Re: wacky question
On Thu, 2013-06-20 at 10:44 -0500, John Hasler wrote:
> Governments just don't give a damn about your desktop. Sorry if that
> bruises your ego. They may be interested in your email and Websurfing
> in the unlikely event that you are a "person of interest", but they
> can get that from your provider.
Correct, if they would spy my machine, they would risk, that I would
notice it soon or later, but if they do it at another location, that is
beyond my scope.
OTOH they might be interested to get the private openPGP keys, just to
take a look, if we're "persons of interest", so a backdoor to our PCs
would be from interest for them too.
The solution is very simple. My machine that is for everyday usage
doesn't contain secrets. It's not a secure machine and I'm aware of this
fact. If I ever have the need to share top secrets, I would set up
another machine, with all kinds of protections and I only would connect
it to the Internet, when it's absolutely needed. We e.g. could decrypt
and read mails on a machine, that is never connected to the Internet and
then e.g. use a self build (self soldered) USB stick to transmit it
between our computers etc. pp..
The needed security depends to the kind of action. Talking about
illegal, but soft drugs in some countries does need a little bit of
protection, writing about a dirty bomb does need much protection, resp.
shouldn't be done. I don't think that there are large communities of
terrorists talking about dirty bombs, the less people who are aware
about this, the more secure it would be.
The USA and similar countries IMO aren't dangerous for most of us, since
I suspect that less of us are terrorists. China and similar countries
are a problem, because they are dangerous for journalists etc..
2 Cents
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