Be Privacy Conscious:

[ https://www.torproject.org/ ] and [ http://hotspotshield.com/ ] are two things you should consider.

They allow you to remain anonymous while you browse the internet, albeit at a slight cost to your connection speed (you are bouncing off of other computers, after all).

I encourage other users to be aware of exactly how the internet works - my [ privacy policy ] notifies you that the folks I've partnered with as advertisers may track your activity. Facebook does, [ too ].

I've probably mentioned this sort of thing before - but knowledge is more than half of the fight.

Also relevant: SOPA and PIPA and the imminent threat they pose.

Low-content: Lulz Security

[ http://i.imgur.com/VlZ8E.png ] is the graphical representation of the most common passwords as revealed by lulzsec.

[ http://lulzsecurity.com/releases/ ] is a list of the content they've publicized.

The folks over on "the lulz boat" seem to know exactly what they're doing. Furthermore, the fact that they're exposing weak electronic security (in the same fashion that wikileaks demonstrates weak personal security) is something that I think we need more of.

They're not doing it for the money (so far as I can tell)- they're doing it "for the lulz", and they're making a point of how laughably weak most "security" is.

At any rate, some actual content will be on the way in the next few days.

Stuff I like: Passwordchart.net

[ http://passwordchart.net/ ] is an excellent alternative to coming up with a secure password and memorizing something complex- instead, you can use something simple in tandem with a chart and create extraordinarily secure passwords. More on the numbers [ here ].

Granted, a case can be made that a password chart is essentially a substitution cipher- but the idea behind the chart makes for passwords that are pretty unlikely to be bruteforced without prior knowledge of the password chart used.

Low-content: Recommended reading and Zeus

http://cleancutwellkept.blogspot.com/p/recommended-reading.html

Also conveniently located in the sidebar - a link to a list of things I think that people should read (or skim, anyway).

If that doesn't interest you (and if Zbot does), perhaps check out this informative article.

Paranoia: common sense for the security-minded.

I will admit that I am somewhat extremely concerned wherever my security and privacy are involved. Given what I understand of the internet, it's often better to remain low-key or hard to find. An easy-to-follow "e-trail", as a few friends of mine call it, is an invitation to be investigated. So's being deliberately secretive and letting other people notice. The plainly clothed John Doe strolling down the street probably attracts less attention than the disgruntled youth (complete with trenchcoat) quickly striding down the boardwalk.

What I mean by that somewhat obtuse metaphor is that it's often better to develop secure and safe habits than attempt to implement security as a policy only when it is thought of as necessary.

In that vein, I'd like to introduce the following bits of useful tech:

Tor, available at [ http://www.torproject.org/ ], is pretty much the best thing ever for anything internet-privacy related. It's a SOCKS proxy interface that has nodes located all over the world. Essentially, the connection is end-to-end encrypted and bounced across multiple nodes, allowing bypass of any incompetently-implemented filtering technology that isn't on the machine you're using to browse.

Also useful:

Iron, slightly paranoid cousin of Google's Chrome, is available at [ http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php ] and is my browser of choice. It retains all the functionality of Chrome and is what I use for all browsing where security is not the chief concern at hand.

Wherever security is of the utmost concern, I break out Firefox with Torbutton. The addon allows simple on-off usage with easy visual recognition of whether or not you're browsing via Tor.

I maintain two internet browsers so that the attitude that I use with each is compartmentalized- reading blogs and e-mail doesn't require a secure connection- but I make sure that if there's anything in question about the folks I'm interacting with, I route the data through Tor.

Related, but not really that important: alternate GMail accounts, lots of them. I have at least 5, one of which is for work, one of which is for personal e-mail, and the other 3 are mules that I use to interface with folks I don't regularly converse with.

That's all for now.