Posted on 07/19/2013 9:18:15 AM PDT by SilverMine
I am concerned with NSA spying. I am wondering if I restore XP to it's original with no updates of any kind, am I safer than with the updates? For that computer, using TOR, will I have safe emails using nothing but Hushmail never going to any kind of browser other than TOR and no email other than hushmail?
>> Your only hope is to be a ‘gray man’.
Is “gray man hope” related to “white privilege”?
I would try Debian, mint, or Ubuntu.
if you like the old school look of xp than go with Debian and choose xfce as your window manager.
Agree with the linux from USB or CD option previously mentioned. An unpatched version of XP has very significant security issues anyone, including the NSA, can leverage.
BTW, there is no “safely” if its on a computer connected to the internet.
They can learn your OS from your browser. Your PC tells every website you talk with.
Unless you absolutely need the MS Office suite, you should consider a Linux distro like unbuntu 12.10. As other Freepers have suggested, it installs from a USB drive with at least 2GB of storage - more is better. I am using this distro to write this and your PC will have much higher performance.
While the entire MS Office suite is not a deal breaker for me part of it is. Almost everything can be done and sometimes done better in OpenOffice. Its the Almost that keeps me in Windoz land.
I use Access with a ton of various VB applications which need a reasonable size database with only a single connection and OpenOffice Base will not play nice with VB. A complete rewriting of my VB stuff and Access to OO Base ranks right up there with a root canal without anesthetic.
One bit of information - Tor was designed by the U.S. Navy IIRC. Don't expect anything at all to be secure these days.
I’d recommend DOS and mailing 5.25 inch floppies, but they’re checking the mail now, I’d recommend hand delivering them.
LOL! As if they maintain anything that can read 5.25 in floppies anymore!
I've kept several 5.25" floppy drives from computers I sent to be recycled. I even have a couple double density drive that can only read 320K and 360K floppies. When I was archiving the contents of my floppy disks, I occasionally came across double density disks that could not be read in a high density PC-AT style floppy drive. The only way those disks could be read was to read them in a double density drive. What could really throw them for a loop would be to use 320K (8 sector disks). All versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 2000 are unable to read them.
Install Linux. All OS’s are keyed for NSA access, except the one they can’t control.
As far as secure browsing, get an anonymous swiss vpn account and use TOR for web browsing. It’s 9 bucks a month. Pay with a pre-paid CC from any store less monitored.
What protects you isn’t the location itself, but the multiple encrypted layers you are running through. The NSA tapped the trans-oceanic fiber lines as well.
And lastly, don’t log into backdoored servers. Microsoft, Skype, Yahoo, Google, and Apple are US based and their servers are directly accessed as well as passively monitored. Which means your encryption won’t do squat if you are connecting to a compromised server.
So that’s it.
Thanks that is pretty near what our IT guys are saying.
Even using Hushmail and Tor?
one way to find out some things.
I have a BS and an MS in CS and worked in Gov Systems, and IT for 25+ years.
As I said, there is no electronic privacy
between what has been said here and what our IT and security folks have told me, I have come to agree with you.
We have come up with a solution though, something simple out of the 1800's it is called the book code. Doesn't matter if NSA or anyone else intercepts it, they can't decipher it.
While we are not talking anything other than corporate business, that business info would be worth money to our competitors, customers, dealers, etc. I have little doubt that there are geeks in NSA smart enough to realize the profit potential they have in their ease dropped corporate information.
you dont have to worry about the spy guys and commercial interests.
Only political stuff. That’s what changed since obama. Now they are making political points with evesdropping.
I wish you were right, but you're not.
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