You Use A Fake Name On Google+ Or Facebook?

People love Facebook.  Social networking is just a part of what humans do, so the fact that people use online social networks like Facebook and Google+  is no surprise.  They are powerful tools for social change, business opportunities and developing strong relationships with friends and family.

But, people are nervous about providing their personal information to social networking sites, and with good reason.  Social networking sites sell your information to the highest bidder.  They make billions of dollars from the information that we give them for free.  That information allows repressive governments to easily target undesirables, it could damage a career, or just plain cause embarrassment.

How People Protect Personal Information On Social Networking Sites

To harness the power of social networking while protecting personal information, some people use fake information in their profiles.  There are lots of reasons people provide fake info.  Everything from using a fake birthday or city, to using a fake profile picture or name are used by people who fear stalkers, by Egyptian revolutionaries, and by average people to protect their privacy.  Only the most dedicated snoops can glean good information from a false trail.

But Facebook’s terms of use states that:

“Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook…

2. You will not create more than one personal profile.

7. You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.”

Google+ also states:

“To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you.”

Risks Of Using Fake Information In Social Networking Profiles

What happens to people who violate these terms of use and include fake info in their profiles?    Failure to follow these terms of use simply means that the offending account could be shut down if discovered.    Facebook doesn’t sue people for providing fake information and the cops won’t arrest people for using a drawing of a dog as their profile picture.

The likelihood that a social networking site will discover fake information is currently low.  Many people use stage names, pen names, pseudonyms and nicknames every day.  It is perfectly legal to use those alternate identities in many ways.  Those names do not have to be the same as the one on a birth certificate and they can often be far more unique than what is found on a birth certificate.  This makes it difficult for sites to tell what information is “real” or “fake,” as Google+ recently found out.

Don’t pretend you are someone else, don’t use another person’s real information and don’t commit fraud.  That should be easy enough for you to avoid.

Are There Alternatives?

There are few alternatives to the information diarrhea on Facebook and Google+. Diaspora* is a potentially promising alternative but it is a long way from providing the value that Facebook does. Until Diaspora or some other alternative becomes viable, be careful the information you use to create your social networking profiles.

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Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes

For the past few months, police departments have been using a new iris scanning device to identify people they encounter.  Many more police departments will begin using this device soon. The scanner can be held up to the eye of any person and almost instantly identify them more accurately than a fingerprint.  Police have imposed restrictions on themselves to prevent misuse of iris scanners.  Like a chubby kid guarding a Happy Meal, indulgence is more likely than restraint.

Currently, iris scanners are limited to checking the person scanned against a national database of iris scans.  This database presumably only contains criminals, children and individuals who may need assistance, like alzheimers patients.  The devices are not supposed to be able to capture and store new entries.  These self-imposed limitations may only be temporary.

Warrantless Iris Scans Are Probably Unconstitutional

Although not yet tested, there are some potentially strong constitutional challenges to many iris scans that are likely to occur.  If you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in some information or item, the police need a warrant to conduct a search.  (Katz v. United States) There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for things that are in the plain view of the public.  (Texas v. Brown)  Technologies that enhance the senses to be able to see what is in plain view, like common binoculars, can be used by police without a warrant.  (Dow Chemical v. United States) Something that is not visible to the naked eye is not in plain view.  (California v. Ciraolo; Kyllo v. United States; People v. Arno)  Police may also conduct a search that would otherwise require a warrant if they get consent. (Schneckloth v. Bustamonte).

An image of your iris and the detail of your iris is apparently very important information.  Many people might reasonably expect to have a right to privacy in that intimate part of their body.  Although the iris is held out to the public, the very intimate details, so much detail that the iris becomes a unique identifier, is not held out to the public because nobody can see that with the naked eye.  A very powerful technology that can see more than the naked eye, even upon very close inspection, is required.  Thus, such a search will likely be unconstitutional without a warrant.

Do Not Consent To An Iris Scan

If you agree to have your iris scanned for identification purposes, you give up any chance you had of fighting the constitutionality of a warrantless iris scan.  Simply stating that you do not consent to having an iris scan taken should be sufficient.

Don’t Let Them Scan Your Face Either

These same devices are also capable of scanning faces for identification purposes.  Preventing these scans is a bit more complicated because your face, and the ability to recognize you from your face, is most definitely held out to the public in plain view.  To prevent face scanning requires knowing at what point in a police encounter the face scan is taking place.  Knowing this will help you to know if you must submit or if you are free to leave.

Ignore The Police:  “Free To Leave” Encounters

Police may stop people on the street in what is known as a “consensual” encounter for no reason at all.  Police could potentially ask you for a face (or iris) scan during this “consensual” encounter. If you reasonably think you are free to leave you can ignore everything the police are saying and just walk away. (Florida v. Royer; Michigan v. Chesternut).  If you aren’t sure, or you just want to be polite, one of the best things you can say is “am I free to leave or am I being detained?”  Stopping the encounter as soon as possible before a scan of your face can be required is the best way to prevent a facial scan.  If you aren’t free to go, you are being detained.

Detention

To detain you, the police need reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts that you are, have been, or will be committing a crime.  (Terry v. Ohio)  If a reasonable person thinks that they aren’t free to go, they are being detained.  (United States v. Mendenhall).  Here is where it gets a bit tricky. Some states permit you to remain silent to questions at this point, but many require you to at least provide your name.  (Hiibel v. 6th Judicial District Court of Nevada)  If you are in a no name state, you may be able to refuse a facial scan.  This will probably make the police pretty mad so it might not be recommended.  In states where your name is required, there is probably nothing you can do.

Arrest

If the police then have probable cause to believe you committed a crime, they may arrest you.  They will take you into the mug shot room where a long line of celebrities have taken their most memorable photos.  At this point, there is nothing you can do to keep the police from putting your face in their facial recognition database.

Conclusion

Warrantless, unconsensual iris scans are probably unconstitutional.  Face scans aren’t as inherently unconstitutional, but can still be prevented.  If you are a law abiding citizen, these, and other tips from HowToVanish, can help you protect more of your privacy from one of the worst invasions of privacy that exist, police encounters.

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Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

Surfing the internet usually leaves a huge data trail behind.  Private browsing helps cover digital tracks.

Web Browsers Track Your Internet Movements

Web browsers like Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer, keep track of a lot of the things you do on the internet.  They keep a record of the websites you visit, your login information and sometimes even your password.  This can make web surfing a smoother experience. For example, it can keep you logged in to Facebook whenever you navigate away from it and then return. All of that information is accessible to anyone who has access to your computer.

Websites You Visit Create A Data Trail

The websites you visit can also leave behind a trail of data on your computer.  One of the major things they do is install cookies (small tracking software) on your computer to remember your settings, tell when you visit other sites in their ad network and a lot more.  Sometimes malicious software can use cookies to find its way onto your computer.  Cookies can also make the internet surfing experience smoother, but users are hardly aware when and how often they are being installed and what exactly they are doing.

Private Browsing Protects Some Privacy

A simple tool to take more control over cookie management (what a delicious sounding job) is private browsing.  Most browsers have a setting called private browsing (it is called incognito in Google Chrome and InPrivate in Internet Explorer) which will severely limit the web browsing data that is stored on your computer. The private browsing tools work best for a few specific purposes.

If you lend your computer to someone, they won’t be able to accidentally or intentionally stumble upon the websites you visit or accidentally pull up your Facebook or email account when they were trying to get into their own if you use private browsing regularly.  It is like putting a lock on your digital medicine cabinet.  Private browsing also works well when you borrow someone else’s computer to prevent the same snooping when you give it back.

Private browsing is also helpful when you use a shared computer. If you do a little gift shopping for a spouse on a shared computer, your surprise might be ruined when they see the items you recently viewed on Amazon.com or see the sites you recently visited.

Weaknesses of Private Browsing

Private browsing is not bullet proof. It will prevent a lot of the wide scale data mining that goes on and it will deter accidental and unsophisticated eavesdroppers from finding your internet browsing history.  Also, the different browsers all have different strengths and weaknesses with the overall privacy of their private browsing option.  The most secure private browsing option of any major browser is on Opera.

Secret And Sneaky Data Mining

One of the biggest problems with private browsing is Flash cookies. Flash cookies are most often used with video, like YouTube, but many sites could be using Flash cookies to track users.  These are similar to regular tracking cookies but they are moe sophisticated, less well known, and they do not get erased when you clear your cookies.  Private browsing does not prevent Flash cookies.

3 Simple Internet Privacy Tips

Delete cookies on a regular basis. Private browsing deletes most cookies when you log off, but regularly deleting cookies can help ensure a sanitary browsing history.

Adjust Browser Settings. Most browsers allow you to set rules for which cookies to accept and which cookies to reject. This lets users decide when they prefer convenience over privacy and vice versa.

To delete Flash cookies, or to set preferences for future Flash cookie tracking, check out the Macromedia website.  You can also get a good look at just how much information has been gathered on you by those Flash cookies before you delete them or set any preferences.

Super Secret Ninja Privacy Move

Some browsers, like Firefox and Chrome, offer a portable version. Those versions can be saved to a USB drive and launched from any computer you plug the USB drive into. All cookies, history and tracking data is saved on the USB drive and is not ever recorded by the computer itself. If you store your portable browser inside a TrueCrypt encrypted volume on your USB drive, your browsing history, cookies, internet settings, and lots of other information will be well protected.

Conclusion

Private browsing isn’t water tight, but it can be a very useful tool to protect privacy.  Like any tool, it can be modified to give you more or less privacy in exchange for convenience.  To see how to use private browsing in a more comprehensive approach to privacy, check out the book How To Vanish.

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Mobile phone apps can collect a lot of private, personal information and share it with others. Most people don’t even know this information leakage is happening. You need to know what information is gathered, how it is gathered and who can get it to protect yourself from disclosing too much personal info through your smartphone.

Data Collected

There are lots of types of data that can be collected. They fall into a few broad categories.

Account Info – Many apps ask you to create a user profile to use an app. For example, Facebook requires you to use your user name and password to log into your account from your phone. Others might simply ask you to create an account to use the app. Since so many people use the same usernames and passwords often, sharing this information could compromise other accounts.

Contacts – Some apps access, transmit and share your entire contact list. If any A-list celebrity has the unlisted information of other A-listers, there could be a serious breach of privacy if that contact list is shared.

Demographics – Your age, gender, income, etc. can be gathered by some apps. Although demographics without a name sounds very anonymous, it does not take much statistical analysis to make much of that data uniquely identifying. For example, the US census gathers similar demographic information and over 90% of anonymous respondents can be uniquely identified by analyzing their individual responses and comparing it to other publicly available stats.    There is less information shared in the census than many of the apps collect. So it is likely that app data can be used to identify an overwhelming majority of the users, even if there is no name associated with it.

Location – Apps that access location might be able to find the location based on GPS coordinates, triangulation with the cell phone towers, the city, zip code, or by using the IP address the phone uses to surf the internet. They all have differing levels of accuracy. At the very least someone with access to those stats can tell where you are in the world at a particular time, and might even be able to tell who you are with.

Phone ID – The phone ID is like the serial number of the phone which is tied directly to the user. That unique identifier can lead to lots of other personal information.

Number – Some apps even collect your phone number. If you want to have an unlisted phone number, you have to prevent sharing this detail.

How Information Leakage Through Apps Occur

A smartphone is basically a computer that fits in your pocket. Apps are programs that are downloaded onto a smartphone. Those apps can be programmed to access a lot of the data on the phone or to keep track of what the phone is doing (websites visited, text messages, phone calls, etc.). Each app will be programmed differently and if the programmer decided to collect some figures, they can collect it.  Most people are unaware of the amount of information leakage their apps create.

Who Has Access To This Data

Developers – The person or group that develops the software might collect this info for themselves. Most apps that collect any data at all, probably permit the developer to have access.

Third Parties – Many apps also transmit data directly to third parties, such as marketers.

Both developers and third parties that get data from your phone can do almost anything they want with it. They can sell it to other companies, share it with government, law enforcement or just sell it to any willing buyer.

How Data Is Used

How much gets shared is usually limited by the user agreement, which should be disclosed to app users. In reality, these agreements are extremely broad and let developers and third parties do whatever they want with the information leakage their app creates.

Sometimes giving an app access to sensitive personal stuff can be helpful. A maps application that gives you directions based on your GPS location can be very helpful, especially when you are visiting a new, exotic city on a regular basis. Other apps could also provide helpful functions if given access to some sensitive, personal data.

Other times, there seems to be no functional reason why an app needs the data it is trying to access other than to gather data for marketing or other purposes. Angry Birds would work just as well if it didn’t collect your contacts and location information. The app developer would have less data to sell though.

Reduce Information Leakage

Before downloading an app and having an information leakage, research it to see what data the app can access. Don’t just download something because everybody is doing it. A lot of people have shared their contact list by downloading Angry Birds, but you do not have to join them.

Check the data that an app can access when you download it.  They usually disclose this information when you try to download. If it needs more than you are willing to share, find another app.

Check the apps you already have on your phone to make sure you aren’t already broadcasting your life to strangers you don’t know.

Conclusion

Smarthphones are a handy tool to have.  They can also expose a lot of your sensitive data if you aren’t careful.  Use good judgment when using applications that might be disclosing your information.  You might even use a prepaid smartphone to reduce the risk you have of disclosing data.  There are lots of other great tips on how to protect your personal data on smartphones in the book How To Vanish.

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Reading time: 12 – 20 minutes

Cell phones are like drivers licenses. It’s really hard to function in the modern world without one, but they reveal a lot of information about you that you might not want to share. Fortunately, most people won’t try and verify the weight you put on your drivers license, and there are a lot of great ways to protect confidential information with cell phone security.

Cell Phone Security Is Broad

Unfortunately there are too many service providers, too many types of phones, too many different countries, a lack of fully developed solutions, and not much compatibility across them all to give you one simple solution to your mobile privacy needs. This is an overview of the information that you might want to keep private and a few general ways to do that, mostly for smartphones, but not-so-smart ones can be more secure as well. With this overview, it should be easier to discover and implement your optimum privacy configuration.

Laws are different everywhere. It may be illegal in some places to use some of these cell phone security tools or techniques. Do not use any techniques that will violate the law. That will negatively affect your privacy much more than if you had complied with the law and not used that tool.

Subscriber Information

When you buy a phone, your name is usually attached. You sign a contract or you make payments with a credit card, or do something else that ties all of the activity on that device to you.

Keeping subscription information private prevents corrupt governments from accessing that information with or without warrants, subpoenas or due process to silence dissidents, jail peaceful protesters, and hide abuse. It also prevents hackers and rogue employees from compromising networks and databases to steal the valuable data.

Prepaid Cell Phone – Prepaid cell phones can still be purchased for cash without a contract. Minutes can be reloaded with cash as well. You can use the prepaid cell for all of your communications, or just for the most sensitive communications. After a while, the prepaid phone will probably gather enough data to identify you. Replace your prepaid phone often.

Published Number

Most phone numbers can be found in online directories. Those directories are compiled by the vast amounts of data that thousands of companies gather from their customers. If you give a number to a company, or even give them a call, they probably record that number in their database. Your number then might be shared, sold and copied many times by hackers, corrupt governments, thieves and stalkers.

Your phone number can be a key piece of data to paint a data profile that identifies you and a lot more information about you. Hackers, thieves and overly curious stalkers could easily use your phone number to cause you harm.

Unlist Number – Ask your service provider to unlist your number. Contact the databases that collect this information, like Intelius and Acxiom, and follow their procedures for unlisting your number. Stop giving out your number or give out a fake number to people who don’t really need it.

Block Caller ID – Many carriers will allow you to block caller ID so that the people you are calling can’t get your phone number. In the US you can block caller ID before an individual call (for a price) using *67.

Call Forwarding – You can sign up for call forwarding that forwards calls from your public number to your private number, keeping your private number confidential. Google Voice is a helpful free call forwarding service.

SpoofCard – With Spoofcard it can appear that you are calling from any number you want, protecting your actual number.

Location

Your general location is constantly triangulated by your service provider’s cell towers. Your precise GPS coordinates and the WiFi networks you are close to can be monitored and recorded as well. When you use your device, the location is logged.

Corrupt governments can access this data with or without warrants and thieves can use it to target your house when you are on vacation. The cell phone can also be pinged at any time to determine its location, even if you aren’t using it.

Prevent Unwanted Tracking – You can turn your cell phone off to make sure that you aren’t connecting to any WiFi, your general location isn’t being triangulated, and your GPS coordinates are not being tracked to increase your cell phone security.

Malware can continue to broadcast location information, even when the phone is switched off, although it is not common. To prevent surreptitious tracking, remove the battery.

Data Stored On The Phone

Every phone has lots of information stored on it like contact lists, calendars, text messages, photos, call logs, browsing history and much more.  The most basic aspect of cell phone security is securing the device itself.

Corrupt, over-criminalized governments that gain access with unjustified searches could use this information to convict you of ridiculous crimes. Sneaky competitors can get inside information that harms a business if employees and owners don’t use good cell phone security. Thieves and snoops could get vital information like bank records, passwords, and many other pieces of information that might be on your device.

Settings – Many phones allow you to adjust settings to store less history on the phone itself. This way your old text messages, call logs and other sensitive items can be less vulnerable.

Password Protect – This isn’t just to prevent butt-dialing. This also keeps out the curious. Most thieves, illegal government searches and hackers will easily get around the password protection unless the phone is encrypted.

Delete – Regularly delete unwanted data. Just like a computer, its not really gone until it gets overwritten, but at least novice thieves and the casually curious won’t get it.

Don’t let your phone out of your sight – All someone needs is a few minutes with your phone to install software or hardware that can overcome almost any cell phone security precautions you have taken. If someone that you don’t trust has had access to your phone, you may think twice about trusting it.

Wipe/Remote Wipe – Some phones allow you to completely wipe the phone memory remotely. If your phone is lost or gets stolen, you can make sure that data won’t be compromised. Every provider also publishes steps needed to wipe a phone before you dispose of it.

Full Encryption – Full encryption is ideal to make sure that all the data is well protected from all but the most sophisticated attacks. The best encryption is open source, since there will be no entity that could provide a back door. There are few open source options available right now, so using a trusted encryption program is the next best thing.

Partial Encryption – Many smartphone apps allow you to encrypt certain types of data on your phone while the rest of it is not encrypted. It can be tricky to make sure there are no unencrypted copies of the data somewhere else on the phone, but partial encryption can be useful to save certain confidential files. Again, open source is best, but trusted encryption software is also good.

Kryptos (iphone)

CellCrypt Mobile (Blackberry, Nokia)

WhisperSystems (Android)

Protecting Conversations

Usually when you have a confidential call with your business partner, your spouse, your attorney or your doctor, nobody else is invited to the conversation.

Cell phone networks around the world allow governments to secretly listen in on those conversations without a warrant. Rogue employees can listen to those conversations too. There is even a slight chance that malicious software is installed on your phone to capture your voice conversations.

Voice Over IP (VOIP) – Many phones let you use VOIP to communicate over the internet instead of over the network which may be compromised by secret wiretaps. A VOIP app might be available or you can use VOIP through your phone’s internet connection. You will still have to trust that the VOIP service is not eavesdropping. Open source VOIP software is best, trusted software is good too. Some common software that is free but not open source is Google and Skype. None of this will stop malicious software on your phone from spying on you.

Kryptomobile

Antivirus – Although it is still rare, phones can be infected with viruses and malware, just like a computer. But, there is antivirus software for cell phone security, just like for computers. You can use that software to protect yourself from viruses. You can also protect from viruses by not opening suspicious email attachments and not clicking on sketchy links like you would on a computer. You can also make sure to download only trusted apps.

Texting

Text messages are very unsecure. They travel through the network unencrypted, are stored on your device and might be stored for a long time.

Text messages are available to just about anyone who gets any access to your phone like corrupt governments, clever hackers, thieves, and unscrupulous competitors. They get it by accessing the network, accessing your provider’s records, accessing your phone, and many other ways.

Secure Text Message App – There are some apps available that encrypt your text messages both in transit and at rest on your device.

Instant Messaging – There are several web based IM programs and IM programs designed for different phones that are encrypted and protect your cell phone security and text communications much better than old fashioned text messaging. Unless the IM software is open source, you still have to trust the source, but it is probably better than trusting a large provider.

Voicemail

Voicemail is stored by your service provider on their server.

Rogue employees, corrupt governments and hackers are the most likely to have unauthorized access to voicemail information.

Encrypted Voicemail – Some VOIP services will also offer encrypted voicemail. You still have to trust the VOIP service, but a small offshore VOIP service is less likely to reveal confidential data than a larger service provider.

Photos

Smartphones not only take photos, but they usually add a lot of hidden data to the picture file, called EXIF data. It can include time, date and GPS coordinates, among other things. Any photo that you email or upload from your phone might have this identifying EXIF information in the file.

Turn GPS Tracking Off – Some phones let you turn off geo tagging in the settings. Turning geo tagging off can prevent the data from ever being added to the picure file.

Wipe sensitive data before uploading or emailing – There are several programs which let you remove the EXIF data from images. That way you can send and share images without sharing the identifying information.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps let you play cool games and have powerful business tools at your fingertips, but many of them can be mining a lot of data that you wouldn’t want to share. Linked-In, for example, stores your username and password in plain text. Since most people use the same username and password in many places, this is very damaging information that is very unprotected. And there are lots more apps that do similar things. Some apps even have malicious code hidden in them.

Use Trusted Apps – Minimize your usage of apps or only use trusted apps to increase your cell phone security. Research what data they access and then use them only if you are willing to share that information and are sure there is no malware in them.

Email

Email is the digital equivalent of a post card. The message passes through the hands of many servers en route to its destination and everyone along the way can read it. At the very least your email provider will have a log of your emails which can be subpoenaed or peeked at by corrupt governments.

Encrypt Email – You may be able to encrypt the emails that you send from your device so that nobody can read them in transit or at rest. If the recipient is also using proper encryption, the message may be protected from end to end.

Web Browsing

Your internet provider can see every website that you visit and they can see every wireless network that your phone connects to. Your browser can see every term you search for.

All of this data is readily available to rogue employees and corrupt governments. In many cases it may be sniffed out by clever hackers and sneaky competitors. Most of this data is also stored right on the phone where anyone that has physical access, even the casually curious, can find it.

Use Anonymous Web Surfing – Some phones let you use VPNs like the Tor network so that your carrier, the web browser, and the websites that you visit can’t see where you go on the internet. The VPN records would only be available to corrupt governments if the VPN is in a cooperative jurisdiction.

Conclusion

This is just an outline of what is possible. There is no single cell phone yet available that can accomplish complete cell phone security. You may only be interested in a few features. Figure out what features you want and what is most feasible to protect as much of your confidential communications using your cell phone or smart phone as possible.  Check out the book How To Vanish for more tips on protecting your phone communications.

RELATED POSTS:

1. Cell Phone Security: Mobile Phone Taps
2. Police Search Cell Phones On Massive Scale
3. Block Caller ID, Prevent Reverse Phone Lookup, and Keep Your Phone Number Private

Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

“Hey, man, listen very carefully, man. Don’t answer the phone, man.  You got that? Don’t answer the phone, even if its me calling, man, don’t answer it, because I think the phone is bugged, man…”

- Pedro… I mean… Freddy

It’s finally safe to answer the phone.  Phone conversations are very difficult to keep private.  You should never actually commit crimes, but if you joke about committing crimes over the phone, someone may be listening and they could use your jokes to convict you.

RedPhone Encrypts Cell Phone Calls

Telecom infrastructure is built so that the telecom companies can have secret access to all of your phone conversations.  These same companies help law enforcement tap land lines and cell phones to spy on ordinary citizens without warrants or probable cause.  Now you can use RedPhone to encrypt cell phone calls and protect your privacy.

When there is no neutral third party monitoring the use of phone taps by law enforcement, and when the service providers we use are complicit, the likelihood of abuse of law abiding citizens skyrockets, especially since the eavesdropping law enforcement officer might be involved in a criminal enterprise, be a stalker or a rapist.  It is essential for honest people to protect their own private health information, communications with their attorney, trade secrets, negotiation strategies, embarrassing facts and keep stalkers from eavesdropping on conversations, no matter what kind of costume the the eavesdropper is wearing.

VoIP Is Better Than Traditional Phone Communication

To protect your phone calls from surreptitious surveillance without a warrant, the best option is to use VoIP services.  VoIP is a way to make calls over the internet.  Some of the most popular VoIP services are Skype and Google Voice.

There is one big weakness with using private VoIP services like Skype or Google Voice.  They have the backdoor ability to let law enforcement  secretly listen to your calls without a warrant.  Open source VoIP can prevent the use of back doors by eavesdroppers but can be intimidating to use for computer novices.

RedPhone Protects Phone Privacy

RedPhone is a free program available for Android cell phones that lets you encrypt your cell phone calls to other RedPhone users.  Your cell phone company can only see encrypted traffic, your ISP can only see encrypted traffic, and any other eavesdropper can only see encrypted traffic when you are encrypting your conversation on both ends with RedPhone.

Weaknesses Of RedPhone

Although it is privately owned by Whisper Systems, they claim, unlike many other VoIP, that there is no backdoor ability for them or anyone else to secretly listen in on your conversations.  They have yet to publish their source code to verify their claims, but they have indicated they might do so soon.  RedPhone is also much more user friendly than most open source VoIP so novice users will find it very easy to use.

Text Messages Protected By TextSecure

Whisper Systems has also released a free program called TextSecure for Android phones which encrypts your text messages and stores them in an encrypted file on your phone.  Even if your phone is searched, the text messages will remain encrypted.  Text messages are a large part of the data that is routinely provided without a warrant to law enforcement.  TextSecure can prevent warrantless disclosures of text message information to law enforcement.

These powerful tools are only available for Android phones right now.  They are also still susceptible to breach if you have malware on your phone or your hardware has been compromised.

The Bigger Privacy Trend

The existence of tools like this represent a bigger trend in the empowerment of individuals over large institutions like government.  Peaceful solutions, like many discussed in How To Vanish the book, that defend fundamental liberties against the encroachment of governments are being created faster than governments can stifle them.  Even if some of these methods of protecting freedom are made illegal, it is less and less risky for people to use civil disobedience to fight unjust laws.

Conclusion

RedPhone and TextSecure are powerful tools to protect your privacy from corporate espionage, thieves, stalkers and other threats.  They are free, simple and fun.  Hopefully these kinds of solutions will be available on other cell phones soon.  Don’t forget to check out the complete strategies and tactics for protecting privacy in How To Vanish the book.

RELATED POSTS:

1. Cell Phone Security
2. Information Leakage From Cell Phone Apps
3. Cell Phone Security: Mobile Phone Taps

Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes

Your home address is one of the most sensitive pieces of information you have.  You don’t want uninvited visitors bothering you and your family at home.  Even though lots of businesses want to get a hold of your home address for marketing purposes, there are a lot of ways to prevent revealing your home address without paying that extra $1 for your Cheerios.  Using a P.O. box or other ghost address will usually cut it when you need to share your home address without disclosing where you and your family actually hang out.

One of the only times that you can’t use a ghost address is with a drivers license.  A drivers license is an absolute necessity for most people and you can’t get one unless you reveal the place where you and your family lay your heads at night.  Usually.  There is one way to drive legally in the US without having to give away your most sensitive information.  Use a foreign drivers license.

Revealing Home Address Is Not Safe

“But,” you say, “not just anyone can go look up DMV records.”  “What is the harm,” you proclaim, “from sharing your home address with the government?”

Remember the geniuses you had to deal with the last time you were at the DMV?  They are the ones protecting the vast amounts of information in their databases.  A little bit of social engineering and, voila: data is easily compromised.

Plus, the bigger the stash of data, the bigger the target for identity thieves and hackers.  DMV databases are ripe targets because they house so much important data.  Yet the public is essentially forced to store their data in DMV databases and take that risk.

Foreign Drivers Licenses Are Legal

You can drive in any state with a valid drivers license from any other state.  You can also drive with a valid drivers license from any other country.  (Check Out California Vehicle Code Section 12502 (a)(1)).  International drivers license certificates are not required and are really only suggested if your drivers license is from an obscure country. The other great thing about foreign drivers licenses is that you don’t have to reveal any information to the US government to get it.  You might be able to find another country that requires less information, or stores less of it in vast electronic databases.

Get A Foreign Drivers License

Every country will have its own laws, but generally if you have permanent residence you can get a drivers license.

Avoid Having To Get A Local Drivers License

Here is where using a foreign drivers license can be tricky, but it is still doable. Most states make you get a license after residing there for just a few days or weeks.  This doesn’t apply if you are NOT a resident of the state.  If you are a temporary visitor to a state and have your permanent residence somewhere else (like another country) you will not have to get a local license, thereby allowing you to drive without complying with dangerous rules. (Check out California Vehicle Code Section 12505(c)).

People with multiple residences in multiple states have dealt with this issue often.  Even though they may spend a few months out of the year at their winter home in Phoenix, a few weeks at their cabin in Montana, and the rest of the year at their permanent home in Lake Tahoe, NV, they do not need to get more than one drivers license.  They get it in the place that is their permanent home.  It is actually illegal to have more than one drivers license at a time.  Using a foreign license is a similar concept on an international scale.

Show Permanent Residency Where You Want It

You are generally considered a resident of the place where you call home, the place where you intend to return.  To demonstrate this very subjective standard, you can look at other factors to provide evidence of your permanent residence.  Things like your voting registration, where your permanent home is, and several other factors could demonstrate adequate residency. (Check out California Vehicle Code Section 12505(a)).

Avoid Residency

Employees are almost always a resident of the place where they have a job.  Either make sure you can work remotely, commute to the place where you work, or avoid being a regular employee.  Also, avoid paying in-state tuition if you are  a student, or if your kids are students.

There are dozens of other facts that could be used to show where your permanent residence is.  The more factors that fall in the place where you wish to be a permanent resident, the better.  The State Income Tax Optimization Guide has a comprehensive strategy for controlling where those factors appear and where they do not.

Time Is Not Critical

Many people think that the amount of time you spend somewhere is critical.  I often hear the phrase 6 months and 1 day.  This may be true in some places, but for the most part it is just a guideline and is not determinative.  It can be helpful (or hurtful) but it isn’t everything.  Just because you happen to spend more than 6 months in a particular place does not mean that you are a permanent resident there.  If other factors line up heavily in favor of some other location as your permanent residence, the other factors will probably control.

Conclusion

Most of these rules are based on the rules of California.  Most other places are not as strict.  So if you have a valid foreign drivers license and avoid having to get a drivers license in the state where you happen to be driving, you can protect a very important piece of information… where your family actually lives.  So go ahead and protect your family from the useless and dangerous requirement of disclosing your home address in order to drive by getting a foreign drivers license.  For more tips on how to protect your important personal information sign up for the email list.  For a comprehensive strategy to protect your privacy, check out How To Vanish the book.

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1. How WHTI Affects You
2. Fraudulent Identification Documents
3. Police Corruption Out Of Control: Threatens Personal Information

Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

Cell phones contain more private information about you and your activities than just about anything else. They keep track of where you are at all times, everyone you call or text, email, social networking, photos, videos, personal files and much more. Would you want strangers to have access to all of this data?

Michigan State Police Search Cell Phones On A Massive Scale

Michigan State Police have reportedly been downloading data from cell phones of motorists that get pulled over for minor infractions like speeding, as if 8 million warrantless requests to Sprint weren’t enough. They use a special piece of hardware to download all of the data on the phone, including information the user has deleted.

What makes matters worse, the MSP are refusing to turn over information about the data they extract, procedures to get the data or why they get data unless a fee of $500,000 is paid. Does anyone know the average ransom paid to Somali pirates?

Violation Of Anyone’s Rights Is A Threat To Everyone’s Rights

Even if you are a completely honest person and think you have nothing to hide, think again. There are over 10,000 recorded laws in the US. Most honest people probably violate the law on a regular basis whether they know it or not.

If the police have access to such huge amounts of data about you, it can reveal violations of obscure, bureaucratic laws that you have never heard of. Or, that data could provide circumstantial evidence wrongly implicating you in crimes you had nothing to do with. That is assuming that no police officer will make improper use of the data.  If you have read a single article on CopBlock, you know that abuse is very possible.

Here is what you can do to protect yourself from overzealous police who try to search your phone without cause.

Police Can Search Some Things

The law allows police to do a quick pat down to check for weapons when they stop you. There is not much more that they can do to search you unless your give them permission or they arrest you.

Hopefully you can avoid arrest, but Michigan State Police officers might be very diligent in trying to get you to consent to a search of your phone.

How To Prevent A Search Of Your Cell Phone

The key is to politely refuse their request. One of the best ways to avoid giving consent is to clearly and politely say “ I do not consent to any searches.”

If they are asking, they probably don’t have enough cause to search your phone without your consent. Refusing to give consent alone cannot give police sufficient grounds to search without your consent. If they continue to search your phone, that search will likely be unconstitutional and any evidence obtained as a result of that search will be considered fruit of the poisonous tree and be thrown out.

“I Don’t Consent To Any Searches”

You should learn this phrase well and use it any time an officer asks to search you, your car, your backpack, your house, your wallet, or asks for your cell phone. Just because they ask for a cell phone does not mean that you have to provide it.

Knowing your rights is the best way to protect your private data from overzealous police. But the law and the government can’t always protect you. Here are some ways to have better cell phone security, especially if you plan on encountering law enforcement.

Protect Yourself

Don’t carry a cell phone. This may be useful if you are going to a protest or rally where you expect a heavy police presence, and it may be a good excuse for some people who want to un-tether themselves from the matrix. It probably won’t be practical for every day use or chance encounters with police.

Use a prepaid cell phone. If you buy them with cash and replace them regularly, they will not have a large amount of data on them. The less data available the better.

Regularly wipe your cell phone. Getting rid of old data on a regular basis will also reduce the data available. Every make of phone has a different way to do this so check with your phone company to see how.

Encrypt as much of your phone as possible. This can be very tricky because encrypted emails, secure text messaging, storing encrypted files, and anonymous web surfing are more difficult on your phone than your laptop. You may need a separate application to encrypt each type of data and not all phones are created equal in the security department. Fortunately, the Fifth Amendment protects people from revealing their encryption keys.

Use call forwarding services. This is not foolproof, but using a free or paid call forwarding service can reduce the amount of data stored directly on your phone, adding an extra step the Michigan State Police will have to take to get your data.

File an official complaint with the police department.  Complaints about any officer that unjustly takes or searches your phone after you have refused consent may be the kind of record that will help someone successfully sue that officer or the police department in the future for improper conduct.

Conclusion

Michigan State Police are downloading the data on people’s phones on a massive scale. This kind of data mining can be prevented by people who stand up for their rights. Don’t consent to letting a police officer search your phone. Help them to better spend their time protecting people and property from real crime. Learn more ways to protect your private data to protect yourself from overzealous police and lots of other threats.