RIP It Up!

On the brighter side here are a few pointers on a few ideas on ways to rip up the RIP for solid on-line privacy and security.

(a) Be careful when choosing your ISP and e-mail account. The big corporate sites like Microsoft (Hotmail), Freeserve (Fsnet) and Yahoo UK (Yahoo Mail) that are already in the process of opening their networks for police ‘real time’ surfing tracking should be avoided.

(b) Look at ISP’s that base their operations overseas, or smaller UK web server companies that are more likely to slip through the government fish net. Make sure they are not part of the multinational Internet oligarchy.

(c) Do use encryption and anonymous web surfing software like Freedom (www.zeroknowledge.com) or Pretty Good Privacy (www.pgp.com). Use free encrypted e-mail accounts like Hushmail, Messager and Mail2Web (www.hushmail.com, www.messagerx.com and www.mail2web.com)

(d) Rather than storing data on your hard drive (which under the RIP can be accessed under warrant by MI5 or police) stash your private bits and pieces on the Net. There are companies like Freedrive (www. freedrive.com) where you can store info on their sites for download at a later date. More info: Foundation for Information Policy Research www.fipr.org/rip/ GreenNet - www.gn.apc.org