Internet communications and being clandestine

[BillyOblivion]

It was in tech pubs quite a few years ago that all HP printers printed imperceptible yellow dots on each print that ID'd the printer used. As far as I know they and others still do the same. So do all internet communications AFAIK. Surveillance is ubiquitous and deep, and has been for some time. Just smile for the camera.

Not all printers do this, here's how to check if yours does: http://www.instructables.com/id/Yell...er-Spying-on-/
It's like knowing there are bears in the woods, being prepared beats fear any day. The bears are still there but you have a plan for avoiding or dealing with them if needs be. Mostly they don't care much who or what you are unless you meet a behavioral profile. I profile constantly. It started as a hobby to understand how people tick and grew from there. It's called street smarts.

Knowing what's up is half of street smarts. Knowing what to do in a given situation to CYTA is the other half. Paranoia will screw you up.[/QUOTE]

[Nick Randall]

There is no way they're going to be able to maintain good key security, different passwords on most accounts with critical accounts not sharing passwords (how do you have a husband and wife accessing critical account information w/out sharing passwords?) etc.

This I never comprehend. It's like a pathetic version of the matching his/her t-shirts. Geez dude. Get a life.

[jcarmody]

I just began to read this thread and I haven't seen any mention of the Tor Project.

A free software implementation of second-generation onion routing, a system enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the Internet.

Tor hides you among the other users on the network, so the more populous and diverse the user base for Tor is, the more your anonymity will be protected

I've used this in Firefox before. It slows things down but hides you pretty well.

[barnetmill]

It was in tech pubs quite a few years ago that all HP printers printed imperceptible yellow dots on each print that ID'd the printer used. As far as I know they and others still do the same. So do all internet communications AFAIK. Surveillance is ubiquitous and deep, and has been for some time. Just smile for the camera.

It's like knowing there are bears in the woods, being prepared beats fear any day. The bears are still there but you have a plan for avoiding or dealing with them if needs be. Mostly they don't care much who or what you are unless you meet a behavioral profile. I profile constantly. It started as a hobby to understand how people tick and grew from there. It's called street smarts.

Knowing what's up is half of street smarts. Knowing what to do in a given situation to CYTA is the other half. Paranoia will screw you up.

Does my somewhat older black and white ink HP printer leave imperceptible yellow dots. You can see from my question that I am not really in the know about computers. But you know I can see no real reason for me to be sending any printed messages where this would be a problem.

[fidalgoman]

Does my somewhat older black and white ink HP printer leave imperceptible yellow dots (Nope). You can see from my question that I am not really in the know about computers. But you know I can see no real reason for me to be sending any printed messages where this would be a problem.

I don't have a dog in the fight per se, but simply keep up with what the black and white hats are saying.

It's been a few years now since I had to be in the know but I still keep a watch out. Are they after you? 98% sure they are not. In today's surveillance world it's important to know just about everything you do is not private if somebody with enough juice wants to know, they will. If we just watch our mouth online and off there won't be much of a problem.

[barnetmill]

I don't have a dog in the fight per se, but simply keep up with what the black and white hats are saying.

It's been a few years now since I had to be in the know but I still keep a watch out. Are they after you? 98% sure they are not. In today's surveillance world it's important to know just about everything you do is not private if somebody with enough juice wants to know, they will. If we just watch our mouth online and off there won't be much of a problem.

I do not think that anyone is specifically after me or most of the other people on this forum. But some of us could fit profiles that encourage more surveillance. Why freely give out information to entities that are not your friends if you can avoid it?

[Al Lipscomb]

I don't know where to begin.

Let me try this: Anytime you communicate you direct attention at yourself. From the sound coming out of your mouth to the packets leaving your cell phone. Follow the path and we find you. Being anonymous brings the challenge of how someone can answer you and most people leave breadcrumbs all over the place. Some of the techniques above may keep your wife's PI from figuring out who your girlfriend is, but I would be real careful about betting a lot of money or my life on them.

[bae]

Note also that attempts to be anonymous may show up on someone's radar, attracting just the attention you wish to avoid...

[Al Lipscomb]

Note also that attempts to be anonymous may show up on someone's radar, attracting just the attention you wish to avoid...

The reason a stealth ship does not work is that it hides the return from the waves behind it. The result looks like a big arrow pointing at the ship. It "shows up".

As for the TOR project, how much trust do you place in the owner of the server? That is always the problem with such systems that they are only as secure as the most insecure member. Someone mentioned Hushmail, and one must remember they provided a back door for government access to the customers data.

The skill set to not leave tracks is hard to come by. If I needed to avoid a government level problem I could not feel safe using the Internet for very much. With cell phones the idea is "single use" and the same idea would be there on the 'net.

[bae]

I'll just provide one data point to think about.

Over a dozen years ago, my company was selling gear and software used to set up distributed networks of caching proxy servers for Internet traffic. The idea was to use them to reduce network bandwidth needs and cut latency by stashing copies of frequently-used data closer to the people asking for the stuff - everyone in your neighborhood on cable Internet would pop open the same copy of the NY Times at breakfast from a box in your local neighborhood, instead of the request and response having to go out over slower, more expensive links.

The networks could be set up to operate transparently, the end-users wouldn't know their traffic was going through one of these boxes, or a network of them.

Some countries bought our gear, and ran all of the traffic in/out of their country through them.

The gear could be used to also provide a high level of usage tracking and shaping, rerouting of requests, and access control.

Think about that....

Then ponder that we did that with the hardware and software available 12+ years ago, and ask yourself what today's gear could accomplish...