Rest and Reflect

Undelete Recover Lost Files August 6, 2005

Recommended

Restoration http://www.geocities.jp/br_kato/ http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html
Testdisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.html
File Recovery http://www.pcinspector.de/
Virtual Lab Data Recovery http://www.binarybiz.com/vlab/windows.php

Delete “Securely” (so it can’t be recovered)
http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ (up to version 5.3) –> http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
http://www.scar5.com/
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/SDelete.html

Password Recovery
http://www.elcomsoft.com/prs.html

Truth About Anonymity August 4, 2005

I believe everyone has a right to privacy. But does that mean you and I should be using one of a multitude of “privacy products”? That has some problems.

First, what benefit would you gain from anonymity unless you have something to hide?

Second, because the people who use anonymous services like {http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/ http://entropy.stop1984.com/ and http://www.anonymous-p2p.org/} are the minority of netizens, using them highlights you as a “high-risk” user. In a way you are associating yourself with a small number of users whose motives may not be the most legitimate, legal or virtuous. This increases the likelihood that someone will be interested in finding out exactly what you are up to. Same goes for anonymous proxies (or onion routers like JAP and TOR http://tor.eff.org/ http://torpark.nfshost.com/). [Update: TORPark http://www.torrify.com/ might be the most efficient way to use TOR – no installation required.]

Third, although it is much harder to track you if you are using one of those services, it is not impossible.

Finally consider what the proliferation of “anonymous” services may mean — people may be able to commit all sorts of crimes or misdemeanors on the internet and not have to be afraid of retribution. What kind of society would we create if everybody is answerable to nobody? All of a sudden the “ideal” Utopian concept of perfect privacy doesn’t taste so sweet. Take it from me, we function better with someone looking over our shoulder from time to time.

If you want to talk and share with your friends in relative privacy, the internet is a relatively safe place. True, someone can watch you, but that’s only if they want to. Encrypting your conversations etc. adds relative security against your average peeping tom. Group social applications such as http://www.wirehog.com/ are an interesting concept too.

Bottom line: if you want to use a service that protects your privacy — stay away from all those programs out there on the internet made by mysterious strangers you know nothing about. That’s like giving your house-keys to a stranger to look after when you go on holiday. Code your own protection, or at least use open-source software that doesn’t rely on certain specific servers, so that you what’s going on behind the scenes.

Update [Nov 9]: for a cautionary tale on the dangers of using/offering anonymous services: http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Users/groups/Thorn/HTML/current/frontpage/1.html

Update [Apr 26]: These programs also give you the illusion of internet security/privacy. And in fact can make you take more risks and give out more information than you normally would. And it does not discount the fact that your ISP is aware of what you’re doing, you are susceptible to the “over your shoulder” security breach, and there are other things such as keyloggers, cookies and malicious HTML code which can breach your security. And it does not prevent you from downloading viruses, trojans, or other malicious software etc. Never use a public terminal to check anything remotely private.