Security Strategy Question

[Tompkin62]

My usual name here is tompkin, but I was having signon problems so I created a new user name. I posted this on another thread but then realized it needed it's own. Below is what I said.
**********************************************************

Nick H., thank you for your work here. Maybe Budman can help too because someone mentioned his name earlier in this regard.

Here is my situation. As far as I know I have never done anything wrong on the internet since 1993. Nor do I intend to do anything wrong now.
 
I know I can be "tracked". My goal is to make it as hard to break my security even if it can be broken. Here is why.

Due to all this political ###### going on in D.C., my employee benefits have either already been reduced or soon might be. While this is certainly a financial matter for me (without question), it is also a health matter. It is potentially  a serious health problem. The idea for all this political ###### is to lower taxes. My goal is to make it as expensive as possible for them to deal with me. Thus, the extra security. I have tried to contact my federal representatives (I live in a red state), but they won't even answer me. I have a laptop and a OneDrive. If I have to, I'll wipe the Onedrive. Yes, they probably have backups but that will be one more thing (time is expense) that it will take. My question is this. What is the best VPN (commercial that is not enterprise grade (cost). Is Bitlocker good enough (I'm on Windows 10). I'm eventually going to boot straight off a clean USB drive. I'm going to do my damndest to prevent malware even though I'm never totally protected. I'm going to encrypt all my passwords. The are all unique, they are all strong.
I'
People will think this is foolish. I will tell you how foolish I am. I assume this forum is being monitored. I posted this anyway. I'm no fool.

Question; what would be a suggested VPN and is Bitlocker good enough. thanks so much for taking the time to listen to MY ######. 

I.E. My goal is to be the most royal pain in the ass I can. at the end of the day, i've done nothing illegal but I'm a pain. I will change my security so it won't be static.

[xendrome]

Bitlocker, 2 factor authentication on all your accounts that offer it. Host your own data on your own cloud software etc.

 

Maybe torguard.net for VPN?

 

Just a few places to start.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Then for fun throw in a few Veracrypt containers. Also, only connect to a VPN to watch cat videos. They will think you are up to no good and capture and store gigabytes of random gibberish of you watching cat videos.

[Tompkin62]

Thank you all so much. I think I have been leaving my "follow this thread" turned off. I thought it was on by diffault. Will check back here and let you know how it goes.

[+BudMan MVC]

Huh?

 

So your worried about the black helicopters coming to get all the info off your laptop?

 

You secured you passwords so well you can not even log into your previous account?

 

You do understand bitlocker is as strong as your password - which they can just beat you with a rubber hose until you give it to them..

 

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

It is not exactly clear to me what you are trying to protect the computer against?  Are you trying to make sure the hard disk drive cannot be removed and read in another computer?  Are you trying to set up your network connection so that only your VPN provider can see what sites you are visiting, as opposed to your ISP?  That your elected representatives respond to your email?  Or something else?

 

IF you could explain in more detail exactly what you are trying to protect the integrity of, secure from compromise, or maintain availability of, then I'm sure some of the forum members will be better able to assist you in that task, or at least make some recommendations about where to go for further assistance if it something specialized.

Regards,
 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[Tompkin62]

Yes, it's hard to understand. In a way, I would be stupid to be posting it on this forum if I truly wanted to be "secret".  
Most people who use this type of software are trying to "hide" something. You have to remember, the only thing that I've ever used is one package or another of a commercial malware package. 

So why now? I'm not breaking any laws, so why would I now?

To raise flags.

EDIT: I should really make my self clear on this.  The reason why I'm trying to raise a flag is because I have no federal Representative in congress that will give me the time of day  and I have to have my  government health insurance to live. it's just that simple.

 

Edited March 22, 2018 by Tompkin62

[Tompkin62]

On 3/20/2018 at 4:16 AM, BudMan said:

Huh?

 

So your worried about the black helicopters coming to get all the info off your laptop?

 

You secured you passwords so well you can not even log into your previous account?

 

You do understand bitlocker is as strong as your password - which they can just beat you with a rubber hose until you give it to them..

 

You didn't have to be so sarcastic. Condescending. i'm sorry I didn't explain why I wanted all this. (see my post above).

[+Warwagon MVC]

14 minutes ago, Tompkin62 said:

EDIT: I should really make my self clear on this.  The reason why I'm trying to raise a flag is because I have no federal Representative in congress that will give me the time of day  and I have to have my  government health insurance to live. it's just that simple.
 

5

That was clear as mud. I'm totally lost.

[Tompkin62]

1 minute ago, warwagon said:

That was clear as mud. I'm totally lost.

It's like in the IRS. When you send in an IRS tax form, the computers are programmed to look for certain patterns that are ways that people usually cheat. When it sees that pattern a flag is thrown and someone takes a look at it. A flag doesn't necessarily mean that someone broke the law, it just means that it's something to look at.
I'm trying to purposefully throw a flag, I want someone to hear me because no one on capital hill will and my life is at stake. Putting it another way, "I'm using the system." I have been on the web for many years and done nothing. All of a sudden all of this. It could raise a flag. that's what I'm hoping for so I can get help with my insurance. If you think I'm naive, then I would think that you are.  (not referring to you warwagon. Hey, I see you got a new phone!! we used to both have a G3. I still have mine.)  

[+Warwagon MVC]

17 minutes ago, Tompkin62 said:

It's like in the IRS. When you send in an IRS tax form, the computers are programmed to look for certain patterns that are ways that people usually cheat. When it sees that pattern a flag is thrown and someone takes a look at it. A flag doesn't necessarily mean that someone broke the law, it just means that it's something to look at.
I'm trying to purposefully throw a flag, I want someone to hear me because no one on capital hill will and my life is at stake. Putting it another way, "I'm using the system." I have been on the web for many years and done nothing. All of a sudden all of this. It could raise a flag. that's what I'm hoping for so I can get help with my insurance. If you think I'm naive, then I would think that you are.  (not referring to you warwagon. Hey, I see you got a new phone!! we used to both have a G3. I still have mine.)  

 While I now understand what you are trying to do, not sure how well it will work, but best of luck to you!

 

I see one of 2 things happening

 

1) You never set off a big enough flag to get noticed

2) You set off a big enough flag to get a knock on the door, at which point they don't really care about your health care issues they just want to sort the flag out.

 

Unfortunately, those are the only 2 ways I see this going down. But hey, you may prove me wrong and succeed.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Obviously, I'm not working with a full set of facts here, but it seems to me that "going dark" is not the optimal strategy when you should instead be attempting to gain maximum PR/media exposure.  Write letters to the editor of the local newspaper, call the tip line at the local TV news station.  Make an appointment to see your Congress-critter.  At all times, be polite and have copies of whatever legal/business/medical/military records relevant to your issue available so you can share them.  In my experience, journalists love covering these man-versus-monolith type stories.  If you have a good one, you'll get some media coverage which will result in a positive chain of events leading towards your desired outcome.

 

At least that might be possible, assuming I'm reading the situation correctly.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Yeah, as Warwagon said I don't see this being the way to go about things. You're trying to hide all information about yourself so that someone somewhere will say, "hey, what's this guy hiding?"

 

If it's as important as you say then I would be sending multiple letters every day to one representative, or speaking to the media about the lack of response from people who are supposed to be representing you and helping you get answers.

 

I don't know how it works in the US, but doesn't Government insurance get paid out through a third party rather than directly from the Government? If I type in "US Government insurance" I get taken to healthcare.gov, which when I go to the contact information redirects me to a different site which promises I will get to speak to an agent within 30 minutes (during business hours).

 

You've been quite obscure on the whole topic, so trying to help is like doing so with one arm tied behind our back. Maybe you have already done the above and not made any progress.

[Tompkin62]

Thats ok. I was just wondering about technical programs. I have tried "going public". Where I live there isn't anyone to go to. The town, state government, are all Tea Party. My senators won't give me the time of day. (try getting sympathy from Tom Cotton.) There is too much "noise" to be herd in the newspaper. It just gets into an arguing match in the editorial section anyway.

But that's ok. I'll be fine. Thank you.

[+Biscuits Brown MVC]

...and to think, on top of all the other waste and corruption our government blows money on, this is what my tax dollars are paying for, trying to break into YOUR data?   Good googa mooga, I hope not. 

 

Look, I'm truly sorry you are in need of subsidized healthcare (your claim) but what you are doing will amount to less than nothing. You come here just to promote some personal stunt and in the processes blame the federal government. In all of this, you say nothing about your state or local government. I've been to Arkansas many times and I couldn't wait to get out of there, it's kind of a hole.  That said, we know nothing about your needs or condition. We don't know if you are disabled or lazy, nothing.  You want to raise suspicion of yourself (but not actually do anything) so that the feds will waste their time digging around your data. That nut Cruz that shot up that school in Florida was certifiably nuts AND on the radar and they still didn't dig in until it was too late so without making some unbelievably grand threats, nah, not seeing them caring one iota about you or your data.  

 

But, lets play alone. Assuming they decide to come after you, they can access nearly all of your data for essentially nothing. In the grand scheme of a multi-trillion budget your little escapade costs pennies. In the end, you've not really cost the taxpayers much and just inconvenienced yourself, hiding, encoding, encrypting and otherwise obfuscated your data.   

 

Also I'm going to make an assumption here that your taxable income is low enough to not actually pay taxes (pretty fair guess since about half of all people that files taxes have no tax obligation), that means that I (and the rest of us that DO pay taxes) am paying for your exercise. You do realize that the government doesn't have any money of their own right? Every cent they spend comes either from taxes (individual, business, tariffs etc.) or they borrow it (and that costs even more money). This means the few bucks they spend investigating you is money that I and others gave them to hopefully do other more important things - but then again, that's exactly why you are doing this, to 'stick it to the man'.  In the end, you aren't hurting anyone in Washington, you are hurting your neighbor, or your boss or brother-in-law and ultimately yourself. If our government  always spent wisely and not just on whatever (and that includes breaking into your data) there would be money to do all the good things, to take care of people, to build roads and bridges. The fact that they waste money on junk (including your plan) is why we all can't have good things.

 

    

[+BudMan MVC]

Can not wait to see his response to yours.. Since mine was considered Condescending...  Since his posts have been pretty much gibberish..

 

If you want to talk security - lets do that.  Layout a scenario you want to try and mitigate or reduce risk on and we can talk about options.   So far all I can make out is someone that can not even remember their password is worried about blocking the gov from getting to their stuff?  Maybe hey has proof that we faked the moon landing on his laptop?  No clue why if they will not pay for his medical they would be so interested in whatever it is on his laptop?

 

Are you worried about the ninja's coming in through the skylight while you sleep and copy off the data on your hard disk, or is the NSA going to just hack in remotely?

[+Biscuits Brown MVC]

Well I think I finally deciphered his thoughts

 

• He relies on public assisted healthcare
• In the interest of tax cuts, the Government is likely cutting is subsidy
• He feels he has no voice with his Senator or Representatives (this is pretty much true for all of us not having 7 figure bank accounts)
• Wants to 'get back at them' by overly securing his data and raising suspicion to the 'government' that he is up to something nefarious in the hopes they will spend money trying to crack his data only to find he's hoodwinked them.
• He doesn't grasp the idea that the government doesn't really have any money in the first place.

 

Not sure how this accomplishes anything other make sure his healthcare has even less funding but whatever. 

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

So we are in agreement, gibberish

[tompkin]

I will admit that it sounds like gibberish. The poster who came closest to what I'm saying was warwagon, wednesday at 10:30pm.

What you say warwagon, may be true as far as my effectiveness. But at least it won't take me long explaining what I'm doing.

Thank you all for helping. You actually did help me. I guess it's best to go to the next topic that someone has.

[+BudMan MVC]

1 hour ago, tompkin said:

The poster who came closest to what I'm saying was warwagon

On 3/21/2018 at 10:11 PM, warwagon said:

That was clear as mud. I'm totally lost.

Yup agree as well

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

2 hours ago, tompkin said:

I will admit that it sounds like gibberish. The poster who came closest to what I'm saying was warwagon, wednesday at 10:30pm.

What you say warwagon, may be true as far as my effectiveness. But at least it won't take me long explaining what I'm doing.

Thank you all for helping. You actually did help me. I guess it's best to go to the next topic that someone has.

Hey tompkin is that .. or should I say tompkin62 ... you created another user account.... tisk tisk

[exotoxic]

8 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Hey tompkin is that .. or should I say tompkin62 ... you created another user account.... tisk tisk

He did say right at the start of the first post.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Just now, exotoxic said:

He did say right at the start of the first post.

Oh   ... I'm surprised a mod didn't nuke his account there and then.

[Dick Montage]

I leave you guys alone for a month or so, and come back to this utter gibberish!

[tompkin]

I'm not going to bite on the gibberish stuff. I sent Stephen a message awhile back about my password problem at that time I wasn't sure what it was. He said he would combine the accounts. Unfortunately, I still kept on having the problem. It turned out I had changed browsers and there was a "cookie" problem.

I have been on this board at least two years. In my view, at most I would have gotten a warning. Your opinion is yours. No better and no worse than mine. I asked that we move on but I see others want to drag things out.