How do I make my messages and files truly private?

The protection of personal data has been a subject that has been in the forefront of the news for a few years now. On the other side of the Atlantic, the current trend does not lend itself to optimism, with the US government multiplying laws reinforcing the interference of the authorities in the processing and collection of users’ private data. So, in April 2018, the Cloud Act was enacted and allows law enforcement to compel cloud service providers to release their customers’ data, whether they are in the United States or not.

Nevertheless, for the first time, an investigation has been opened against Facebook, regarding the management of its users’ personal data which would have been used by Cambridge Analytica to manipulate part of the electorate and promote the election of Donald Trump. In Europe, the European institutions seem more sensitive to this issue, which is why the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which reinforces the rights of European Union citizens over their personal data by threatening companies with heavy financial penalties if they breach their data protection obligations.

When personal data is traded

In the midst of this philosophical debate, should personal data remain private or is it a commodity? The user lambda has, in any case, every interest in protecting itself from the malevolence of computer hackers: remember the hacking of cloud systems in order to steal very intimate photos from Hollywood stars and expose them for all to see on Internet. We also know that many malwarecontained in e-mails, dangerous sites or programs that install automatically on a computerare intended to collect credit card numbers or any data that can be used illegally.

To all this is added the collection of your personal data which is a major objective of the web giants in order to drown you under a continuous stream of targeted advertisements. The bottom line is that today, unless you’re an expert in computer security, it’s hard to know exactly how much of a threat you’re exposed to. Therefore, even if you are not doing anything illegal, it seems safer to encrypt all of your communications and files. To do this, Futura presents you with the most useful and well-known tools available.

Email encryption services

Even though gmail ensures good protection of your privacy against external threats, it scans your e-mails to then display targeted advertisements according to your preferences. If you don’t like this idea, there are email clients that secure all emails with the encryption end-to-end, i.e. no one can read the emails except the sender and receiver. ProtonMail is software of this type, free, easy to use and based in Switzerland, therefore subject to the strict legislation of this country with regard to privacy. If you don’t want to change e-mail clients, there are software programs that only encrypt e-mails and attachments.

The best known are Gpg4win which has the advantage of being free and free or Symantec Desktop Email Encryption which is more reserved for professional use.
We can also mention SecureGmail which is an extension for Chrome allowing to encrypt messages gmail.

VPNs

A vpnWhere virtual private network, is software that creates a secure tunnel through the internet by encrypting your data as it passes through a public network. A VPN can bypass content geo-restrictions, i.e. it allows you to escape censorship and not be affected by content limitations depending on the country you are in. this, the VPN hides your IP adress and your location by assigning others to you virtually. Most VPNs offer a list of countries where you can choose to locate virtually. This is, for example, the case of TunnelBear (also read « The essentials for your pc in 2019 ”), the Little version of which is free and easy to learn, while being limited to 500 MB/month. A multitude of other VPNs exist and the difference between them is mainly based on the speed connection, its stability and the types of data managed (some VPNs do not work for the P2P and the torrents).

web browsers

Most browsers, among the most popular, integrate many tools to prevent opening malicious websites, evade the automatic installation of dangerous software and update themselves automatically to prevent their security vulnerabilities from being exploited. But few of them offer to surf anonymously and ensure full respect for your privacy.
So, if keeping your personal data private is a priority, then the Tor Browser web browser is probably for you. It hides the IP address, location and contents you are accessing by using multiple levels of encryption. This is the reason why Tor Browser is the most popular browser among hackers.

Encryption of data stored in a cloud

The data you choose to back up to a cloud is theoretically encrypted, but you have limited control over how it is encrypted and who can decrypt it. If you want more control, then cloud services like Mega (the site replacing MegaUpload) allow the user to manage the encryption and decryption of data himself. If you are already a user of a cloud service and do not want to change it, then software like Cryptomator is used to encrypt the data upstream, then store it on Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDriveetc.

Encryption of text messages and video and voice conversations of instant messengers

The most famous instant messaging services, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp, provide end-to-end encryption for text messages. For this, they rely on the encryption technology of the company Open Whisper Systems, which has created its own application, Signal, which you can use to secure your video and voice chats as well. If you don’t mind changing email, then Telegram has been specially designed to protect your data, which is encrypted in a very complex way and can even self-destruct!

Encryption of data stored on a hard drive

BitLocker Drive Encryption, included in Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows 88.1 and 10, is a data protection specification designed by Microsoft which allows you to encrypt the contents of your hard disk so that it is protected in the event of access to your computer and attempted theft of your data.
If you prefer to choose an alternative solution to the one offered by Microsoft, then you can turn to VeraCrypt which is free, open source and based on the TrueCrypt tool.