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How To Hide Passwords in an Encrypted Drive Even the FBI Can’t Get Into

Encryption tools exist to protect your privacy… and also to make you feel like you’re an awesome spy. Today we’ll use a portable USB drive to hold all of your passwords encrypted in a virtual disk hidden inside a file.

Certain kinds of cryptography were once called “weapons of mass destruction” because certain people thought it was so dangerous. Although clever people are making it good security more and more difficult, encryption tools like the one we’ll be using today are readily available, free, and provide a high level of security that is nearly impossible to break into if done properly. Put on your spy mask and keep reading to find out how to build the perfect encrypted password safe.

And for the skeptics that are curious about the “FBI” claim in our headline, you can read up on Operation Satyagraha, where money launderer Daniel Dantas has successfully encrypted his data and kept the FBI at bay for as long as a year with the very tools we’re going to use today.

Step 1: Get A Reliable USB Drive

If you’re like many geeks, you’ve had your fair share of USB keydrives die on you. The cheap ten dollar drives may not be hardy enough to put a vault of your most important passwords on, so you may have to get a little spendy and pick up one that will last for a while. How-to Geek doesn’t endorse any particular brand of USB drives, but the author has had a lot of success with the Lacie Iamakey series. Lifehacker has featured them on several occasions, and they take a beating and keep your data safe. Use any brand that you think is good enough to hold keys to your online life—feel free to take the author’s recommendation with all the grains of salt you see fit.

Step 2: Create An Encrypted Drive or File with Truecrypt

A lot of software exists for encrypting files, but Truecrypt is a very solid choice. The two features we’re interested in are the ability to encrypt hidden files and the ability to run Truecrypt as portable software. You’ll need both if you ever intend to use your encrypted password key on any machine that isn’t your own.

Download Truecrypt

We’ve done several great guides on how to use TrueCrypt, so we’re not going to delve too deeply into the details today. Here we’ll go over our a basic installation of a portable version of TrueCrypt on your USB disk. To begin, run the TrueCrypt installer and select “Extract” to install it on the USB disk.

And if you prefer, check out our previous guides to the program if you want to try and make your spy drive some other way.

TrueCrypt can’t be used “transparently” as a portable EXE file. This basically means that you’ll need administrator control over a machine to use it as a portable application. If this is okay to you, simply hit yes to go on to the next step. If not, you won’t really be able to open your encrypted drive on any machine but one with TrueCrypt installed, effectively tying it to your home PC. For today’s example, we’ll just be extracting it to the USB disk.

Extract the TrueCrypt files to any folder on the disk.

Find the TrueCrypt.exe file on your USB disk and run it. You’ll have to give that pesky administrator permission to start the program.

To Finish Reading The Complete Article Click here.

This article appeared in HowToGeek.com

How to avoid online HDTV shopping scams

Online HDTV shopping can save you time, gas and money, provided you choose the right dealer, but picking the wrong dealer can be a disaster. HD Guru investigated online HDTV complaints to uncover the awful tactics employed by bad online dealers. Before you buy a TV online, read all the fine print, in order to avoid the very real possibility of being stuck with a defective unit that a bad dealer won’t take back and the manufacturer won’t repair.

Avoidance

Before ordering from an online HDTV dealer, there are two steps you can take avoid getting scammed:

Make certain they’re an authorized dealer by the manufacturer of the TV you’re interested in. If the price is lower than an authorized dealer, ask yourself: How is it possible they can sell it for less than a factory-direct vendor? How are they able to have such low margins? Are their methods on the up and up? Here’s what LG advises on its website:

LG’s Authorized Online Dealers have been carefully selected based on their commitment and knowledge of our product. With LG Authorized Online Dealers, you can rest easy. Buying from an LG Authorized Online Dealer will help prevent the purchase of goods that may have been damaged, tampered with or refurbished, all of which can void your warranty. LG Authorized Online Dealers receive training in seminars, online and from LG field experts, so they can be uniquely qualified to assist you with the LG products they sell.

You can check on the brand’s website or customer service dept. to learn if the dealer you’re considering is authorized. If not, we recommend not purchasing from them.

Carefully review the policies, especially the rules on product returns. While a number of legitimate dealers do not accept returns for TVs, scamming dealers never do. Others may have a limited return policy, charge a restocking fee, deduct the “free” outbound freight from the refund, charge for return freight or all of the above.

The Scam

We call the following “low-ball bait and switch.” The online dealer advertises a price below all competition and the state that the TV is in stock, and can ship it to you for free. You take the bait and place the order. Within a day you receive a phone call from the dealer to confirm the order. The salesman now employs high-pressure sales techniques to sell you anything he can, including but not limited to: a “3-D” HDMI cable for a 3-D TV (there is no such thing), a custom stand or wall mount, an extended warranty or our favorite, “expedited” extra-cost freight. They’ll explain the “free freight” offered will take weeks for the TV to get there, but for another $100 the set will arrive in a few days. An alternate pitch: the make and model you ordered is being discontinued or superseded by New Model X and they’ve got an “amazing” special for you.

Buy enough bait extras and you’ll get the TV you ordered. According to customer complaints, the add-ons won’t be the name-brand items promised, but cheap low-quality knock offs. Refuse the bait, and you will be waiting for the cows to come home before you’ll ever see your “hot” deal TV. Or worse, maybe when you open the box you discover it’s a repacked unit, defective, refurbished, scratched or whatever.

Abe’s of Maine

When researching this article the name Abe’s of Maine kept popping up, so we refer to them as the poster child bad online dealers.

A brief history: According New York’s Better Business Bureau website, Abe’s of Maine opened its doors in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1979. It is owned by Abe Mosseri. Here is what the BBB has to say about the N.Y. operation:

On May 22, 2007, this company’s membership in the Metropolitan New York BBB was revoked by our BBB’s Board of Directors due to the company’s repeated and unauthorized use of the BBB logo and failure to eliminate the underlying cause of complaints on file concerning: non-delivery of products, misrepresentation of availability of merchandise, refusal to honor cancellations or provide timely refunds, unprofessional conduct, failure to resolve customer complaints, overcharging, undisclosed cancellation of orders, improper upselling tactics, and bait-and-switch selling.

Since moving its operation to New Jersey, Abe’s ranking leaped to an A+ rating, even though they’ve scored 127 complaints to the N.J. BBB in the past three years. (Older complaints fall off the website after the three-year time period.) Abe’s in N.J. responds and settles, but apparently only when the customer files with the BBB.

Abe’s offers all the major brand HDTVs. We checked with Samsung, LG and Sharp to see if Abe’s is a factory-authorized sellers of those HDTV brands. All told us no.

Over at Yelp.com there are 185 comments. Almost all are very negative, but a few are simply glowing. How can that be? We, and others, suspect these are ringers. Here’s the link. Judge for yourself.

When “30-day returns” means “No returns”

Abe’s policy page lists a “30-day money-back guarantee” and reads:

A rock solid money back guarantee that you can bet on. We understand that there’s always a chance that you won’t be completely satisfied with a product you’ve purchased with us and we know it’s nothing personal and that is why we offer a thirty day return policy*. If you are unhappy with a product then we’ll take it back and provide you with a full refund*.

See that asterisk? Well at the bottom of the page, in small type states:

* Please read complete policy for details.

Follow the link, and you’ll find the items are exempt from its 30 day return policy. Spoiler! This list includes TVs.

The following items can only be returned if unopened: A/V Furniture, A/V Receivers, Bluetooth Accessories, Car Equipment, Computer Peripherals, Consumables, DJ Equipment, DVD players, Gaming Consoles, Headphones, Home Theater, Laptops, Microphones, Printers, Projectors, Shavers.

The following items cannot be returned: Fitness equipment, Large Appliances, Microwaves, Wine Coolers, Humidifiers, Trim kits, Security items, Special Order Merchandise, Marine and Camping Equipment, Sunglasses, Watches, Software, TV’s, Computer components, Laptops, Tablets.

Except for photographic equipment, this list appears to cover just about everything Abe’s sells! That’s right. If you buy a TV from them, you can’t return it.

Price Grabber also rates its retailers, and Abe’s gets its highest rating. However, the positive comments are non-specific short blurbs, and anyone can place an unverified, self-serving comment on Price Grabber. Here are some of the trite, positive comments:

“Easy transaction.” “Very pleasant.” “Excellent prices! Easy-to-use website and plenty of selections.”

While a negative one provides more detail:

Merchant told me item was “in stock” when I ordered it. Three days later, I was told by one agent it would take a week or more to find a shipper. Another agent told me the item was not in stock. I would not have ordered if the item was not in stock. Since, at least one agent lied to me, I no longer trusted them and cancelled my order. Trying to speak with a customer service agent was nearly impossible, as it took me 45 minutes on hold to speak to one.

While it’s understandable that unhappy customers would be more likely to write longer reviews, we find the lack of longer, positive comments highly suspect.

Bottom line

There are many reputable online retailers. We recommend (and affiliate with) Amazon Direct, as they have low prices and some of the best HDTV policies, including free shipping and 30 day returns. There are a number of other very fine online retailers. We’ve personally done business with J&R and OneCall and found them to be excellent, honest and reliable.

Before ordering any HDTV online, we highly recommend you carefully read all the retailers policies and beware of any restrictions, return freight rules and if there are any restocking charges before place that order.

This article came from MSNBC Technolog. Click here to read the original article.

How To Browse The Web Anonymously

Looking for a job, searching for a divorce lawyer, researching a medical condition or commenting on sensitive political issues that you don’t want anyone to know about? Or maybe you’re using a public network in a hotel or coffee shop. How do you keep others from seeing your browsing history or tracking what you’re doing on the Web?

When considering Web “privacy,” there are two pieces that matter. The first is anonymity: how to keep people from knowing what sites you’re visiting. The second is privacy: how to keep people from accessing the information you send. Depending on your circumstances, you may care about protecting one or both of these pieces.

Protecting your browsing history on your personal computer is easy. Each of the major browsers has a “private browsing” mode that deletes cookies, temporary Internet files and browsing history after you close the window so others with access to your PC won’t be able to see what sites you visited.

Chrome – Click on the wrench in the far upper right of your screen, then “New Incognito Window.”
Firefox – Click on “Tools” then “Start Private Browsing.”
Internet Explorer –Click on the tools cog in the far upper right of your screen, then “Safety” and “InPrivate Browsing.”
Safari – Click on the settings cog in the upper right corner of your screen, then “Private Browsing.”

Someone with particularly nefarious purposes could install a key-logger program on your PC to track everything you type, which private browsing wouldn’t protect. Security software on your PC should remove any key-loggers and is a must on any PC.

While these features will keep your history clean on your PC, they won’t stop your Internet Service Provider, your employer or the government from keeping track of where you go online. And the websites you visit can track your IP address, providing this information to others or using it for their own tracking purposes to serve up advertising. And if you’re outside the U.S., certain countries may prevent you from visiting certain websites entirely.

In situations like this you need a more stealthy way to manage your browsing. And there are solutions that offer various levels of security.

Web proxies
Free anonymous Web proxies, such as Anonymouse.org or HideMyAss.com, act as intermediaries between you and the sites you visit so your IP address stays hidden from the sites you’re visiting. However, the proxy itself does know your IP address, where you’re going online and when; this data can be turned over to others. And unless you’re using secure connections to the proxy server (look for the “https” in the URL), others on your network (your employer or your ISP) can see where you’re going and what you’re sending. Also, some free proxies are actually set up by hackers looking to steal your personal data, so stick with my recommendations.

Tor
For more anonymity protection, you can use Tor, a free open network originally developed to protect government communications. Recommended by the privacy advocacy organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Tor browser works with Firefox and lets you turn it on or off depending on when you need anonymity.

Tor works by routing your traffic through a series of servers, operated by volunteers around the world, before sending it to your destination. This makes it very effective at hiding your IP address.

However, it has limitations. First, because of the number of servers your data passes through, Tor can be quite slow. And while data is encrypted between the servers, it is unencrypted when it leaves the last (exit) server and is passed to the website you’re visiting. So anyone operating an exit server can see IDs, passwords and any other data you send unless you have a secure connection with the website you’re visiting (look for the “https” in the URL). It is widely speculated that various government agencies and hacker groups operate exit servers to collect information.

VPNs
For the most secure connection, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is the way to go. It creates an encrypted connection for all traffic (including VoIP and movie streaming) between your PC and the VPN server for privacy, and protects your IP address from being transmitted to the sites you visit for anonymity. VPNs will also protect your information while on public networks in hotels and coffee shops. And unlike free services like Tor, VPNs charge a fee that allows them to provide much higher bandwidth. Witopia and StrongVPN have packages starting at $55 per year.

VPNs still share some of the same drawbacks as other services. If your VPN keeps traffic logs, those logs could still be turned over to others based on a court order, showing what sites you visited and when. And the data you send to external sites won’t be encrypted unless you’re using a secure connection (look for the “https” in the URL).

Seth Schoen, senior staff technologist at the EFF, warns that you can lose many of the privacy benefits of the proxies and VPNs by using the same browser for secure and non-secure activities. “If you’re using the same Web browser, sites could recognize your cookies from non-private sessions,” he says. For this reason, he recommends having one browser dedicated to private browsing. The Tor browser, he says, offers this protection.

Using any of these solutions may be difficult if you’re employed by a large enterprise that’s using sophisticated IT tools.

An IT administrator at a large corporation, who didn’t wish to be identified, shared his company’s security measures. “We remove Administrator privileges to install software, and use an enterprise software distribution package (Marimba) to both install and monitor workstations.” He also told me his company blocks employees from using anonymous Web proxies.

If you work for a smaller company with limited IT resources you can probably fly under the radar when it comes to private browsing at work, but if you’re at a Fortune 500 company your best bet is to either wait until you get home or use your own laptop and wireless hotspot that doesn’t make use of your employer’s resources at all.

Accomplishing true anonymity and privacy on the Web is not an easy process. If you would like more information, we highly recommend the EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense Project.

This article was written by Christina DesMarais and appeared in MSNBC Gadgetbox. Click here to read the complete original article.