“There’s no such thing as paranoid.”

-Hunter S. Thompson

It all started with a new addition to the Safer Surfing page on creating effective and memorable passwords that are different for every site. As I’m describing how to create a password I’m thinking about how irrelevant that is if the passwords are not stored securely by the person receiving them. Or if you’re the victim of a man in the middle attack. Which is when someone pretends to be the web site you’re trying to get to and tricks you into sending them your password.

Certificates and HTTPS are supposed to prevent this but there is some doubt as to how secure the certificate system really is and reports of it being compromised have been around for some time now. We also know now that hardware is being tampered with to make tracing and recording easier. I have to assume any router I use has a back door. I have to hope that only responsible and law abiding folks have keys. But we know that isn’t true.

I’ve run software that can recover deleted files even after the drive had been formatted a half dozen times. My CPU’s random function has been hacked. My cell phone is always on as well as it’s cameras and microphones. Half of it’s software tracks me and  my ISP is required to keep logs of my activities. No big deal, they already hand over personal data for thousands of requests a day by officials without a warrant.

Half the world lies to me for my own good, the other half for theirs.

Still, I’m optimistic.

As the Principia Discordia says: Imposition of Order equals escalation of Chaos.

And that’s always fun.