Archives for FVEY

Information Security in Our World Today

Information security (InfoSec) is a very static yet dynamic field of study. One thing that is important to understand about information security is that over time it transforms, but the underline concept always remains the same: to protect information or data (bits) from unauthorized access. This is only the underlying concept of information security; there are many other parts to it. Several decades ago InfoSec was all about how secure of a lock you had on your physical data room. These days it has transformed quite-a-bit. Today we have the Internet; a large network of interconnected routers. With the Internet
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, and Preston Hood.

49 Ways the NSA Can Spy On You

Over the past few months I have published all forty-nine of the NSA documents that were leaked by Edward Snowden to various media organizations on PJHoodsCo’s blog. I have included a link below to view a list of all the articles that contain these forty-nine NSA documents and a link to download all forty-nine of the documents in one compressed (zipped) file. These documents were released by the NSA to the rest of FVEY during the period of 2008 – 2009. Today FVEY (which includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have much greater tactics
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, and Preston Hood.

The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet)

The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) is basically a secure network that is used by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States Department of State (DoS) to distribute classified information and communicate amongst each other. SIPRNet is nearly identical to any other standard TCP/IP network; it originated from the same predecessor as the internet, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). Of course there are major enhancements in the security design of the network such as the implementation of strong crypto throughout the whole network but for the most part SIPRNet and the Internet are
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, and Preston Hood.

NSA’s Version of a GSM IMSI Catcher CANDYGRAM

This is one of the most non-surprising NSA documents I have seen. This device is named CANDYGRAM and its purpose is to act as an IMSI catcher for GSM cellular networks.   What It Is CANDYGRAM is a device that mimics a GSM cell tower of a target network. This is basically the same thing as an IMSI catcher but with a few extra bells and whistles. One of the extra features is that it sends out an SMS though the external network to registered watch phones when a target handset enters the base station’s area of influence. CANDYGRAM is
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, and Preston Hood.

Why the World Needs Cryptocurrencies

If you have never heard of the term “cryptocurrencies” then please read my other article Cryptocurrencies A Possible Alternative to Traditional Banking before you read this one.   Why Cryptocurrencies Are Critical To Our Freedom Cryptocurrencies bring a simple choice to people today and that is the choice to be in control of your money or for a bank to be in control. At this point in time I don’t think Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are at the point where everyone should go out and invest all of their money into, that would be foolish, but that does not mean
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, and Preston Hood.

Surveillance in the Modern Age

As you may have heard there are many different security agencies and people trying to spy on our every move. Luckily there is still hope for our society. We need to use VERY strong mathematics (cryptography) to put an end to mass surveillance at least at the network level. We can use tools such as the Onion router (Tor), I2P, and Freenet for avoiding someone monitoring your upstream and to provide end-to-end encryption (as long as you don’t exit the Tor network). We also need to use tools such as PGP and OTR messaging to protect our communications that might
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Categories: Information Technology, IT Security, and Preston Hood.