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Ohio Joe

(21,760 posts)
Sun Oct 27, 2013, 11:56 AM Oct 2013

EFF - Ten Steps You Can Take Right Now Against Internet Surveillance

One of the trends we've seen is how, as the word of the NSA's spying has spread, more and more ordinary people want to know how (or if) they can defend themselves from surveillance online. But where to start?

The bad news is: if you're being personally targeted by a powerful intelligence agency like the NSA, it's very, very difficult to defend yourself. The good news, if you can call it that, is that much of what the NSA is doing is mass surveillance on everybody. With a few small steps, you can make that kind of surveillance a lot more difficult and expensive, both against you individually, and more generally against everyone.

Here's ten steps you can take to make your own devices secure. This isn't a complete list, and it won't make you completely safe from spying. But every step you take will make you a little bit safer than average. And it will make your attackers, whether they're the NSA or a local criminal, have to work that much harder.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/ten-steps-against-surveillance

As the article says... This is not a cure all but some steps that can help.

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EFF - Ten Steps You Can Take Right Now Against Internet Surveillance (Original Post) Ohio Joe Oct 2013 OP
Is my "rec" being recorded? L0oniX Oct 2013 #1
;-) Matariki Oct 2013 #3
kick and rec steve2470 Oct 2013 #2

steve2470

(37,457 posts)
2. kick and rec
Sun Oct 27, 2013, 12:08 PM
Oct 2013

Does anyone know how safe Tor network is ? I think I remember reading the NSA got a backdoor into it ? If I'm wrong about that, my bad.

This link might be helpful for some:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html

How the NSA Attacks Tor/Firefox Users With QUANTUM and FOXACID

The online anonymity network Tor is a high-priority target for the National Security Agency. The work of attacking Tor is done by the NSA's application vulnerabilities branch, which is part of the systems intelligence directorate, or SID. The majority of NSA employees work in SID, which is tasked with collecting data from communications systems around the world.

According to a top-secret NSA presentation provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, one successful technique the NSA has developed involves exploiting the Tor browser bundle, a collection of programs designed to make it easy for people to install and use the software.

The trick identifies Tor users on the Internet and then executes an attack against their Firefox web browser.

The NSA refers to these capabilities as CNE, or computer network exploitation.
The first step of this process is finding Tor users. To accomplish this, the NSA relies on its vast capability to monitor large parts of the Internet. This is done via the agency's partnership with US telecoms firms under programs codenamed Stormbrew, Fairview, Oakstar and Blarney.
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