Introduction to Encryption

What is encryption?

​Encryption is best defined as the most effective way to secure data. There are a few accurate and succinct definitions here and here but, “a process applied to data to keep it secure and only accessible by those with the ‘key’ or code to do so” - is arguably the most basic 101 definition.
We differentiate encrypted data and unencrypted data by calling the former “ciphertext” and the latter “plain text”.

Why does encryption exist?

The practical benefits of using encryption lend themselves to be incredibly helpful and effective to keeping private or “sensitive” data just that: private. Encryption is only more and more important in today’s web-based surveillance invasions on personal data conducted by agencies and organisations, like the NSA, as a way of protecting against such prying eyes.

Encryption essentially exists to allow you to pass a secret message from yourself to someone else. The important part of that process being that you wish the message to be secret -- i.e. you do not wish for third parties to be able to read your message. Without going into the thousands of reasons as to why encryption is important, this can be justified by simply using the example of how encryption allows you to use e-commerce (buying things online) without the credit card details you use being easily observed and saved by anyone/thing that is not your intended recipient of said details.

How does encryption work?

Whatever your initial message (the data you transmit) is, using encryption on said message will “scramble” it with a huge “digital number”. This scrambling is achieved by using high-level mathematics in a computational system. There is now different levels of encryption used all over the world.

The most common is 128-bit key encryption, which is used at the “commercial” level (i.e. it is widely used and as such has become the standard level of encryption nowadays.) Although this 128-bit key is super hard to hack and gain access through, more and more online users are choosing to increase their encryption key to 256-bit, which is of course a whole higher level of hard-to-crack encryption.

So when data is encrypted and sent to another computer, that computer will know the digital key used for the encryption and thus be able to decrypt and determine the intended original message.

Why is encryption not used for all data transmission?

​Thankfully this is actually becoming “the norm” for more and more online users, who are now able to take control of using encryption to protect all the data they transmit online by using very affordable “privacy-protection” software like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Today, the main reason encryption is not used for all data transmission comes down to speed. When encryption is used on data there is an unavoidable loss in the speed that data is transmitted because of the mathematical computations required to both scramble the message before transmission and then unscramble it at the end of the receiving server.

Introduction To Cryptocurrency

What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency may sound to many like some futuristic complex form of money… and in some ways it is exactly that! However, understanding what cryptocurrency is does not require super intelligence or a degree in computer science. The best way to get across exactly what a cryptocurrency is, would be to simply watch this awesome (and short!) video from the guys over at Good Mythical Morning:

There are currently hundreds of cryptocurrencies that exist today, with BitCoin being the first established cryptocurrency created. Below are some other popular cryptocurrencies in existence today:

How does a cryptocurrency work?

To define it it really basically, a cryptocurrency is a digital currency. Each “coin” of such a currency is created through a process called “mining”. It is most important to understand that this mining is how such currencies are created, rather than knowing how mining works. So for now, it is enough to understand that this mining process is how each coin is created.

This mining process is essentially the virtual equivalent of how physical “traditional” money is created. Physical currencies as we know them are created by governments and banks that print notes and produce coins that go into the world’s circulation. Whereas to create a “coin” of cryptocurrency, a user (yes anyone, even you, can create them) uses a mining program.

Such mining programs are used to solve incredibly sophisticated algorithms, with each algorithm solve producing a “block” (i.e. a “coin”) that will go into cryptocurrency circulation. The level of computational processing power required for such mining programs to solve these super complex algorithms to produce cryptocurrency coins is truly huge. The cost to build and maintain such computers to handle this level of processing power is why so few cryptocurrency produces are around today.

Why do cryptocurrencies have value?

The short answer is because of three factors:

​To get a completely-yet-simple explanation of why cryptocurrencies have value, you should understand exactly how each coin is mined. There is an ocean of resources out there that can give you fantastic breakdowns of this process, but a great place to start is this very succinct explanation from iGaming.

How to Anonymously use the Internet

Keeping yourself anonymous with everything you do online is not only smart but becoming more and more fundamentally necessary as your freedom is restricted and your privacy is monitored.

There are an ocean of resources and tools around today that you can arm yourself with in order to protect your anonymity with every website you visit; message you send; file you share and media you stream. This choice is fantastic, however so much choice can definitely be paralysing -- and although there is no way to 100% protect your anonymity online, there are plenty of ways you can give yourself the best chance of this with very little effort. So we have decided to define 7 areas of your online activity that when anonymised will cover 99% of your online activity:

5 Essential Life-saving Tools for Online Anonymity

1. DNS (Domain Name Service) Encryption

2. VPN (Virtual Private Network)

3. TOR (The Onion Router)

4. Anonymous-friendly Search Engines

5. Privacy-protected IM (Instant Messaging)

1. DNS (Domain Name Service) Encryption

Let’s define what a DNS is briefly: 

A DNS turns any website address from it’s IP form (e.g. 12.345.678) to the domain name e.g. www.example.com) in order to make websites easier to remember for us simple humans.

So to keep your DNS anonymity in tact, you want to avoid all possibility of a “DNS leak” occurring. A DNS leak is when -- even if you are using a VPN or TOR -- your computer keeps communicating with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) constantly during your online activity at a point in the network that allows your ISP (or third party ‘snoopers’) to see your online activity, regardless of whether you are encrypting your connection or not.

Therefore, encrypting your DNS is paramount. You can do this by simply using OpenDNS then test that your DNS is now tight and without leaks by using a free tool like www.dnsleaktest.com.

We also list some great DNS providers in the tools section here. 

2. VPN (Virtual Private Network)

For a detailed description of what a VPN is, how they work and what they are used for, definitely check out our Ultimate Guide to VPNs. A simple explanation of this will be laid out now. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a tool that allows you to create a remote virtual connection to another computer. These computers (or servers) that you connect to remotely from your own device can be located anywhere in the world.

A classic example of why a VPN is beneficial to use for anonymity is when you want to watch a specific movie on Netflix, only to find out that the location you are accessing Netflix from either does not give you any access at all, or only access to a limited library that does not include the movie you want to watch.

By using a VPN, you can change your “location” (your IP address) to be located in a country that will give you access to that movie on Netflix. Your IP address is something assigned to your computer. This IP address is what websites and online services use to determine where you are located, and thus deny or grant you access based on this. Although there are other methods to achieve this IP address change; only a VPN will give you the highest level of privacy/anonymity protection by encrypting your data while doing so.

The anonymity protection that VPNs give you really shine through when you consider how unsafe public WiFi connections that cafes and bars offer are. Use a VPN to make sure your online activity is as securely protected as it can be, regardless of where you are in the world.

We also list some great VPN tools in the according section of this guide here.

3. TOR (The Onion Router)

TOR is a very smart and ingeniously simple network that protects your anonymity by running your connection through a variety of multiple different servers before reaching its intended destination server. This process serves to make your data untraceable back to you, since no entity observing any point in TOR can accurately figure out where any data has come from or is going.

The whole purpose of TOR is to offer zero traceability of any data to any user. Any user of TOR can be sure that no one can figure out which websites you are viewing or what data you are sending/receiving at any time. Similarly, TORs protect both the intended website from knowing you sent the data and any individual relays from getting your IP address or determining it through monitoring and attaching browsing habits back to your IP.

It is important to point out that using TOR does not absolutely guarantee anonymity. As much as it will improve minimising your online footprint and ‘breadcrumbs’, there are sophisticated methods that any intelligent hacker can use if they are specifically trying to monitor you. However, for the average ever-man online user that has done nothing so significantly illegal to warrant having such hackers monitoring you, then TOR is a great way to successfully stay anonymous.

To use TOR, just download the TOR browser and install then launch it. Super simple, with no “technical understanding” required. Alternatively for mobile you can use Orbweb, which is a great web browser developed for Android devices that focuses on privacy protection that is based on TOR.

4. Anonymous-friendly Search Engines

It is no secret that practically every major search engine online today tracks almost 100% of searches you perform. Google, Yahoo! and Bing are all able to very easily track your searches, so if you want to use a search engine that doesn’t -- then check out DuckDuckGO, ixquick and Startpage.

DuckDuckGo
“The search engine that doesn’t track you” - is DuckDuckGo’s slogan. The main approach that this search engine takes to protect your privacy is in not using the filtering system that major search engines use to offer “personalized results”. This search engine emphasises giving quality over quantity when it comes to results.

Ixquick and Startpage
This search engine progressively improved the level their user privacy protection over the years, finally in January 2009 hitting the milestone of completely ceasing logging user IP addresses. Startpage is for the user that wants to feel the “Googleness” of a search engine with the privacy protection that ixquick gives you:

Additionally, if you really insist on sticking with Google as your preferred search engine, then you can use the little known encrypted version of Google, which gives you a certain level of encryption on your search queries.

We also highlight the importance of privacy-friendly web searching in the according tools section here. 

5. Privacy-protected IM (Instant Messaging)

Texting, texting, texting. We all do it, we all love it, and 99% of us do not consider just how much our messages are tracked and accessible by third parties like national governments. If you want to text to your heart’s content via an Instant Messaging service that exists to protect your privacy and keep every text you send and receive anonymous through encryption, then definitely check out these:

How to Secure Your Email

The general reason for encrypting email is because most, if not all popular email providers unashamedly track your emails and use algorithms to log specific keywords therein in order to show you ads that are targeted around these. Gmail is arguably the most popular email provider around today, and are a prime example of one such email provider that does this.

If you want to stick with Gmail as your email provider then definitely activate the in-built “two factor authentication”, which will require Google to send you a specific code that you’ll then need to punch in to login to your Gmail account. There are encryption standards specifically developed for email encryption, namely OpenGPG and PGP, that have subsequently spurred on email “hardware tokens” that allow you to increase the level of encryption you can place on your emails.

However we do recommend most to switch your email provider to one like Protonmail, a super secure encrypted email based in Switzerland (so not under the privacy-invasive US or UK jurisdictions) and completely free. For mobile equivalents of such secure encrypted email providers, check out K-9 Mail and iPGMail for Android and iOS respectively:

How to Secure Your Browser

You can think of using a privacy-protecting add-on for your internet browser as the most straightforward and simple method to helping your anonymity, compared to using a VPN or TOR. However, the anonymity that such browser add-ons give you is minimal at best.

What such add-ons provide you with mainly is a way to stop the bombardment of ads that slow down or inhibit your online browsing, as well as adding security to your data being retained or monitored by websites you visit. Here’s a shortlist of the most effective and handy browser add-ons worth installing onto yours:

Firefox-specific add-ons worth checking out are Self-Destructing Cookies that automatically deletes all cookies gathered whenever you close the tab, and JonDoFox that improves the anonymity and security of your browsing. We recommend FireFox above Google Chrome because Chrome has become synonymous with data tracking and privacy-infringing activity. Internet Explorer is of course a redundant web browser and if you’re using this then we strongly recommend deleting it from your computer and using FireFox.

More web browser add-ons are recommended in the according tools section of this guide here.

How To Securely Communicate in 2016

It should be stated first that phone calls are not at all secure. In fact it may be the least private way of communication in 2016. It's safe to say that governments possess the technology needed to record your phone calls and they are more than willing to do so. Burner phones or disposable cell phones are certainly a possibility but information can still be collected this way.

The best way to keep your voice conversation completely private would be to use end-to-end VOIP encryption. VoIP, which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, allows you to talk and usually make video calls and instant messages over the internet. Skype is a great example of a VoIP service. Unfortunately it is now owned by Microsoft and they have simply turned over access to skype calls so your skype data is not secure.

Thanks to Edward Snowden we now know this is certain. So, to have a truly private conversation you would need end-to-end encryption. Below in the tools section you can find some good skype alternatives.

A lot of what we just discussed in the previous section on VoIP applies here as well as many VoIP services also have a chat or IM functionality built in. With that said we've listed a lot of great, dedicated IM tools below:

A Guide to Cloud Storage Security

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of cloud storage. In fact you're probably already using cloud storage in some form or another. iCloud, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, Amazon Web Services, and countless others. The problem with these services is that they work directly with the NSA and many of their Terms of Service specify that they have the right to look into your files and turn them over to an authority. 

There are many approaches you can take to ensure that your files are secure, like manually encrypting your files before uploading them to the cloud (doing this is the simplest and most secure method.) By doing this you can continue using proprietary cloud service as long as you're the only one who holds the encryption key.

However, there are a growing amount of cloud storage options becoming available that focus on giving you the highest level of encryption and data privacy protection possible as standard. These cloud storage services are flying the flag of internet freedom proudly, and we definitely recommend giving them a try. 

Rather than bombarding you with the myriad of (very legitimate) reasons to why you should be using a cloud storage service that actually protects your file privacy rather than openly giving it up to the powers that be -- we will simply list a few of the absolute best file storage services around today, so you can check them out yourself:

In addition we have also listed some fantastic secure cloud storage services that do not charge a penny. Check these out in the according tools section below by clicking here!

Guide To Antivirus, Malware & Firewall Software

What is antivirus software?

Antivirus software is a sophisticated piece of computing software that includes multiple programs that prevent, protect and repair viruses found on a device in an effective and efficient manner.

Exactly what antivirus software does can be defined in essentially two ways:

Why Doesn’t Everyone Use Antivirus Software?

As important and beneficial antivirus software is for any device, such software does not come without flaws and cons. Overall, no antivirus software is 100% effective in doing its job. We do want to stress that ultimately the benefits of antivirus software definitely outway the negatives.

With that said, it is worth laying out the most common negatives with antivirus software, as these explain why every user does not choose to use such protective software on their device:

Negatives of Antivirus Software

What is Malware?

“Malicious Software”, shortened to “Malware”, is an all-encompassing term that refers to computational spyware, viruses, worm and Trojan. You can essentially define malware as being something that is in your device that is 100% designed to damage that system or the network it is connected to.

Why does Malware exist?

The short answer is: MONEY.

For those of us that would never dream of damaging a computer system, or whom can’t even understand why someone would want to -- hopefully this will explain why malware exists.

For all the different forms that malware can take, the purpose of it ultimately comes down to two conclusions:

1. Advertisement.
Yup, most malware is installed onto a device for the purpose of making money through advertising. Such malware is usually found masquerading as a random offer popping up to a user online while browsing, offering “software to increase the speed of your computer” and the like. If you are naive enough to download such a scam, you quickly discover that the “software” is in fact useless and only bombards your system with ads from which the malware creator makes money.

2. To make your computer a brain-dead “zombie”.
This is malware that, once unwillingly installed on your device, will take control and command it to perform such things like contributing to a DDoS attack or steal all your info contained in the device. Such info-stealing malware will also do this for money in the end by selling your information to third parties.

What is a Firewall?

A firewall is a system that is created to prevent unauthorised network access, from either end. Firewalls exist on both hardware and software. Almost every device nowadays has some level of firewall installed as standard.

The main shapes that software firewalls take today are either as packet filters, gateways and proxy servers.

Why do Firewalls exist?

Firewalls are predominantly used as a way to moderate networks on the internet (i.e. intranets) by checking every data packet that is sent through such networks to make sure every packet adheres to pre-specified security points. Using a firewall essentials prevents users or bots from accessing data inside a network that they are not authorised to.

Firewalls keep networks accessible to only users that are officially allowed access. Thus, using a firewall puts up a “wall” around your network, protecting the privacy and security of data within that wall.

Additional Security Tricks & Tips

In addition to the -- what we believe to be essential -- online privacy and anonymity protection tools and software we have recommended through this comprehensive guide, we also want to conclude this section with some very sensible and “every day” additional security tricks and tips for you to take into consideration with your device and internet usage.

Password Advice

It goes without saying that you should always use a completely unique password with every personal account you access from your devices. The main reason that most online users stick with either a simple to remember password or the same more complicated password across all accounts is because of our simple human brains. We simply cannot remember a highly complex password, let alone a different highly complex one for every personal account we access online. The paradox with the ideal password is that it should be so complex that you are unable to remember it.

So how do you remember it? This is why we strongly recommend using a password manager to take care of this for you.

Password managers work in such a way that you only need to remember one password (to access the manager) and all your passwords therein (which you should make so difficult that even you cannot remember them) will be accessible; giving you access to your personal accounts automatically. Here are the top password managers that we recommend giving a try:

Nowadays, many online services offer two-step authentication for you to utilise. Definitely use this, as it does allow you (if you reallllly don’t want to use complex passwords or a password manager) to increase the strength of your account access by using two steps of authentication to login each time.

Software Advice

Always, always, always keep your software and all programs/applications on your devices completely up to date. So many “hacks” and malicious software get into your devices through the “cracks” that form in software, applications or operating systems that are not up to date on the latest versions. Stay smart when downloading new applications to your devices.

Mobile device applications are not so applicable here, but with laptops and desktops; applications that are “FREE!” should always be giving serious consideration and research before downloading and installing onto your computer. Why? Because a massive percent of freely offered applications and programs usually come with a “side door” function that could make your computer open to malware and viruses, or worse -- to be used remotely for powerful computational processing (there was a “free” application that, once installed, used the users computer for BitCoin mining) so always be 100% sure you need and research every application you install onto your devices.

Although a lot more legitimate mobile device applications (from the App Store and Google Play, for example) are freely offered in comparison to lap/desktop computers, you should always take 30 seconds to check the “permissions” you are giving each app you install onto your mobile device. There are some that will attempt to access your personal data through such installs.

Email Advice

We all get literally hundreds of emails, sometimes even thousands(!) a week. So taking the time to sensibly go through each can become a tiresome task, resulting in many people giving less time to consider whether an email is safe to open or not.

Do not give in to this temptation to fly through emails just to get to “inbox zero”. Although most email clients and providers are always improving their spam filtering systems, there are always a few emails that are entirely malicious, which get into your main email folder.

Opening such emails is sometimes equivalent to opening your identity and personal sensitive information files to a complete stranger that wants to take advantage of such access.

Web Browsing Advice

Although we went into detail about the best ways to secure your browser here [LINK], it is worth mentioning a few more quick recommendations that many security-savvy users do when web browsing on their personal devices. For Windows devices, one major one that we see coming up time and time again is to disable JavaScript in your browser.

This is quite an extreme thing to do, since many online services, games and sites use significant amounts of JavaScript to keep their service functioning smoothly and correctly. However, you will be 100% more secure in your web browsing by disabling JavaScript, so if you are OK with reducing your user experience a touch on some websites, then this is a good tip for you.

Alternatively, you can perform some simple customisations to your browser’s JavaScript settings to improve security therein, which you can check out here Since we covered so much about securing your web browsing already, the only other significant tip worth reiterating is to use a VPN for all your browsing activity -- especially if you regularly use public WiFi.

Back up!

One last thing: back up! Regardless of what device you use or how up to date your operating system is or how “stable” your devices are -- the circumstances are never secure enough to justify not backing up your data regularly. Backing up your systems at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc) is always a smart idea.

You can never, ever predict what may happen to you, your devices, your files, your entire computing system in the future, so why take such chances? Back up, back up, back up!

Know the Enemy

​What is PRISM?

PRISM is a clandestine surveillance program operated under the United States National Security Agency (NSA). The program collects internet communications from more than nine major US internet companies. ​

What is XKeyscore?​

XKeyscore is a formerly secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency used for searching and analyzing global internet data collected on a daily basis. The program has been shared and is used by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, German, and other countries. This program was revealed in July 2013 by Edward Snowden. ​

What is Tempora?

Tempora is the codeword for the a formerly secret computer system used by the British Government Communications Headquarters. The system is used to buffer internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables, so these can be processed and searched at a later time. The existence of Tempora was revealed by Edward Snowden.