What ISP would you chose for a safe account

L

ljvh769

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Hi all,
I want to be able to have a safe email account, not free but good. I have comcast at home and a gmail account for work. I am moving and would like to access wifi and from my cingular phone too. Who do we trust these days? I would love any technical feedback.
Thanks,
ljvh769
 
ljvh769 said:
Hi all,
I want to be able to have a safe email account, not free but good.
ljvh769
Click to expand...
From what I know: there does not exist safe email. The only protection is: do not share by email information that you do not want to be shared.
After saying this I would add: some email providers are really nasty. So see what your options are and then search the net what you can find about nastiness of what is available for you.
 
Uh, I would offer to say you might consider managing your own servers, as I do.
I obtain the ip-address from my ISP, but all the hardware/software/servers are
mine. I refuse to use the ISP offered website/systems/services etc., and I do care
what happens to my data residing elsewhere other than on my servers. Yes, it is a
little more spendy and more work, but at least I control my data on my servers.

I am also careful about what I share or what I send out over the Internet wires, so
I make sure that what I place on the Internet is thought out before doing so. I know
that sending out data out such as email, it IS "public" because emails bounce around
from system to system, leaving many copies behind for many potential people to read
it. You might think about encrypting your email messages with PGP or use strong
encryption schemes for private person to persons emails, but expect it to be cracked
eventually. Encryption just means it makes it a little more difficult for the average Joe to
casually read the message in clear-text, but does nothing to prevent the NSA from
cracking and reading it anyway.

By the way, choose your ISP carefully, as they are all like snowflakes, different and offer
different levels of services. My ISP offers exactly what I need for a great price and allows
me the flexibilities I want. As for a domain name provider - BE CAREFUL! Make sure that
you have the flexibility to be independent of their services if all you want is a domain name
to be directed to YOUR servers AND their policies do not state they can shut you down AT WILL.
But even so, domain names and ISP addresses should be from seperate providers, so as to
prevent the same provider to take away both pieces away from you. Your domain name provider
might shut down the nameservers controlling your domain name, (which is really not that big of
a deal) but your ISP IP address is still valid (because it is INDEPENDENT from the domain name).
If you are really paranoid, you should get several domain names from different providers and
have those pointing to your servers, so that in the event that one domain name goes kaput,
make sure your customers/readers know there are other domain names they can use to pickup
where they left off.

Well, this is what I do. Decide for yourself what is best for yourself but whatever you decide,
read up on it and study the issues and get informed!
 
I think Ark has a really good point and Dant too, but the are on either side of the spectrum.
If you go with a free (gmail, and so on) dont think that its safe, if you choose a more technical solution then Dant is spot on.

One middleground could be to use your own email-service on a computer that you have setup as a router/gateway. That way your mails
are stored safely but could be read when you recive them if you have´nt encrypted them (send&recive).

But I myself have given up a long time ago :)

edit: hushmail.com use encrypt keys and stuff, better then Gmail in that regard.
 
my flippant answer to the original question would be "are you SERIOUS?!" ;)

and a maybe more helpful answer would be: I think it is best to assume that all emails are insecure, and treat them as such.
however, you can be a little bit pragmatic in exactly how insecure you allow it to get. It might be an idea to avoid ISPs who actively spam-filter emails before they deliver them - this means they are openly reading everything before it comes through. probably an idea to avoid the larger names such as gmail or hotmail because they are owned by the larger/possibly-more-ponerised companies such as google and micros0ft, who are just MORE crooked than usual because they can!

if you're tech savvy, maybe run your own linux mail server, but of course then you have to manage it.
in any event, your mail has to be bounced around all over the place before you receive it, so there's not much you can do about what happens on the way.

there's PGP encryption, but perhaps actively encrypting stuff actually draws attention to it? inf the ptb REALLY want it, they'll read it.

there was an amusing (at the time) 'anti-establishment' kinda scam going round years ago, the idea was to put 'terrist' keywords embedded in EVERY email that everyone sent to anyone, y'know things like bomb and wire-cutters and recconaissance etc, thereby rendering the fbi's (or whoever's) filtering mechanisms useless by overload). I don't think I'd recommend that in the current guantanamo political climate.

sorry, no easy answer ;)
 
GRiM said:
I think Ark has a really good point and Dant too, but the are on either side of the spectrum.
If you go with a free (gmail, and so on) dont think that its safe, if you choose a more technical solution then Dant is spot on.

One middleground could be to use your own email-service on a computer that you have setup as a router/gateway. That way your mails
are stored safely but could be read when you recive them if you have´nt encrypted them (send&recive).

But I myself have given up a long time ago :)

edit: hushmail.com use encrypt keys and stuff, better then Gmail in that regard.
Click to expand...
The thing to keep in mind, also, is that most "free" email providers, such as Gmail, MSN, Yahoo state in the User agreement that they OWN all content that you send through their services. That means they can publish any photos, conversations, etc that you send through at their will for whatever reason they want. Services that offer "encrypted" email have the keys to unlock every email you send, in escrow. (If you ever want to know what is going on in a corporation, become friends with the IT guys, they read the executive emails for "fun", because they CAN.)


Pick a service provider that has a strong privacy statement, and then take that with a grain of salt and USE wisely, i.e. encrypt to keep the "low hanging fruit" people from seeing.

There is no such thing as absolute privacy in cyberspace, BTW. Privacy comes in degrees depending on who is "looking". If you want to say something via email, or otherwise, stand up, say it and be ready to flip the bird to the "black helicopters". ;)

Good luck.
 
Security and Internet are two incompatible words :)

If someone wants to get you really bad, they will.

As soon as your computer is hooked up to internet, assume it's all insecure.
 
Thank you all,
I think that safe was an impossible request. I really appreciate your thoughts and time to resspond.
l7jvh
 
_http://newteevee.com/2008/03/18/comcast-cameras-to-start-watching-you/
Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You?

If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.

Kunkel said the system wouldn’t be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn’t be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn’t been consumer testing, and that any rollout “must add value” to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.

Perhaps I’ve seen Enemy of the State too many times, or perhaps I’m just naive about the depths to which Comcast currently tracks my every move. I can’t trust Comcast with BitTorrent, so why should I trust them with my must-be-kept-secret, DVR-clogging addiction to Keeping Up with the Kardashians?

Kunkel also spoke on camera with me about fixing bad Comcast user experiences, the ongoing BitTorrent battle and VOD. But he mostly towed the corporate line on these issues (the monitoring your living room came up after my camera was put away).
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Email accounts, now here is something that happened in the last 24 hours and I and a friend havent worked it out.

We are running a joint project which i dont want to mention here , and he received emails to a hotmail account which he shares with only a few people he trusts , these people know nothing of the project we are running.

The project has an email account , but in no way linked to the hotmail email account , its not a hotmail , yahoo, gmail , etc .

BUT;

He received an email to his hotmail account addressed to him [at) the projectname . com if you know what i mean. We both think this strange.

Today i log into my hotmail account , one that not many people know , and low and behold there is an email to

me [at] the project . com

Although the project is the same we both have diffirent project .com accounts if this is making any sense.

How this could have possibly happened I at this moment do not know. So I KNOW , no email account or ones information is safe on the internet.
 
Any information that is sent through the internet is going through many hubs and switches owned by not only your internet provider but those who own all the major and minor backbones that your data goes through, including the provider of the destination of your data. In other words, it is basically safe to assume that anything you send over the internet is available to the entire internet - to all internet providers, all governments, all corporations, and anyone else that needs that information. Anything and everything you do online is logged and known to your ISP and all of the above.

Not to mention the possibility of backdoors in your operating system itself put there by Microsoft (or whoever made your operating system). Those backdoors can be virtually undetectable, for all intents and purposes they don't exist unless the right data is sent to your computer by those who know about the backdoor, which acts as a "key" to suddenly let the intruder right into your PC, invisible to all firewalls. Since no one has the source code for Windows, nobody can find out whether such backdoors are there.

Your only hope may be to encrypt your data on a local stand-alone machine (that is not connected to the internet, or connected to any other machines that are connected to the internet). Then transfer that data, once encrypted, using a USB drive to a computer that does exist on the internet, and send the encrypted data on its way. And of course the encryption should be pretty damn good too. Probably wouldn't hurt to be running an operating system on that computer that you wrote yourself! :)
 
Just found an article on this subject matter talking about NSA having back doors in many popular firewalls and so called "secure" email services:

_http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/20/nsa-0wnz-popular-firewalls

As the article mentioned, encryption is really the only way to secure anything anymore - and even then, on an offline computer. But of course, even a relatively simple quantum computer would completely trash all current encryption methods. So if we consider that high level government may have quantum computers at its disposal, then encryption that we currently use is utterly useless against such things. Though from most prying eyes it would suffice.
 
azur said:
Azur

There is no such thing as absolute privacy in cyberspace, BTW. Privacy comes in degrees depending on who is "looking". If you want to say something via email, or otherwise, stand up, say it and be ready to flip the bird to the "black helicopters".
Click to expand...
This brings up an issue I have been trying to resolve, namely how much interaction to have on the web and this quote was somewhat of an alarm-clock for me. thankyou.

Regarding the security aspect, I have come to the conclusion that if the powers that be want information, they can (and will) get it by any number of means. For instance I don't know how many are aware of the PROMIS fiasco in the 80's & 90's & its implications in terms of databasing and analysing information. Just the frequency of emails or destination or even the lack of reply is in itself a peice of information. This is just the surface of IT technologies, let alone the information that could be obtained by arcane or occult manner, (think RV ect.) or direct thought monitoring technology. However, the inherent nature of STS (wishfull thinking and ponerosis) may counter the degree of effectiveness of said techniques, esp. regarding use towards STO candidates. As always, knowledge protects, and just knowing how a technique is being used or for what purpose can only increase awareness.

Basically, I have thought a lot about this privacy issue, and it has actually paralysed my ability to network ideas effectively through privacy concerns and fear of having to stand up for truth at the price of a string of flags against my name in a database. But that is part of the intent, IMO, of a lot of recent disclosures and actions of the PTB.

This has just focused on the PTB, but there are many technologies, and much knowledge available, to stop 3rd party intrusions and viruses, and one would be mad not to use a firewall when connected to the net.

To sum up: It is highly likely that my preferences, weaknesses and political\spiritual\moral inclinations are quite easily aquireable through all my past actions, and the clock is ticking.

PS:The need for privacy can only exist in an STS environment. A thought I just had.....

EDIT this is purely my opinion.....apologies if it is to off track.
 
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