Hey guys! Below is my data confidentiality write up. I worked hard on this because I think it's an important area of knowledge for this community. In
the document I teach you what you need to know to hide your internet traces from your ISP/Government, as well as local data confidentiality and
encryption. I hope you enjoy! If you like the tutorial please comment and S+F, nothing is more fun than spending lots of time on a thread to have two
people comment. Also, the more people who see this the better! If you guys like the material I'll make it a series.
ATS Guide To Data Confidentiality
1.Introduction
2.Background Information
* What is Data Confidentiality?
* What is an IP Address?
* What is a Packet?
* What is Encryption?
* What is Hashing?
* What is Anonymity?
* Why Should I Care?
3.What is Data Confidentiality and Why Is It Important?
* Internet Data Confidentiality: A Practical Demonstration
* Ways to Achieve Internet Confidentiality
* CyberGhost VPN
* Proxies
* Ways to Achieve Local Data Confidentiality
* Whole Disk Encryption
* Data Shredding
Introduction
In this brief tutorial we are going to discuss the issues of anonymity and data confidentiality in today's world. Data confidentiality is becoming
increasingly important in today's society and whether we're hiding our data from thieves or the government we'd better know how to hide it properly.
We are going to add a new set of moves to your internet kung-fu by giving you the tools to protect yourself from the world's many peeping toms. HR
1981 is an attempt to force your ISPs to track your traffic for 18 months (if they aren't already), and it's brought to you by the same people who
brought you SOPA. In this document we discuss the tools necessary to counter the government's attack on your privacy.
What is Data Confidentiality?
Data Confidentiality can simply be defined as “keeping what's private, private”. This can include emails and documents as well as content browsed
on the web. A simple concept to understand, it can be relatively difficult to achieve. For instance: sure, Bob knows that if he has a particularly
sensitive document on his computer he can use a popular program (or even his operating system in some cases) to encrypt that document on his hard
drive. However, does he know that the original data from before the file was encrypted is still hiding on his hard drive? Does he know that every time
he decrypts that document for viewing it's stored in clear text? What if he's not just concerned about his local documents? Perhaps Bob knows he has
radical views of his government and he wants to cover his tracks on his favorite forum, Above Top Secret. How could this be achieved?
What is an IP Address?
An IP Address is a 32-bit address used to identify your computer on a network. Simply put, it's the mailing address for your computer. When you access
outside networks like the internet you use a public address which is unique to your computer or organization (depending on your network setup).
Webservers you access need to have an address to reach you and almost always this information is stored in the log files. Websites you access can
usually very easily tell what your IP Address is, your ISP, the region you're connecting from, and the pages you accessed on the server. If you need
proof, visit
www.whatismyip.com... to see your current IP.
What is a Packet?
A packet, found in the Network layer of the OSI model, is a set of data. When you visit a website, the entire site isn't sent to you in one big string
of 1's and 0's, but rather is segmented into similar sized packets and sent to a destination (technically segmentation is L4). It's like if you had a
hundred books to send to somebody. You wouldn't throw all of the books into one cardboard box and ship it out you'd separate it into many smaller
shipments and then take it to UPS, Otherwise the package (packet) could be lost or damaged on the way to it's destination. We'll take a deeper look
into packets later.
What Is Encryption?
Encryption is the process of inputing data through a complex reversible algorithm in an attempt to make the data unreadable to unauthenticated users.
Commonly, when one clicks on an encrypted file a dialog box will pop up requesting a password, if that password is correct the program decrypts the
file and lets the user view it. The issue here is that generally a decrypted version of the file is stored deep in the harddrive space and is waiting
to be retrieved by anyone who knows how to do it. This can be avoided by using whole disk encryption, which we will discuss later.
For an example of encryption look at the demonstration below. In this picture I have connected to a router and saved two versions of the same
password. One is in clear text, the other is in encrypted form. By viewing the configuration file we can see the two values.
What is Hashing?
Hashing is the process of running a one way algorithm on data. Hashing is becoming way more popular in today's world. When you visit a website and you
input your password, you generally don't want that password transmitting over the internet in clear text. We avoid this by running a powerful
encryption scheme on the password before it leaves the computer and we send the hashed version to the server. Since the hashes cannot be decrypted the
server runs the same algorithm on the actual passwords and compare the two hashes. Hashing is generally as secure as it gets.
What is Anonymity?
Anonymity is defined as the “state or quality of being anonymous”, and it is different but still is included in Data Confidentiality. To be truly
anonymous on the internet, we want both data confidentiality and source suppression. In other words, we want to hide who we are from the remote server
and we want to hide who we're talking to from our ISP (and the government). Ideally, the ISP shouldn't be able to tell we're browsing the web, just
that we have some activity on the internet.
Why Should I Care?
You should care about your internet footprint because it can be used for a multitude of reasons. Hackers can obtain personal information including
bank account information and your ISP can tell that you've got a weird foot fetish. Not to mention the use of trackers on websites, it's likely
Facebook not only knows how long you've had that foot fetish but exactly when you acquired it. Notice the ads for women's socks on your FB? That's not
a coincidence.
On a more serious note, the American government has been trying to restrict our access to a free internet for years. There is a conspiracy that says
the government is already logging all information at our main connecting points to other countries under the patriot act (and I am one who believes
it). HR 1981 is an attempt to force your ISPs to track your traffic for 18 months (if they aren't already), and it's brought to you by the same people
who brought you SOPA. In this document we discuss the tools necessary to counter the government's attack on your privacy.
edit on 22-1-2012 by
badfish420 because: (no reason given)
edit on 22-1-2012 by badfish420 because: (no reason given)
edit on 22-1-2012 by
badfish420 because: (no reason given)
edit on 22-1-2012 by badfish420 because: (no reason given)