PRIVACY AND PICAROONS

While you were cruising peacefully through life this last week, the picaroons in Washington set new lows for governance of their citizens.  "Picaroon" means a pirate, a thieving scoundrel.

"Cash for Clunkers," a Rahmonian-Pelosian end game, gives away billions of your money in a scheme to convince you the revenues spirited away are actually contributing to the imaginary "recovery." Then they ask for more billions to further convince you.

Nothing could be further from the truth.   But it’s far more evil and fascist than simple theft.

Zero’s Department of Transportation (DOT) is claiming that the computers of car dealers become government property upon participating in the cash-for-clunkers program.  Until Glenn Beck exposed it on national television (7/31), the DOT website cars.gov contained this announcement:

"This application provides access to the DOT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the U.S. Government. Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DOT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign."

This is straightforward unvarnished fascism, folks.  Thanks to Beck, the picaroons took this announcement off their site, but that doesn’t mean they won’t steal and share private computer data anyway.

It’s another object lesson as to the critical importance of achieving and maintaining solid protection and privacy from prying picaroons – for yourself physically and virtually via  your computer.

Last week we talked about one way to do this with Cryptohippie.  Now let’s discuss several more ways.  First, do you know about RFID?

RFID

How can you protect your identity when these little microchips are attached to passports, credit cards, and many other items purchased from retailers? One such company is Identity Stronghold and they can be found here:

Identity Stronghold

I would also like to introduce you to the world’s most private search engine.  When you are looking for things on the WWW, you just might want to utilize these folks. The name is ixquick and they can be found here:

ixquick

One potential threat to your security and identity is locational privacy. It is taking place without your knowledge and most likely your awareness. Here is an article that will open your eyes.

Locational Privacy and How to Avoid Losing it Forever

Here is another secure email, secure storage site or two.

Cryptoheaven  They are out of Toronto, Canada.

NeoMailbox  Offshore private email and web surfing available here.

Epic.org offers a cornucopia of privacy info. Some of it is dated.

Epic.Org

Two free utilities to help protect your Windows PC are:

Spybot , which immunizes your PC against lots of bad actors and will search and destroy bots, Trojans etc.

Spybot            

Ccleaner , which backs up your registry and cleans it, as well as eliminating unnecessary artifacts accumulated while using a Windows PC OS.

Ccleaner     

Again, both Spybot and Ccleaner can be downloaded free of charge.

Remember all those electronic convenient applications that are just so irresistible like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace? The Marines have just banned them from use on its network immediately. Read why here:

Danger Room

Some good advice on how to stay safe online can be found here:

Best ways to stay safe online

Remember there are lots of ways to lose your identity and security. So here’s one last tip:

One of the simplest ways to protect your computer is to disconnect your Ethernet cable or disable your wireless connection when you are not using it for several hours or overnight.

Until next time, stay safe and free!

Marco