Wireless Communications

Certain privacy/full session SSL email hosting services have been purchased/changed operational control by NSA and affiliates within the past few months, through private intermediary entities. Hushmail: now fully owned by private entity NSA affiliate; has had informal relationship with NSA for a number of years that effectively provided NSA with real time access to Hushmail's hosting servers. Safe-mail.net: Israeli-based, ironically privately lauded by NSA and US military several years ago for its sound implementation of SendMail with SSL webmail GUI frontend. Now provides mail server info to NSA in real time. Guardster.com (SSH/SSL proxy): NSA contractors have "bought" full access rights to Guardster servers a few days ago. Separate but related: faciliated port sniffing of hosting servers at Everyones Internet, on NSA affiliates' behalf, has been ongoing for a number of months now. More info on industry Windows security software: Zone Alarm, Symantec, MacAfee: All fa...

If you can use your company's "virtual private network," or VPN, you can feel fairly safe when using open Wi-Fi at a cafe. VPNs create secure "tunnels," in which all online communication is encrypted at both ends. But simply using a top security suite from Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro or others won't protect you in a cafe situation. For the modern nomadic worker, few things are more enjoyable than heading to a cafe, ordering a cappuccino and firing up the laptop to get some work done. As far as anyone you're e-mailing knows, you're at the office. Unfortunately, few things expose your work to greater security risks than latching onto a public Wi-Fi service. Most people don't realize the risks, and even fewer have the ability to perform the geeky tasks that would fix it. Computer criminals can "sniff" the traffic in a cafe, or set up a fake hot spot that you might innocently log into. When that happens, watch out: Everything you type go...