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I’d Tap That: Making Life Difficult for Government Spying
Skip to the bottom if you’re familiar with PRISM and don’t want to hear any political talk and rampant violations of our Constitutional rights, but still want to protect your privacy.
For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the PRISM program is an NSA program to monitor electronic activity.
Lots of electronic activity.
The companies identified to be working with the NSA in this grand overreach include AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, PalTalk, Skype, Yahoo! and YouTube. For most people, that is the definition of “the internet”. If you’re doing it online, the NSA is–or could be, at their leisure–watching.
This isn’t a crazy conspiracy theory. This is happening, and the government has admitted it. In fact, when this broke, the executive branch’s response was along the lines of, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the guy who leaked this information.”
On top of that, the government has been demanding phone records from at least Verizon on a daily basis.
In addition, the Justice Department was just busted wiretapping Associated Press phones.
Seriously, if you put this in fiction, nobody would buy it, because it’s ridiculous in the land of the free.
As far as the people who say I’ve got nothing to worry about if I’m not doing anything wrong: shut up. You can speak again when you give me your email passwords, bank records, and let me install a toilet cam in your house. What are you trying to hide?
Seriously, there is such a mess of non-legislative administrative regulations that are considered felonies that the best estimate is that most people commit three felonies a day, without realizing it.
- Catch your kid with a joint and neglect to call the cops? Welcome to the federal penitentiary.
- Use one of those pill planner things to sort prescription meds for your half-senile grandmother? In some states, that’s a felony.
When we live in a system with so many rules that have never been voted on and our legal system refuses to consider legitimate ignorance of the law to be a defense and we have a collection of secret laws that are a felony to disclose or violate, government spying gets far more dangerous.
- Many TSA guidelines are secret.
- The Banking Secrecy Act of 1970 has a number of secret provisions.
- FISA.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978(FISA) is the law the NSA is using to justify all of these data requests. The law, that we all must obey, is being overseen by a small subcommittee in Congress, and the FISA courts are just a small subset of the judges. The judges are signing warrants allowing the wiretaps and massive surveillance, but that is clearly unconstitutional and, hence, illegal.
The text of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the supreme law of the United States is: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Any warrant that cannot name a place to be searched is illegal.
Any warrant that cannot describe the person to be monitored is illegal.
Any warrant that is not backed by probable cause is illegal.
Tell me how “I want to watch what everyone is saying on Facebook and seize all of the data” meets any of those criteria.
Bueller?
Wiretapping the AP is a serious violation of the First Amendment, too. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Monitoring the press in case somebody breaks a story the government doesn’t want broken is crap.
How can we petition the government for redress of grievances that they call a felony if the company discloses the violation to us? It’s self-serving circular crap.
When you throw the IRS harassing charities working for the “wrong” politics, you start to pine for the good old days of Nixon-level fair play and integrity.
To be fair, FISA got nasty with the Patriot Act, which was an abomination enacted by a different political party. Hey, Washington, next time try to remember that your laws will someday be administered by your political enemies, k? (NSA: I trust you’ll pass the message for me?)
Political talk is over. How do we stop the government snooping?
There are four main pieces to discuss, based on the scandalous Constitutional violations reported recently.
1. Social media monitoring. There’s nothing to this. If you post things on Facebook, the government sees it and knows it’s you. Don’t post anything you don’t want broadcast to the police, your grandmother, and your priest.
2. Internet browsing. There is very little that is secure on the internet. The government can subpoena your ISP and get any records they keep. Unless you go anonymous and encrypted. Welcome to TOR. The Onion Router is a system that encrypts your internet traffic and bounces it all over the world. Once you enter TOR, nothing you do can be tracked, until your internet request leave the TOR system. The system is not centrally owned or controlled, so nobody in the system can track what you are doing.
For example, if I use the TOR browser to search Wikipedia, a snoopy NSA goon could tell I’m using it, and they could tell there was a request from the TOR system to Wikipedia, but they can’t tie one request to the other. If I’m dumb and log into Facebook, I lose that anonymous shield.
That’s solid protection from anyone watching your internet traffic.
How do you use it?
Easy. Just install the Tor Bundle. When you want the NSA to stop snooping over your shoulder because you want to do a search on erectile dysfunction, you launch TOR and the TOR browser and search without having to share your embarrassing secrets.
3. Email. Email is easily the least secure means you can communicate. When you send an email, that message is in plain text, and it bounces from server to server until it reaches the recipient. Any of the involved servers can keep a log of the traffic and read your email.
Never, ever, ever, ever put anything incriminating or important in an email. Don’t send credit card numbers, your social security number, or the address of your meth lab.
But what if you want to have a dirty conversation with your spouse without letting the sick voyeurs at the NSA listen to you ask your wife what she’s wearing and how would she like it torn off?
Use PGP. OpenPGP is a free software encryption program that is basically impossible to decrypt. It’s known as public-key encryption, which means that anybody can encrypt a message to you that only you can read.
It’s like magic.
To use PGP, the easy way(for Windows users) is to get Gpg4win. Install that, then open Kleopatra. This will let you generate your encryption key. You do that by:
- Clicking File, then New Certificate
- Click Create Personal OpenPGP key pair
- Enter your name and email, then click next, then “Create Key”. Enter your passphrase when asked.
You now have a set of PGP keys. To get your public key that others can use to send you messages, right-click your certificate and select “Export certificates”. Pick a path to save the certificate, then do so. You can open this file with notepad to get your public key, or you can email the file out. There is no need to worry about security with this file.
You will end up with something that looks like my public key here:
—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
Version: GnuPG v2.0.20 (MingW32)mQENBFGyPPkBCAC8zc5B7srG/ZyRMpokP3KyIMd9GA4n94wT89sP/yWFylbTKXDM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=fHba
—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
To get your private key, that you can use with any number of plugins for your email client, right-click on your certificate and select “Export secret keys.”
You can either use PGP as a plugin for your email client, or you can use Kleopatra’s feature “Sign/encrypt files”. To do that, write your message in a file, then select the feature inside Kleopatra. You’ll end up with an encrypted file you can attach to your email that snoopy government man can’t read.
4. Phone calls. This would appear to be harder, since your phone is largely out of your control. There’s nothing practical you do about a landline, except to avoid saying anything sensitive. On your cell phone, you have options, assuming you use a smartphone.
For Android users, it’s free an easy. Install Redphone. If you place a call with Redphone, it checks to see if the caller also uses Redphone. If he does, it places an encrypted call over your data plan to the other phone. Nobody can listen in to an encrypted call. The same company also makes a program for texting.
For iPhone users, you’re stuck with Silent Circle for $10/month, which may be a better option, since there is support for more devices, including Android. It was designed by the guy who designed PGP and handles texting and email, too.
That’s it.
There you are, the whats, whys, and hows of modern, hassle-light, private communications. Doing what we can to foil bad government programs is our patriotic duty.
Protection for your Loved Ones
This is a guest post.
Life cover insurance acts as a safety net to pay for a family’s expenses should a wage earner become critically ill or die prematurely. Life cover includes life insurance as well as disability, critical illness, mortgage and income protection insurance policies.
Importance of life cover insurance
In most families, at least one adult is a wage earner and uses their income to pay for necessities such as food, clothing and rent or mortgage. If the wage earner becomes disabled, too ill to work, or dies, life cover insurance can pay for these expenses.
Stay-at-home parents provide valuable, though unpaid, services to the family. Without that person, the family would have to pay for childcare, household upkeep, errand running, and every other chore the stay-at-home parent did. If the stay-at-home parent has life insurance, these expenses can be covered.
Life cover insurance can pay off mortgages and education loans.
Live cover insurance policies will pay funeral costs, which can be substantial.
Family owned businesses can be insured and protected if the owner dies.
Objections
Life cover insurance is too expensive.
Insurance companies have plans to suit every budget and life circumstance. While young and healthy adults will generally receive the most affordable policies, older adults have plenty of reasonably priced options as well.
Disability or severe illness is unlikely.
Actually, 32% of men and 25% of women, ages 40 to 70, will experience a critical illness or disability. http://www.healthinsuranceguide.co.uk/statistics_mainbody.asp
Discussing disability or death is awkward and uncomfortable.
Agreed, but avoiding the topic puts loved ones into economic jeopardy. Without the wage earner’s life cover, a family could lose their home and have to lower their standard of living.
Variety of life cover insurances
Life Insurance
Term insurance is a protection policy, paid for during a specific time period (term), and is active during that time only. Permanent, whole, variable, universal and universal variable life insurance policies all are investment policies. They combine a death benefit (the amount paid out when the insured person dies) with an investment account. Licensed and experienced life insurance agents can help individuals make the best choice for their life situation.
Critical Illness/Disability Insurance
This type of insurance pays for living expenses if a person is diagnosed with a serious illness or disabled and can no longer work.
Mortgage Insurance
This is paid when the mortgage owner dies. This could help prevent the surviving family from having to sell the home.
The time to buy life cover insurance is now!
A 2010 survey (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ownership-of-individual-life-insurance-falls-to-50-year-low-limra-reports-101789323.html) stated that individual life insurance ownership was at a 50 year low in the United States. An estimated 35 million (30% of households) Americans do not have life insurance, and 11 million of these households have children under 18. Already living paycheck to paycheck, any debilitating injury or death of a wage earning adult could spell financial disaster to the family. Buying life cover insurance is a vital part of caring for loved ones. Just as a wage earner provides a home, food and daily necessities for their family, life cover insurance can take over and provide for the family if the wage earner unable to do so.
Megan Fox’s Little One: The First Year Costs of Having a Baby
If you can’t get enough of Megan Fox like everybody else, you probably already know that paparazzi has spotted her with a new and conspicuous belly bump. The steamy star already gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Noah in 2012, but she also expressed a desire to have more children in the future. We just didn’t think that it would happen this soon. Luckily, Megan is blessed with celebrity wealth, so funding another newborn shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Unfortunately, most new mothers aren’t celebs. If you are a new or expecting mother, prepare yourself for your bundle of joy by familiarizing yourself with first year expenses and ways to save money.
What are the first year costs of caring for a baby?
Babies are expensive. How expensive, you ask? Well, that depends on your standard of living. It’s a pretty good bet that Megan Fox will dish out more dough on her newborn than most people have the ability to. Baby Gucci just isn’t on the shopping list for mothers who live from paycheck to paycheck. However, the essentials are already expensive enough to make most moms have a panic attack. A 2010 USDA report suggests that a typical American family spends about $12,000 during the first year on a baby. These days, that number is probably closer to $15,000.
What will most of the money go towards?
There are two major items that are an absolute must for a baby: formula/baby food and diapers. Expect to shell out about $50 per week on these things alone. That’s nearly $2,500 per year. Another big portion of your baby expenses will comprise of pricier one-time purchases including a baby stroller, crib, car seat, etc. The rest of the funds will likely go to baby clothes, childcare, and medical expenses.
How can I save money?
There are countless ways to cut the costs of having a baby, but you need to get creative to maximize your savings. If you want to have a fatter wallet at the end of that first year, here are some of the easiest and most effective ways to do so.
Take free samples during the initial hospital stay
Many baby product manufacturers supply maternity wards with free samples, but nurses sometimes forget to hand them out. Remember to ask about these samples after giving birth, and bring home as much as they will allow. You can snag useful items like: diapers, diaper bags, baby lotion, swaddling cloths, disposable bottle nipples, alcohol swabs, a thermometer, a nasal aspirator and more.
Breastfeed
A mother’s milk is the healthiest food option for a growing baby because it contains nutrients not found in many baby formulas. Since formula can be very expensive, you will save a ton of money and give your child the best nutrition possible by breastfeeding.
Get oversized baby clothes or use hand-me-downs
Babies grow at an amazingly fast rate, so always buy clothes of a bigger size. If you have close friends or family members who’ve already had a child, ask if you can use their old baby clothes.
Buy diapers, formula, and other commonly used supplies in bulk
Like with most consumer goods, you will pay less if you buy more. Stock up on the essentials early on if you don’t want to waste your money in the long run.
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Make Extra Money Part 2: Niche Selection
If you want to make money, help someone get healthy, wealthy or laid.
This section was quick.
Seriously, those three topics have been making people rich since the invention of rich. Knowing that isn’t enough. If you want to make some money in the health niche, are you going to help people lose weight, add muscle, relieve stress, or reduce the symptoms of some unpleasant medical condition? Those are called “sub-niches”. (Side question: Viagra is a sub-niche of which topic?)
Still not enough.
If you’re going to offer a product to help lose weight, does it revolve around diet, exercise, or both? For medical conditions, is it a way to soothe eczema, instructions for a diabetic diet, a cure for boils, or help with acne? Those are micro-niches.
That’s where you want to be. The “make money” niche is far too broad for anyone to effectively compete. The “make money online” sub-niche is still crazy. When you get to the “make money buying and selling websites” micro-niche, you’re in a territory that leaves room for competition, without costing thousands of dollars to get involved.
Remember that: The more narrowly you define your niche market, the easier it is to compete. You can take that too far. The “lose weight by eating nothing but onions, alfalfa, and imitation caramel sauce” micro-niche is probably too narrowly defined to have a market worth pursuing. You need a micro-niche with buyers, preferably a lot of them.
Now the hard part.
How do you find a niche with a lot of potential customers? Big companies pay millions of dollars every year to do that kind of market research.
Naturally, I recommend you spend millions of dollars on market research.
No?
Here’s the part where I make this entire series worth every penny you’ve paid. Times 10.
Steal the research.
My favorite source of niche market research to steal is http://www.dummies.com/. Click the link and notice all of the wonderful niches at the top of the page. Jon Wiley & Sons, Inc. spends millions of dollars to know what topics will be good sellers. They’ve been doing this a long time. Trust their work.
You don’t have to concentrate on the topics I’ve helpfully highlighted, but they will make it easier for you. Other niches can be profitable, too.
Golf is a great example. Golfers spend money to play the game. You don’t become a golfer without having some discretionary money to spend on it. I’d recommend against consumer electronics. There is a lot of competition for anything popular, and most of that is available for free. If you choose to promote some high-end gear using your Amazon affiliate link, you’re still only looking at a 3% commission.
I like to stick to topics that people “need” an answer for, and can find that answer in ebook form, since I will be promoting a specific product.
With that in mind, pick a topic, then click one of the links to the actual titles for sale. The “best selling titles” links are a gold mine. You can jump straight to the dummies store, if you’d like.
Of the topics above, here’s how I would narrow it down:
1. Business and Careers. The bestsellers here are Quickbooks and home buying. I’m not interested in either topic, so I’ll go into “More titles”. Here, the “urgent” niches look like job hunting and dealing with horrible coworkers. I’m also going to throw “writing copy” into the list because it’s something I have a hard time with.
2. Health and Fitness. My first thought was to do a site on diabetic cooking, but the cooking niche is too competitive. Childhood obesity, detox diets and back pain remedies strike me as worth pursuing. I’m leaning towards back pain, because I have a bad back. When you’ve thrown your back out, you’ve got nothing to do but lie on the couch and look for ways to make the pain stop. That’s urgency.
3. Personal Finance. The topics that look like good bets are foreclosures and bankruptcies. These are topics that can cost thousands of dollars if you get them wrong. I hate to promote a bankruptcy, but some people are out of choices. Foreclosure defense seems like a good choice. Losing your home comes with a sense of urgency, and helping people stay in their home makes me feel good.
4. Relationships and Family. Of these topics, divorce is probably a good seller. Dating advice definitely is. I’m not going to detail either one of those niches here. Divorce is depressing and sex, while fun, isn’t a topic I’m going to get into here. I try to be family friendly, most of the time. Weddings are great topic. Brides are planning to spend money and there’s no shortage of resources to promote.
So, the niches I’ve chosen are:
- Back pain
- Bankruptcy
- Conflict resolution at work
- Detox diets
- Fat kids
- Foreclosure avoidance
- Job hunting
- Weddings
- Writing copy
I won’t be building 9 niche sites in this series. From here, I’m going to explore effective keywords/search terms and good products to support. There’s no guarantee I’ll find a good product with an affiliate program for a niche I’ve chosen that has keywords that are both highly searched and low competition, so I’m giving myself alternatives.
For those of you following along at home, take some time to find 5-10 niches you’d be willing to promote.
The important things to consider are:
1. Does it make me feel dirty to promote it?
2. Will there be customers willing to spend money on it?
3. Will those customers have an urgent need to solve a problem?
I’ve built sites that ignore #3, and they don’t perform nearly as well as those that consider it. When I do niche sites, I promote a specific product. It’s pure affiliate marketing, so customers willing to spend money are necessarily my target audience.
Karate Guess So
“Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, [makes squish gesture] get squish just like grape. Here, karate, same thing. Either you karate do “yes”, or karate do “no”. You karate do “guess so”, [makes squish gesture] just like grape. Understand?” -Mr. Miyagi
It occurred to me that lately, I’ve changed my day-to-day cash flow plans a couple of times.
A year ago, I was running on a fairly strict cash-only plan.
A month ago, I was running on a strict budget, but doing it entirely out of my checking account.
Now, I’m loosening the budget reins, and moving all of my payments and day-to-day spending to a credit card, including a new balance that I can’t immediately pay off.
The thing is, changing plans too often scares me. Like the quote at the beginning of this post, I start worrying about being squished like a grape.
The simple fact is that any plan will work.
If you want to get out of debt, just pick a plan and run with it. If that means you follow Dave Ramsey and do the low-balance-first debt snowball, good for you. Do it. If you follow Suze Ormann and do a high-interest first repayment plan, great. Do it. If you follow Bach and pay based on a complicated DOLP formula to repay in the quickest manner, wonderful! Do it!
Just don’t switch plans every month. If you do that, you’ll lose momentum and motivation. Squish like grape! Just pick a plan and go. It really, truly does not matter which plan you are following as long as you are following through.
This applies to other parts of your life, too. For example, there are a thousand fad diets out there. Here’s a secret: they all work. Every single one of them, whether it’s Weight Watchers, slow carb, or the beer-only diet. The only thing that matters is that you stick to the diet. If you manage that, you will lose weight on any diet out there. Except for the jelly bean and lard diet. That one will make you extra soft.
Another secret: the productivity gurus are right. Every single one of them. David Allen, Stephen Covey, Steve Pavlina, and the rest. They all have the One True Secret to getting the most out of your day. Really. Pick a guru and go! But don’t try to Get Things Done in the morning and do 7 Habits at night. Changing systems, changing plans, changing your mind will make you sabotage yourself.
The real secret to accomplishing great things, whether it’s paying off $100,000 of debt, dropping 40 pounds in 3 months, or tripling your productivity is to do it. Just get started and, once you’ve started, don’t stop. If you keep going and stay consistent, you’ll accomplish more than anyone who hops from system to system every few weeks.
