Who Can You Trust in a Digital World

Who can you trust IN A From digital signatures to encrypted phone calls, how to keep your data private. DIGITAL WORLD? TOP SECRET AN AMERICAN'S IDENTITY IS STOLEN EVERY 3 SECONDS One in five adults has 56-7890 reported of becoming a victim of either social or NAME LASTNAME CITIZEN mobile cyber crime' 75 MILLION 30% Only 30% of websites have a privacy policy that guarantees they won't sell your information? SCAM EMAILS ARE SENT EVERY DAY NSA SURVEILLANCE UNMASKED skype Microsoft Google YAHOO! facebook. Aol. You Tube SO.... WHAT CAN THE NSA SEE? 854,000 PHONE NUMBERS DIALED PEOPLE HOLD FACEBOOK POSTS TOP-SECRET GOVERNMENT SECURITY CLEARANCES INSTANT MESSAGES DURATION OF PHONE CALLS CONTENTS OF SOME PEOPLE'S PHONE CALLS EMAILS Technologies to Make Your Life MORE SECURE LOSE IT USE IT Unsecured Wifi Personal Hotspot With thousands of wifi hotspots across the country, it's never been easier to get online. But many hackers take advantage of this to steal your personal information. Some even set up bogus wifi networks with enticing names like "free public wifi" to trick you into handing over access to your computer.6 Many Americans now have access to devices that create a personal Internet hotspot. When possible, use a password protected personal hotspot instead of unsecured wifi to reduce your risk of being hacked. If a personal hotspot isn't an option for you, save really important tasks (like online banking) for home." Scanned Signatures Digital Signatures Many people are looking for ways to remotely sign documents, and using a scanned image of your signature can seem like a simple solution. But once you send out your signature, hackers can copy the image and paste it onto documents you never saw. Saving an image of your signature on your computer is also risky because if your computer was lost or stolen, your signature could fall into the wrong hands. Digital signatures give you the same convenience of doing business remotely without the risks. Digital signature technology uses advanced cryptography to ensure that no one can tamper with a document after it has been signed. Some vendors offer advanced identity authentication methods to make sure no one can fraudulently sign your name. This advanced technology is not only easy to use, it's also more secure than using a scanned signature or even signing with ink on paper. Dropbox Dropbox is listed as "coming soon" to the NSA's spy program, according to The Washington Post. If that happened, the government could monitor your documents, tax records and other private information in your Dropbox folder. SpiderOak SpiderOak is just like Dropbox but with one important difference: advanced encryption. Everything you put on SpiderOak is first encrypted on your computer using your password, and then it's sent to the SpiderOak servers. The biggest difference between the services is that SpiderOak doesn't store any user passwords or encryption keys, which means the employees at SpiderOak couldn't access your files even if they wanted to. HOW TO 10 HIDE YOUR DATA" (EVEN FROM THE GOVERNMENT) YOUR MOBILE PHONE If you're an iPhone If you're an Android user... user... TEXT MESSAGING The iPhone automatically encrypts your texts whenever you use iMessage. If you need to send a text message to a non- If you're an Android user, you can get encrypted text messages from an app called Gibberbot. Like Wickr, Gibberbot is free and boasts more secure iPhone user, you can get a free app like Wickr to encrypt your text messages. messaging than traditional SMS. PHONE CALLS To make encrypted phone calls, the simplest option is Silent Circle. Developed by two ex-Navy Seals and a cryptography expert, Silent Circle offers military-grade encryption to users for $20 a month. Silent Circle also gives you access to secure chat, video calling and email. For encrypted phone calls, there's a free app called RedPhone. When you call someone who's also using RedPhone, everything you say is encrypted. That makes it a lot tougher for someone to listen in on your conversation. It also uses your data connection, so you won't use any of your cell phone's minutes. WEB BROWSING HIDDEN SOCIAL MEDIA RISK THE PROBLEM: The NSA doesn't only monitor Internet traffic through tech companies like Google. One whistleblower claimed that the NSA taps directly into Internet providers' fiber optic cables to get information. As a result, everything you search for on Google, and a lot of your other browsing activity, can be monitored by the NSA. Information you share on social media sites can reveal the answers to security questions for accounts on other sites (pets' names, high school attended, etc.). That means if the NSA (or a hacker) accesses your social media account, they might be able to access your other online accounts. Be very THE SOLUTION: If you aren't comfortable with the government monitoring your web browsing, you can use free software for online anonymity called Tor. The software bounces your traffic from one server to another to hide the sites you visit and scramble information that could pinpoint your physical location." cautious with what you post to these sites. O -- SOURCES 1. http://www.symantec.com/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=20120905_02 2. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3078835/t/online-privacy-fears-are-real/#.UbtL8xa6_QY 3. https://www.javelinstrategy.com/news/1387/92/1 4. http://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-data-collection-faq 5. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/1/ 6. http://blog.lifestore.aol.com/2013/03/10/public-wifi-hotspot-security/ 7. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/3441165/how-use-your-smartphone-as-wi-fi-hotspot/ 8. http://www.signix.com/types-of-online-signatures 9. http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/spideroak-dropbox-for-the-security-obsessive/ 10. http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2013/06/10/how-to-keep-your-info-private/ 11. http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/a-beginners-guide-to-tor-how-to-navigate-through-the-underground-internet/ 12. http://www.cybercrimeswatch.com/cyber-crime/cyber-crime-statistics.html COPYRIGHT 2013 SIGNIX.COM | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED