Secure Your Communications *Before* Trump Takes Office

Several people I know have asked me for guidance on how to secure their communications prior to Trump taking office. The reason they are concerned is the same reason I am: The Trump administration could very well accelerate (or use extensively) the vacuum mass surveillance apparatus in place by the National Security Agency.

Electronic Frontier Foundation Guide
Here is the guide you should use for staying safe with email, chat, voice calls, if you’re at a protest, and so on.

Modern technology has given those in power new abilities to eavesdrop and collect data on innocent people. Surveillance Self-Defense is EFF’s guide to defending yourself and your friends from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices.

The guide has an Overview if you’ve not yet secured your computer, tablet or smartphone, to Tutorials that include step-by-step guides on how to install software and tools, and finally with Briefings which are detailed guides for specific situations.

Bonus link from The Intercept: Surveillance Self-Defense Against the Trump Administration

Could Trump Accelerate the Use of NSA’s “Google for Private Communications?”

Illustration: Blue Delliquanti
and David Axe for The Intercept

Yes, possibly and perhaps even likely. I would say it is likely since the Trump administration people—especially those like the highly controversial pick of advisor to the president, Steve Bannon—won’t be able to help themselves with the power of the office and the tools at their disposal…so I am going to assume the answer is yes, they will.

One of those tools is XKEYSCORE, the name of the NSA’s Google-like search engine and one of the agency’s “…most powerful tools of mass surveillance (which) makes tracking someone’s Internet usage as easy as entering an email address, and provides no built-in technology to prevent abuse.“

The NSA’s XKEYSCORE program, first revealed by The Guardian, sweeps up countless people’s Internet searches, emails, documents, usernames and passwords, and other private communications. XKEYSCORE is fed a constant flow of Internet traffic from fiber optic cables that make up the backbone of the world’s communication network, among other sources, for processing. As of 2008, the surveillance system boasted approximately 150 field sites in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Japan, Australia, as well as many other countries, consisting of over 700 servers.

NOTE: All we actually know of XKEYSCORE is from 2013 and no one knows what advances have been made in the last three years. The deep concern is that the tool has become more powerful, and access could be as simple as logging in with a White House web browser. Imagine that someone’s full communications portfolio is instantly laid out for review by anyone wanting to know what you’re texting, browsing, who you’re calling and more, all at the click of a mouse.

Unless, of course, your communications are secure.

I hope I’m wrong and President-elect Trump becomes a centrist and moves away from his childish, vindictive behaviors. That hope extends to Trump stopping his being tone-deaf on what more than half this country needs from a president. But I don’t believe in fairy tales, magic, or that “God will make it OK” like many people I know believe.

Instead, my communications are already secure so I highly recommend you make your communications secure and do so right now…while you still can.