Dudes and/or Dudettes,
Thank you for the warm welcome!
Choomer, you should absolutely make a thread. It will be very helpful to others and you will probably also get lots of likes which will up your status (I assume you're indifferent towards status anyway). Start a thread under technology/science
https://www.rollitup.org/f/technology-science.129/
While I appreciate your exuberance and thank you for the well wishes, the suggestion to write a cyber-security how-to guide is kind of like asking someone to write your term paper for free or to grow you some medijuana and give it to you all nicely manicured and cured without you having an ailment that would be worthy of such fine charity.
Such a guide, to be truly comprehensive, would need to be about the length of a masters thesis and that takes some serious time to accomplish. That said, our era of "economic recovery" doesn't allow me a lot of free time, so finding enough to afford a charitable gift like that is a bit difficult.
Also, posting a guide about cyber-security on a site whose subject matter might be one of the reasons you would want such a guide is a bit oxymoronic, meaning that it's a subject that should already be under your belt (something you understand) before you visit such a site.
It's also a reinvention of the wheel as there are a plethora of sites out there that already address the subject matter much better than I.
I might still do it, just because the thought appealed to me when I first read it, but upon investing an hour into such a post I realized just how much time it would take me and so don't expect it soon.
Here are some cliff notes though, hard and fast and loose.
Run a flavor of Linux.
Get a
DD-WRT/
OpenWRT/
Tomato router for your home/business and configure it to use a
subscription based VPN service for all traffic it routes and also add a script to change the VPN endpoint (preferably a service with multiple international endpoints) at least once a day.
Use the
torbrowser.
Always try replacing "http" with "https" in a URL string to negotiate a secure connection to a website IF they offer that.
(RUI does have https but the torbrowser complains it is not a secure connection for some elements on the page and has no
SSL validation for its certificate. The first issue might be due to
THIS. The fastest cure for the 2nd issue is money since you usually have to pay a certificate authority for high level validation).
In fact, ALWAYS pay attention to the URL because that's who you're connected to. Just because it looks like the site you want to go to doesn't mean that it actually IS that site and not
an elaborate copy to steal your information (web/mail/bank account....it does happen, especially with email links).
Use
PGP for encryption.
Consider
encrypting your entire hard drive since, though computers are "dumb", they remember EVERYTHING unless told specifically not to do so and so make the states best witness. Truecrypt was my favorite when it was a going project, but alas, is no more.
Learn what a
http proxy is and how to use it.
Learn about
ssh tunnels and how to use them.
Advanced security services are available to any w. coast based green concern (OR or WA) that would be looking for a partner to enhance their cyber security.
