Tag Archives: security

Sentence of the Day (not quite)

From a USIP Special Report titled Securing the Future:

At a minimum, the security sector includes actors directly involved in protecting civilians and the state from violent harm (e.g., police and military forces and internal intelligence agencies), institutions that govern these actors (e.g., ministries of interior, defense, and justice; and national security councils), and oversight bodies.”

Can you figure out why this is such a great sentence?

Encrypting Communications

Between 733t h4x0r5 and the government, it has long been my desire to better secure my communications.

Recent stories on our corporate friends unquestioningly cooperating with our government friends re-fueled my fire. Thankfully, I have some extra time to read up and play with the technologies.

E-mail-wise, I use SSL, so good for me. I would like to also use PGP but almost no one does this, even the geeks I know.

IM wise, I used Adium‘s built-in privacy features to encrypt communications and installed a GAIM plug-in that does the same. While both installs were easy, I know the average Joes and Ivans will have trouble trying to figure out how to have IM conversations with me. Too bad for them.

I read up on Skype’s encryption. Interestingly, they use excellent methods and reap plenty of praise for their efforts, but no one seems to notice that they admittedly fulfill every government request, making this article’s headline funny/odd. So you may be safe from Mr. Pwn3d and Osama, but not from the NSA.