Computer Security for Home Users with Internet Access

Computer Security for Home Users with Internet Access

by K. Thompson

Introduction

The need for computer security has never been greater. For the White Rights Activist, the information that is stored on your computer, your ISP's computers, and the computers of the web sites that you visit can be used to label you as a racist or even a terrorist. That label can follow you from one job to another, and even into the courtroom. By investing a small amount of money, and a little bit of patience, you can develop habits that will minimize the amount of evidence that can be found of your online activities. As you will see, for about $150 you can have all of your potentially harmful data stored on a separate hard drive that you can remove in 5 seconds. For as little as 50 bucks you can make it almost impossible for even the FBI to retrieve your data, even if they find the incriminating hard drive. For as little as $5 a month, plus a $100 firewall device, you can make it extremely difficult to track your activities around the Internet. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As most people on the Internet are using windows products, this document is aimed at them. If you're using Linux as your operating system then you probably already know about the extra security features that Linux provides, and the security practices that this document outlines. Send comments to thompsok@whitesearch.net

Physical Security

Physical security is aimed at protecting the actual devices that hold your data. For example, having a lock on your door prevents anyone from walking in to your house when you're not home and stealing your computer. One of the best devices that you can use is a removable hard drive bay. This device is cheap...it costs about $20, and it's easy to install if you have a basic computer knowledge. Even if you don't, you probably know someone who can do this without messing up your computer. The advantage to this is that you can remove your hard drive in about 5 seconds, and carry it with you. Now, if someone did steal your computer, in order to try to steal your sensitive data, or to plant "spyware" on your computer, he would have an almost worthless piece of machinery in his hands.

If you have a more advanced knowledge of computers, you can use the technique that I use. I went out and bought a separate hard drive for my computer, and put it in a removable hard drive bay. Whenever I'm doing my normal cruising around the Internet, I use the "clean" hard drive. When I decide to visit websites that the anti-free speech movement says that I shouldn't go to, I simply turn off my computer, take out the clean drive, and put in the "dirty" drive. Now any records that my Internet browser keeps on what sites I've been to, or any data that is downloaded for me to look at later, is kept on the dirty drive, which I can hide, erase, or destroy at any time. The total cost for the two removable hard drive bays, and the extra hard drive...about $150. Is it inconvenient to switch hard drives every time I'm doing something that I don't want the government to know about? Yes it is...but it's worth it to know that I can eliminate the evidence very quickly. We've all read about the case of Lonnie Rae who was charged with a hate crime for calling his wife's attacker a nigger. What if the prosecution had subpoenaed his hard drive, what would they have found? What you were in his shoes, and they came after your hard drive? The fact that you've been to sites like VNN would be used in court to prove that you're a racist, and it would surely turn the judge or jury against you. Now imagine a new scenario, where you're arrested for a bogus hate crime, and your wife goes home, and throws your "dirty" hard drive into the trash compacter, or tosses it into a lake, or generally makes it disappear before anyone can serve a search warrant for it. Makes you feel good doesn't it?

Data Security

The purpose of Data Security is to ensure that your sensitive information doesn't fall into the wrong hands if the data thief should circumvent your physical security by hacking into your computer, or planting spyware on your computer. Data security consists of two main operations, encrypting files, and shredding files.

Encryption is the process of applying a secret code to your data, which cannot be easily broken, so that if someone should steal the file, it is utterly useless to him. 128-bit encryption is the standard today, which is very hard to break, but I recently saw a piece of software that claimed to operate at over 400-bit encryption.

Shredding files is the process of completely deleting a file. To explain this, I have to give a brief description of how your computer keeps your data. The data on your hard drive is stored as a series of magnetic spots. You may have heard that data is kept as a series of ones and zeros, well, a one is a spot where there is a magnetic charge, and a zero is a spot where there is not a magnetic charge. When you delete a file, it's not really gone, your computer simply makes a note to itself that it can use the space that was taken up by the file for something else now. If no new magnetic charge is written over the spot where your delete file was kept, then it can very easily be recovered. Even if you do write over it, it can still be recovered. Have you ever recorded something on a cassette tape, and then later recorded over it with nothing? If you played back the tape, you could probably hear the original recording very quietly on the tape. Computer forensic teams use this same principle to recover deleted files from you computer. Shredding a file on a computer is the process of writing over a deleted file several times with random gibberish, and then deleting the file, which renders the cyber forensics techniques impotent.

The software to do all of this is also pretty cheap. I went down to my favorite computer store and quickly found three packages that will give you the data encryption and the file shredding for about $50. CI Solutions (http://www.ci-s.com) makes a suite of products that will encrypt the files that you store on your computer, page you if someone tampers with your computer while you're gone, and even software that will let you hide email messages and documents in an ordinary picture that you can send (like in the movie "Along Came a Spider.")

KinTech (http://www.kintechsoftware.com) makes a product called "Blackout" that can shred your files so they can't be recovered, and encrypt your files with 448-bit encryption. Their website advertising claims that it would take the worlds fastest computer 1032 years to break that level of encryption. If you're really paranoid, you can even encrypt your files and then shred them. This software will also cover your tracks on the Internet, which I will cover later in this document.

Centurionsoft (http://www.centurionsoft.com) makes probably the most robust security suite I saw, the Steganos 3 security suite. Again you have the ability to shred files, and encrypt files, and send encrypted email. The nice thing with this software is that the person you send the encrypted mail to doesn't have to go out and buy a copy of Steganos 3 to read the message, there is a free reader program that they can download and use to read your message...if you have given them the code. This software will also cover your tracks on the Internet. You can download this whole software suite onto your computer for $30 from their website.

If you've got deep pockets, you can also buy a degaussing machine. This device completely destroys any magnetic charge on a hard drive, floppy drive, or cassette tape, or credit card, or anything else magnetic that you bring near it. I've seen them go for about $1000 - $3000, which is usually more than the average home user wants to spend. But with a machine like this, combined with the removable hard drive bay, and the data security that you've already got in place, you've got almost bulletproof security. The feds could break down your door right now, and you could yank your hard drive and have all magnetic signals destroyed before they make it into your office. Anything that survives the degaussing process (probably nothing) will be either encrypted or shredded. There is no evidence to be found on your hard drive. What kind of warm, fuzzy feeling do you have now?

Internet Security

So you've got removable hard drives that you can throw away, that are filled with encrypted or shredded files. There are still a few more issues you need to address in order to have bulletproof security. For example, you can encrypt or shred files fanatically, but if you don't know what you need to be shredding, then you're still leaving evidence behind. And your Internet Service Provider is faithfully logging every web site you go to. Even if the Feds can't find any data on your computer, they can go to your Internet Service Provider and get a record of everyplace you've gone on the Internet. Luckily, these security holes can be shored up with my two favorite words "easy" and "cheap."

If you've used Internet Explorer, then you know about its new features that will automatically complete an Internet address that you start to type, as long as you've typed it before. This should set off an alarm that Internet Explorer, Netscape, AOL, and pretty much every other browser keep a log of where you've been on the Internet. You're in luck, though, because most of the security suites that I mentioned in the previous section, include software to find and shred the logs that most major web browsers keep. This includes the history, and the "cache" which is a collection of the pictures that are on every web page that your computers keeps so it can load these pages faster. The software will find it and shred it, so you don't have to worry about it. And since it's bundled in with the encryption and shredding software that you already bought to protect your files, you didn't spend a single extra penny, and the ZOG didn't get an extra penny of sales or income tax that it can use to hunt you down, or take away your civil rights.

What do you do about the Internet Service Provider that diligently keeps a log of where you've been on the Internet that it will happily turn over to law enforcement agents? Visit my favorite web site of them all, http://www.anonymizer.com. For five bucks a month, you can subscribe to their service. To explain the advantage of their service, I need to explain a bit of how your computer operates on the Internet.

Your computer has two identifying features: 1) an IP address; 2) a MAC address. The IP address is dynamic; it changes -- and for a lot of people, it changes often. Think of it like the license plate on your car: when you register your car in another state, your license plate changes. The MAC address is permanent. Think of it like the VIN number on your car: you get a new license plate, but you still have the same VIN number. Your computer uses a combination of the MAC and IP address to identify you on the Internet. Every time you visit a web site, you have to tell the web site what your IP address is...and that data can be used to find out who you are.

When you use the Anonymizer services, you actually go to their web page, and they get the web page that you're asking for, and serve it up to you. Now the web site doesn't have your IP address, they have the Anonymizer's IP address. This protects you from the web site, and this service is free from their website. If you subscribe, you can take advantage of URL Encryption. The URL (or web address) is what you type into your Internet browser to go to a web site, for example http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com is a URL, and this is what your Internet Service Provider keeps a log of. When you use URL Encryption, you go to Anonymizer's web site, and type in the URL that you want to visit. Then it comes up for you. Look at your address bar...it says that you're at www.anon.user.com/cipher. Now the Internet Service Provider is rendered impotent (I love doing that to them) Even the all-powerful AOL, with its notorious anti-White policies can't stop that.

Conclusion

You're under attack White man, and you know it. You know that the enemy will use any tactic and any piece of information to destroy you. Don't give him another loaded weapon. Be paranoid. You've just seen how you can spend a very small amount of money to protect your data, and yourself. You can encrypt and shred every ounce of evidence of what you've done online, and any sensitive data that you don't want Uncle Sam to have (like how much money you REALLY made this year). You can remove your hard drive and destroy it or hide it in almost no time, and not even leave behind a clue that anything is missing. I sleep better at night because I use these techniques, and I'll sleep better knowing that you're using them too...because the next Lonnie Rae is going to be a guy who said a forbidden word on the Internet. Don't let them track you down.

K. THOMPSON