Encrypt all the things!

Pre-crime, baby!

Since encrypting my android phone it locks itself and requires me to enter my pw at least 3 times a day. It's starting to become unusable as sometimes I'll go a couple of hours without any alerts from my phone, go to check it and it's awaiting pw input after which a slew of important emails/texts/etc. flood in from 2 hours ago and messages asking me why my phone is off, I'm guessing this isn't normal behaviour?

Sounds like the phone is restarting itself. It's unlikely that's being caused by the encryption, although you could always wipe the phone and start from scratch with it already encrypted. Maybe something went a little awry in the encryption.

Possibly although it never restarted in this manner pre encryption

How do you know (unless you caught it in the act) - it would always return to the home screen once it rebooted. It might have always been a problem (my Moto X 2014 would do it every so often) or it might be from the encryption. Safest option is to do a factory reset and make your first move to be re-adding the encryption.

Go Settings-About phone - Status
And then scroll to the bottom to see time since last restart.

Tinfoil hat time, conceivably. But, hear me out before shouting CHEMTRAILS!

I have deliberately avoided travelling to the US since Trump, I can't delay any longer and will be there for a couple of weeks next month.

I'm a middle aged, middle class white guy - but I have a last name that has prompted a US customs and border agent to ask me whether "you some kind of Arab lover, boy?"

Which was interesting.

Anyway - I use Facebook, I use Twitter, I accept that they're sharing data with the NSA, that doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is that the US Government (and pretty much all other governments) don't like end-to-end encryption, and tend to compromise end-points so they don't have to break the crypto.

i.e. they insist on me unlocking my iPhone then they bugger off with it "for security", my suspicion is that it'd going to come back with spyware on it. I also suspect that I won't be able to clear this with a wipe and reinstall, or ever actually find it. Out of sight out of mind?

Potentially - however my phone is a point on our network, GDPR states that if our network is compromised (in certain ways, for sure) then that's a fine of either 20M or 4% of revenue, whichever is higher. That'd be a hell of a way to be remembered.

So - leave phone in luggage? Is that literally the best thing we can come up with?

Maybe I'm naive but can that actually be done with an iPhone? I'd have thought it would show up as an app or just get wiped on the next iOS update...

If you are on a visa / greencard / not american citizen refusing to hand over a phone could easily lead to them automatically denying your entry to the country.

Only people they cannot deny are american passport holders, and even then they can make it difficult.

Pretty good list of things

https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/

Good point, will do what aggi suggested next time to verify

When travelling to China, some people will take burner phones and laptops that are simply discarded after travel, for this very reason.

Perhaps this is now a strategy that should used when travelling to the US.

Anyone know anything about this?

https://github.com/trailofbits/algo/blob/master/README.md

https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/12/12/meet-algo-the-vpn-that-works/

It's a self-hosted VPN service. I haven't looked in detail but it seems interesting.

Potentially - however my phone is a point on our network, GDPR states that if our network is compromised (in certain ways, for sure) then that's a fine of either 20M or 4% of revenue, whichever is higher. That'd be a hell of a way to be remembered.

GDPR isn't enforced until 2018.

But to your answer, log out of things, turn it off and put it in your carry but do not power it on.

That's about as balanced in the paranoia vs risk thing as you're going to get.

If they ask you to unlock, do so. But don't log into other things... just say that you have a password manager for those things and the file for that is on your company VPN/laptop and you can't access right now or something.

Complying, but not having anything that puts your company at risk, or you, etc... is about the most stress-free way of managing this.

That said... I'm just not going to the USA for another 5+ years. Ho hum.

TrumpAmBikeRace

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/28/so_my_isp_can_now_sell_my_browsing_history_what_can_i_do/

Joy.

Yeah, I've gone from "VPN for most things" to "VPN for nearly all things".

The only things that I don't yet VPN are video and music via Netflix and Google Play.

Been perma-vpn for a few months now apart from netflix and uber.

How do you deal with search/etc locality settings changing to wherever the VPN surfaces?
I have the PIA VPN software on my PC and iphone but have to switch it off for some tasks/websites as it just doesn't connect.

I've set my PIA to automatic and it will be based on ping, which typically means I get London or Southampton. This works fine, and nothing I access is guessing that I'm in the USA or anything (my work VPN does this, it surfaces in SF and everything seems to know this).

Most services are just using the MaxMind GeoIP database: https://www.maxmind.com/en/locate-my-ip-address

If I explicitly want to surface elsewhere, then I change from Automatic to a specific place.

It's been fine.

With that and the UK snooping bill, and the Dutch one (not sure it's been signed off yet) things are starting to get rather silly.

What's next, all cars are connected and have some sort of government lock and if you've looked at anything naughty your car won't start?

Dystopian sci-fi thread :)

Seriously though, why bother with all this encryption bidniz? Can anyone here point to a breach that has actually invaded their privacy in a way that has palpably damaged their life? Isn't it basically just for terrorists, spooks, crims & sex weirdos? /tabloidstupidquestion

Wouldn't be surprised if hire cars already report back reckless driving.

Can anyone here point to a breach that has actually invaded their privacy in a way that has palpably damaged their life?

We thankfully live in a part of the world where, by and large, the worst that happens there is just identity theft, fraud, some impact on credit score that is hard to quantify, and some inconvenience.

But in other parts of the world the lack of encryption has led to the deaths, imprisonment, and disappearance of protestors, journalists, and just lay citizens who happened to attend rallies.

For me, it is that aspect... citizens without privacy have consistently through history been at the mercy of governments that become drunk on their own power and abuse that power.

Given recent changes in the political landscape, privacy (granted by encryption) is very important.

There is a great blueprint for this in Europe within the last 60 years, the Ministry for State Security. This is the peacetime force that ensured that East Germany was secure post-war, they did this by creating a file on everyone, and at first if you were perceived to be a terrorist they'd act. But eventually these files and laws were used against everyone constantly to make them comply and behave as the government desired.

This isn't even fictional relating to the UK. It is well documented how local governments have used terror legislation to spy on families just to ensure that the parents actually lived within a school catchment area. Abuses of power always occur, and are common.

Encryption is the only way to keep the conversations between you and your loved ones only between you and your loved ones.

Isn't it basically just for terrorists, spooks, crims & sex weirdos?

No.

You use encryption when you access your online bank. You use encryption in your email. You use encryption every day and you don't even notice.

I use encryption on LFGSS, which means you do too because you cannot access this site without encryption.

Without encryption, I noticed that some ISPs were manipulating the pages. They were actually putting adverts in the whitespace, actually changing the header and footer. Putting in airport information if you happened to be there.

Without encryption, any middleman can not just intercept and log the data, but any middleman can also transform the message, the web page.

Without encryption, if a trusted partner said "Hey, do this for me" how could you know whether or not that message came from the person you trust?

Encryption is absolutely critical, to every message sent across an untrusted network. The internet by design is an untrusted network.

Encrypt all the things, not because you are a pervert, terrorist, spook or crim, because that's the only way to trust that the things you have read are as they were intended, or the things you've said left the message intact.

Encryption is the only way to have trust on the internet. Everything today uses the internet, so encrypt everything.

Also... note that the Stasi is the common name for the Ministry of State Security. The very thing that stripped people of their rights and privacy, and then abused that leverage over the people, was done in the name of security. Of protecting against both external enemies, and internal terrorists (resistance and political antagonists at the time), etc.

Don't ever believe something when it's sold to you in the name of state security, fighting terrorism, etc.